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Rejection Sensitivity

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Re: Rejection Sensitivity

#71

Post by pessimizer »

jokoon wrote: post #13

Before WW2, people were living together more often. Apartment buildings were less common. Today we are all atomized and individualized. Individual kitchen, bathrooms and living rooms are the source of the problem. We feel rejected because our brain are naturally wired for a need of social interaction. It's a normal and legit emotion. In earlier times, people lived closer together. We experienced prosperous large home…

I agree. I wasn't built at all for the internet/phone/email things that people call friendships now. Long-distance friendships aren't even even friendships to me, or rather they're in maintenance mode until we live near each other again.

Re: Rejection Sensitivity

#72

Post by leephillips »

dnautics wrote: post #64
hirundo wrote: post #26

How much violence in society is a reaction to cumulative rejection? I'd guess a good deal if not most of it. Our ancient lobster-shared neural mechanisms take it deadly seriously whether we do consciously or not. From the long perspective of our selfish genes, rejection is a mortal threat. I appreciate the sympathetic treatment of incels in this article, which seems like an exception to the norm. I think most of us c…

My personal take is that the Incel phenomenon is not actually about the sexual dynamic, but that society builds a wrong narrative about what the modal heterosexual dynamic is; Incels attract hate because they are working to break the narrative and they have a massive and annoying sense of entitlement. It's not just that we can't help them. It's that we can't help them and there is a kernel of truth to what they are s…

The claims of incels resemble the complaints of businesses about the shortage of labor, when they are offering only minimum wage.

Re: Rejection Sensitivity

#73

Post by plank_time »

Maybe I’m more considerate than average to people I’ve known throughout my life, but being rejected is not normal for me. The frequency to which the author was rejected by people seems to indicate there’s a problem with him, not society. Of course it has happened, but we are talking about ex-girlfriends or people I’ve had legitimate fights with.

But I still have friends from every stage of my life. I have a group of friends that I’ve known since grade 1 and we WhatsApp every day. We get into salty verbal arguments all the time like brothers, but we never have coke close to rejecting each other. During the pandemic I’ve had friends from high school that I haven’t spoken with for 30+ years that sought me out and we talked on the phone for 2 hours. In the last few weeks I had a coworker from 20 years ago reach out to me because she heard I “retired” pre-pandemic and wanted my advice on if she should do it. We chatted for over an hour. During the pandemic I’ve pinged several friends/coworkers from various companies I’ve worked with just to say hi. I’m planning on going for lunch with another coworker from 20 years ago in the next few weeks. I’ve even made new friends during the pandemic, having met someone that shared my same cynical views on the Federal Reserve, the stock market, etc.

It’s not hard to maintain friendships with people, just be considerate and courteous! Not everyone needs to be your best friend, but you also don’t need to be so navel gazing that all you care about is yourself.

The fact that the author has so many people rejecting the author makes me think he’s simply not a good friend and deserves to be rejected.

Re: Rejection Sensitivity

#74

Post by pixel_tracing »

I mean she kind of implied a reason why some people are “rejecting” her.

I don’t want to talk professionally after work with certain people as I don’t gain much value. Certain people I enjoy mentoring, certain people I don’t. I don’t want another “task” to do.

Also people with “too many” friends I find a little fake. You can’t expect me to take you seriously if you’re trying to maintain “close / intimate” friendships with 100 or more people.

> The number of people I speak to on any given timescale far exceeds Dunbar’s number, and if I took every instance of rejection personally, I would be a very depressed person. I have lost friends, acquaintances, and people who exist in the liminal space between the two for all sorts of reasons: I’m too flaky, they don’t like what I write here or on Twitter, my real or imagined allegiances with people they’ve decided are their enemies, I don’t sufficiently respect their otherkin identity, they don’t sufficiently respect my professional identity.

>Sometimes it’s because I’m being an ass, but a lot of the time, it’s just a statistical normality. Cast a wide enough net, you’re bound to lose a certain number of fish.

Re: Rejection Sensitivity

#75

Post by pessimizer »

laurieg wrote: post #18
jokoon wrote: post #13

Before WW2, people were living together more often. Apartment buildings were less common. Today we are all atomized and individualized. Individual kitchen, bathrooms and living rooms are the source of the problem. We feel rejected because our brain are naturally wired for a need of social interaction. It's a normal and legit emotion. In earlier times, people lived closer together. We experienced prosperous large home…

I remember in university I lived in a house with 8 people. We would all gather for dinner, often with a few extras from out of the house. It was such a wonderful feeling (and wonderfully efficient, you only had to cook once a week!). The idea of communal spaces needs to come back. I don't think it would be too hard for a 10-story apartment block to offer a communal area, especially as the shops that were often on the…

I'd like to see more architecture (and organizational/financial) oriented towards this. There were a lot of great experiments in the early Soviet Union that were hammered down by Stalin and his desire to imitate western opulence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivist_architecture

Re: Rejection Sensitivity

#76

Post by rriepe »

dnautics wrote: post #64
hirundo wrote: post #26

How much violence in society is a reaction to cumulative rejection? I'd guess a good deal if not most of it. Our ancient lobster-shared neural mechanisms take it deadly seriously whether we do consciously or not. From the long perspective of our selfish genes, rejection is a mortal threat. I appreciate the sympathetic treatment of incels in this article, which seems like an exception to the norm. I think most of us c…

My personal take is that the Incel phenomenon is not actually about the sexual dynamic, but that society builds a wrong narrative about what the modal heterosexual dynamic is; Incels attract hate because they are working to break the narrative and they have a massive and annoying sense of entitlement. It's not just that we can't help them. It's that we can't help them and there is a kernel of truth to what they are s…

They're just narcissists.

