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From: roy@gitpyr.UUCP (Roy J. Mongiovi)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Coping with Rejection
Message-ID: <447@gitpyr.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 28-Dec-84 21:49:09 EST
Article-I.D.: gitpyr.447
Posted: Fri Dec 28 21:49:09 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 3-Jan-85 00:47:06 EST
References: <241@stat-l> <1243@hou4b.UUCP>
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Lines: 83

> >>> When in doubt, ASK!  There is NO substitute for openness and honesty.
> >>> If you give these, and presume the same, you won't be wrong.
> >
> >> From: aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent)
> >> Just hurt.
> >
> >	[...] you want guarantees [...] You have to make your choice, and
> >	take your lumps; [...] Just do it, and stop whining about it.
> >	Join reality, man.  -- 
> 
> Will you please quit that macho crap. The man is being open about difficulties
> that you've never faced. If you had, you might be more sympathetic.  You might
> even care.  That's right,  C  A  R  E.  A new word for you, right?  It's clear
> that Jeff has to be able to accept the risks of failure...

Now just wait a minute.  If this group is indeed here to offer support, and not
to criticize, then perhaps we should all consider our words more carefully...
I don't see that you have the right to label it "macho crap" and dismiss it.
Perhaps we all need to care a little bit more, and attacking someone that you
don't agree with doesn't help very much.

Now I don't know Jeff Sargent at all, and I don't want to attack his approach
to life and its problems.  But I do have some opinions about what is causing a
lot of his difficulties, so maybe I'll just ramble on a little bit about the
way I see the world.  I'm no perfect master, so if you disagree, let's discuss
it, not flame about it.

Yeah.  There are lots of different types of people out there, and when you
open up and let your real self out there's a fair to middling chance that you
will get hurt.  But being hurt is ok, it can be a source of inspiration, as
long as you don't let it overwhelm you.  But the only way to not get hurt is
to never take the chance.  Now maybe that's a good way to be, it does minimize
the amount of pain you feel.  But it also minimizes the pleasure. 

The alternative opens you up to hurt.  I don't know anyone who isn't bothered
by rejection.  But the rewards are a lot greater.  So how do you cope with the
hurt?  It seems to me that Jeff's main problem is that he isn't happy with
himself.  If you really and truly like yourself, then rejection just means
that you have to try again, it isn't so much a blow to the ego as a blow to
the dreams.  After all, there are a lot of other people out there that you
can lavish your affection on if the current person doesn't work out.

It seems to me that it is a lot more common for one member of a (possible)
relationship to want more out of it than the other, than it is for both members
to want the same thing.  It isn't for nothing that the 80's are being called
the decade of the individual.  So much more is being expected from life.  The
wife used to give up her life for her husband, but it doesn't work that way
anymore.  Parents used to contract for their children's marriages, and their
happiness wasn't the major concern.  But now the expectations are higher and
a real relationship is much harder to achieve.

My advice to Jeff is that he should do some real soul searching.  He needs to
decide just who he is, and how he wants to be.  Only when he is happy with
himself (and I don't mean he should think he is perfect, none of us are, but
that he should be true to himself and happy with where he is heading) should
he try for a relationship.

He should be open about his feelings, not keeping them to himself for fear of
hurting anyone. If he is acting in a way that he truly believes to be correct,
and someone is hurt by it, that may be their problem and not his.  That is not
to say that he should assume he is correct in all matters.  A conscientious
adult should always be examining himself.  It is too easy to become totally
selfish.  If he is open about his feelings and listens to the feelings of his
SO, then that is about all he can do to ensure that the relationship will
continue to grow.  Honesty really is the best policy, if he isn't honest about
his feelings, he is liable to end up in a relationship where his SO isn't in
love with who he is, but with who she believes him to be.  And that is a
terrible position to be in.

But again, he shouldn't be afraid of being rejected by someone.  He shouldn't
judge himself by what others think of him, but by what he thinks of himself.
If he is happy with himself, rejection simply means that the relationship he
thought was there was only a pleasant fantasy, it isn't the end of the world.

You can't live your life for someone else, nobody wants to live with a martyr.

	You can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself.
-- 
Roy J. Mongiovi.	Office of Computing Services.		User Services.
Georgia Institute of Technology.	Atlanta GA  30332.	(404) 894-6163
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	  Who me?  I'm not even a REAL modo, I'm only a quasi-modo.