The idea that rejection is nothing personal

[CornbreadFed]

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No more than being rejected for a job phases me.

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I am a process oriented person, meaning I bulld out a system that works and then I know that no matter what happens, it's simply a matter of me putting enough time and effort into it while tweaking things as I go before it pays off.

So whether it's OLD, approaches in person, applying for jobs, etc, I don't get hung up on immediate results because at the end of the day I know I have a process that works for me and as long as I follow it, results will always be there once I let it play out over time.

So no, rejection doesn't phase me. If anything it drives me to work harder to overcome it.

The problem most people have is they are results oriented rather than process oriented.

Just because you get a positive result doesn't mean you have a good process for sustainable results and just because you get a bad result doesn't mean your process doesn't work.

They are two separate things.

I get it if you are cold approaching or in a position that a high rejection rate is expected. I don’t think anyone is getting red/black pilled over a rejection from a bar approach. In addition, OLD gets too much hate for me to believe that most guys shrug off rejection like that. However, If you are putting yourself out there in low volume dating environments then you are better off limiting rejections because they can be brutal. Everyone is on this site because of a negative experience involving a woman or women, so I find the tough skin motto to be BS.

 

[BackInTheGame78]

I get it if you are cold approaching or in a position that a high rejection rate is expected. I don’t think anyone is getting red/black pilled over a rejection from a bar approach. In addition, OLD gets too much hate for me to believe that most guys shrug off rejection like that. However, If you are putting yourself out there in low volume dating environments then you are better off limiting rejections because they can be brutal. Everyone is on this site because of a negative experience involving a woman or women, so I find the tough skin motto to be BS.

I'm not interested in what "most guys" do. Most guys fear failure and try to avoid it at all costs not knowing that your greatest teacher in life are your failures and that's also where your greatest success will come from if you use it properly to learn from.

Trying to succeed without failing not only doesn't usually work very well, it actually limits your potential to a very low level.

So whether you think it's it's BS or not, it's the truth.

 

[CornbreadFed]

I'm not interested in what "most guys" do. Most guys fear failure and try to avoid it at all costs not knowing that your greatest teacher in life are your failures and that's also where your greatest success will come from if you use it properly to learn from.

Trying to succeed without failing not only doesn't usually work very well, it actually limits your potential to a very low level.

So whether you think it's it's BS or not, it's the truth.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this does not apply to the top guys that are successful with women or sales (I am in sales, and I saw a sales comment). My successful friends with women have been rejected less than a handful of times if never. Furthermore, I haven't been rejected since like 2022. This Rocky Balboa mindset of come out of the gates and take countless rejections until you prevail is just part of the Dunning Kruger Effect. "Most guys" are doing what y'all are preaching and it is not working for them. This is a reality that y'all only live in lol.

 

[Solomon]

But just because it's personal doesn't mean you should dwell on it. You can't appeal to everyone, nor should you try to. One thing you realize as you get older is that there are certain types of women that will find you attractive and you energy is much better spent identifying and targeting those women, as opposed to using the shotgun method.

This is spot on, another thing I would say is if you apply for a job. To get to the job you want you may have to apply hundreds if not thousands of times. All the companies that interview you or heck don't even call you for an interview that's a rejection.

I use to reframe rejections as "Ok this is a learning experience, next time try this"
I use to have a lot of fun doing night approaches, eventually I got burned out though from overkill

 

[BackInTheGame78]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this does not apply to the top guys that are successful with women or sales (I am in sales, and I saw a sales comment). My successful friends with women have been rejected less than a handful of times if never. Furthermore, I haven't been rejected since like 2022. This Rocky Balboa mindset of come out of the gates and take countless rejections until you prevail is just part of the Dunning Kruger Effect. "Most guys" are doing what y'all are preaching and it is not working for them. This is a reality that y'all only live in lol.

If you are taking countless rejections it simply means you dont actually use that rejection for any real purpose of improving the next time.

Part of this is actually USING the information you get and then adjusting what you do the next time and continue adjusting until what you do starts working more than it doesn't.

Simply thinking you are going to continue doing the same thing over and over again without changing it is not only stupid, it's the definition of insanity...doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result.

Sadly many guys adhere to this mantra.

 

[SW15]

I don’t think anyone is getting red/black pilled over a rejection from a bar approach.