Projection: I'm a virgin so I want virginal women.

The other type of projection: I want nice girls so I should be a "nice guy."

Impossibly high standards and sense of entitlement: The point is rejecting to get a sense of power or self.

Complaining: They'll complain about outcomes but never offer solutions.

The incel community is more about attacking untruths. It's like a negatively-defined idea that's close to the truth, but I wouldn't call it a kernel.

Re: Rejection Sensitivity

#77

Post by ub99 »

Ensorceled wrote: post #37

When I was in high school and university decades ago, before social media and even stable phone numbers, friends used to come and go all the time; co-workers at summer and co-op jobs, classmates, roommates, ... You'd have beers and a few good times and then the next term/year would happen and you might never see them again. It didn't feel like rejection because there really wasn't a practical way to stay in touch. Yo…

> Summer loves and friendships were meant to end with a sobbing farewell at the end of August, not with a unfollow and block in November.

This is such a good thought. I think it applies to other areas of human relationships as well. Breaking up, for example. It was easier to have healthy boundaries after breaking up... before social media made it so easy to stalk or just be constantly reminded of your past relationship.

Re: Rejection Sensitivity

#78

Post by shkkmo »

plank_time wrote: post #73

Maybe I’m more considerate than average to people I’ve known throughout my life, but being rejected is not normal for me. The frequency to which the author was rejected by people seems to indicate there’s a problem with him, not society. Of course it has happened, but we are talking about ex-girlfriends or people I’ve had legitimate fights with. But I still have friends from every stage of my life. I have a group of…

Social skills are not equally easy for everyone.

> makes me think he’s simply not a good friend and deserves to be rejected.

You sound like maybe a bit more rejection would have been good for your sense of empathy.

Re: Rejection Sensitivity

#79

Post by Ensorceled »

ub99 wrote: post #77
Ensorceled wrote: post #37

When I was in high school and university decades ago, before social media and even stable phone numbers, friends used to come and go all the time; co-workers at summer and co-op jobs, classmates, roommates, ... You'd have beers and a few good times and then the next term/year would happen and you might never see them again. It didn't feel like rejection because there really wasn't a practical way to stay in touch. Yo…

> Summer loves and friendships were meant to end with a sobbing farewell at the end of August, not with a unfollow and block in November. This is such a good thought. I think it applies to other areas of human relationships as well. Breaking up, for example. It was easier to have healthy boundaries after breaking up... before social media made it so easy to stalk or just be constantly reminded of your past relationsh…

Oh man, agreed. My family reunion Facebook pages both now have a firm "no exes" rule, with exceptions for my two "cousins-in-law" whose spouses passed.

Re: Rejection Sensitivity

#80

Post by dnautics »

rriepe wrote: post #76
dnautics wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal take is that the Incel phenomenon is not actually about the sexual dynamic, but that society builds a wrong narrative about what the modal heterosexual dynamic is; Incels attract hate because they are working to break the narrative and they have a massive and annoying sense of entitlement. It's not just that we can't help them. It's that we can't help them and there is a kernel of truth to what they are s…

They're just narcissists. Projection: I'm a virgin so I want virginal women. The other type of projection: I want nice girls so I should be a "nice guy." Impossibly high standards and sense of entitlement: The point is rejecting to get a sense of power or self. Complaining: They'll complain about outcomes but never offer solutions. The incel community is more about attacking untruths. It's like a negatively-defined i…

> I'm a virgin so I want virginal women.

I have interacted with women that wanted virgin men (not to mention being surprised at the excitement of the woman who took my virginity, I am pretty sure in the end it was not a fantastic experience for her, though we're still friends). I was friend of a bride for a wedding where the man had never even kissed a woman before (the officiant embarassingly brought it up during the ceremony), and was told privately by the bride that this was a plus.

> want nice girls so I should be a "nice guy."

This is one of the axes where the incels are correct, women since time immemorial have say they want "nice guys". Why would you (publically) say anything else? It's a very pro-social stance to take. I'm not sure that women's preferences actually take nice-guy-dom into account. OTOH, incels insistence that women exclusively like bad guys is probably overreach, though definitely nice guys tend to be less assertive which is very likely a negative quality for the modal heterosexual woman, and since sampling rate matters for raw success dating and sex dynamics, it exacerbates the illusion.

(The other axis where the incels are correct is the myth of "there's someone for everyone". Yeah, we should kill that one with fire.)

> The point is rejecting to get a sense of power or self.

I could be convinced but I'm not sure. I think this is more of a PUA thing.

> They'll complain about outcomes but never offer solutions.

Very true.

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