Needless Rejection

Rejection is a funny thing. It can happen when you least expect it and can lead to very funny emotional responses. Just add alcohol.

I didn't know what I expected from New Year's Eve.

When you break up with someone it's easy to move on. You've still got your pride and confidence intact. In fact, in many cases, confidence can be boosted by ending a not so desirable relationship with someone. Confidence, however, takes a huge blow when you're on the other end of things. All of the sudden that pride and spark that you felt when you walked into a room is gone, and strange feelings like desperation, dejection, and even desolation seem to surge in to fill in where your pride has been hacked away at. No one wants to be the desperate one.

There's this karmic rule of dating that deals with pride. It says that when you're unaware and unconcerned with dating and relationships and finding "the right one", your pride and confidence swell. When your confidence swells, members of the opposite sex start throwing themselves at you. Especially when you're trying to focus on something else, like work, or family, or schooling. The more of them you turn away the more that are attracted multiply until finally you give in. Now in .08% (i'm not a statistician, just a realist) of cases when you give in to that person persuing you, it will result in a lifetime of happiness. For the rest of the time (and the rest of us) it leads to one of the first scenarios set out in this entry. You either break up with them - in which case you go on with the good confidence cycle - or you end up with scenario number 2. They break up with you. In which case, as previously mentioned, the pride becomes hacked away at and desperation sets in. Now before Dave, I was on top of my game without wanting it or trying to be. Then i gave in to Dave and I guess I didn't realize that....well.... I was scenario 2. I had been broken up with. As much as I'd like to make it in my control, it wasn't.

So I went out on New Years. And I got drunk on New Years. Very Very Drunk. Like whiskey shots with beer backs drunk. Like kissing female friends on the lips drunk.

And I was rejected, which is the worst of all because it was a needless rejection. I shouldn't have been rejected at all.

My brother's friend Electrician Man or EM for short, just moved to town a couple of months ago. Me being the nice sister that I am, and knowing that he didn't know anyone, took him under my wing a bit. I showed him around, hung out with him occassionally, introduced him to people. Now I'll admit, I flirted with him. But I never crossed any lines. I never physically came on to him. I never hinted at anything other than what it was: a girl being nice to her brother's friend.

So EM, Ms. R and I went out to the bars. It was close to midnight and I drank too much too quickly. EM and I were just standing there, talking, laughing, hanging out when he looked at me and said for no reason "Oh Brooke, if you weren't my best friend's little sister....but I just can't". And I got angry. Why did he have the right to say anything like that. If it was because he liked me, then it's a cop-out. A way to preemt any deeper feelings he might have for me. And if it's because he thought that I might want something more and was trying to let me down easier he could've done it in any different setting at any different time.
So I joked about it, then joked some more, then at midnight, to ease my hurt pride....

I kissed him. For no reason. Because my confidence had been torn away for no reason by someone I had no interest in anyway. Because I felt like I had been stripped of my manhood and I'M NOT EVEN A MAN.

Then I drank more. And I tried to talk to him about why it hurt me so much. Then I cried.

I became that girl. That girl that gets drunk and cries in the middle of a crowded bar. I've never been that girl. I've never wanted to be that girl.

So I'm an idiot. But it makes you figure out who cares enough.
The rest of the night is blurry. I called in a favor from a friend later when I guess I left EM's house blacked out and my friend let me stay at his apartment. He let me sleep in his bed, he let me cuddle, he kept me from getting handsy, and he listened to me the next morning all hungover and grumpy.

So yes, rejection sucks, and it hurts. But maybe it's there for a reason. Maybe our ego needs rejection to regenerate, so the next time, I'll be ready and in the right mind frame for my .08% chance at landing "the right one".