If a man takes enough rejections from bar approaches, it will affect his psychological well being.

My successful friends with women have been rejected less than a handful of times if never.

This is the ideal scenario. Limit rejections, position oneself for success.

 

[CornbreadFed]

This is spot on, another thing I would say is if you apply for a job. To get to the job you want you may have to apply hundreds if not thousands of times. All the companies that interview you or heck don't even call you for an interview that's a rejection.

I use to reframe rejections as "Ok this is a learning experience, next time try this"
I use to have a lot of fun doing night approaches, eventually I got burned out though from overkill

All my successful friends in careers aren't even applying to jobs lol. Their managers are just literally handing them lead offs and all they have to do is not fvck up. I hate to sound like an @$$hole, but I am being dead serious. The top successful people in sales, dating, careers, and etc are not living this Rocky Balboa Tough Skin life being preached in this topic.

 

[CornbreadFed]

If you are taking countless rejections it simply means you dont actually use that rejection for any real purpose of improving the next time.

Part of this is actually USING the information you get and then adjusting what you do the next time and continue adjusting until what you do starts working more than it doesn't.

Simply thinking you are going to continue doing the same thing over and over again without changing it is not only stupid, it's the definition of insanity...doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result.

Sadly many guys adhere to this mantra.

Most of the information you are getting is complete bullshvt though. Again, if I got rejected by a woman because I was black, she hasn't taken a shvt in 3 days, and she's still in contact with her NFL ex fling that flies her out when he wants different pvssy, what does that help me with? If I mess up with a woman because of me, it doesn't take a rocket scientist for me to figure out what went wrong. I completely understand rejection from a novice point of view, but at some point, smart men start learning how to read your audience, target market, and your abilities to avoid this Dunning Kruger Pit Trap.

 

[Solomon]

All my successful friends in careers aren't even applying to jobs lol. Their managers are just literally handing them lead offs and all they have to do is not fvck up. I hate to sound like an @$$hole, but I am being dead serious. The top successful people in sales, dating, careers, and etc are not living this Rocky Balboa Tough Skin life being preached in this topic.

Nepotism and favoritism are all real things, the reality for 90% of the us we gotta get it out the mud
I'm not hating on anyone who has a Lebron James as their father and is able to help their son get in the NBA.
I would argue as a father it's Lebron's job to put his son in the best position for him to succeed. This just doesn't apply to Lebron but also to the millionaire Dad who is a Hedgefund manager and put's his kid in position to win. How do you think Old money has stuck around for decades or centuries on end?
But most of us don't have it like that, hence we gotta grind

 

[SW15]

the millionaire Dad who is a Hedgefund manager and puts his kid in position to win.

This is the kind of thing that happens regularly.

Upper middle class and upper class older men who are dads often set up their sons/daughters for success.

In the last 15-20 years or so, I've seen examples of aging Boomer dads who get their sons/daughters hired in good positions at their companies in the last few years of their careers before a well deserved retirement. These sons/daughters are given a huge advantage. For the sons, having this situation helps with their SMVs in the mating environment, especially with bougie White women. In a scenario with a daughter, the daughter ends up being some Girl Boss type who achieves career success but has issues in longer term mating.

The scenario in the paragraph above is how a lot of Gen Y/Millennial types have been successful.

 

[CornbreadFed]

Nepotism and favoritism are all real things, the reality for 90% of the us we gotta get it out the mud
I'm not hating on anyone who has a Lebron James as their father and is able to help their son get in the NBA.
I would argue as a father it's Lebron's job to put his son in the best position for him to succeed. This just doesn't apply to Lebron but also to the millionaire Dad who is a Hedgefund manager and put's his kid in position to win. How do you think Old money has stuck around for decades or centuries on end?
But most of us don't have it like that, hence we gotta grind

Most of my friends did not come from a Lebron James background and my GF definitely did not. Did they have to grind initially? Yes, but they did it the smart way allowing them to leverage their natural confidence later on in life. They definitely have more confidence career wise than me because they never faced the same level of humiliation that I did. Someone that gets promoted every year is going to have a completely different mentality than someone that has been stuck in the same role for 5 plus years. Getting constantly rejected is not going to do anything but damage your confidence and make you bitter. More than likely, you are not going to get a legitimate answer especially from a woman lol and it just end up being a complete waste of time. The correct answer most of the time is to just give up and try a method that naturally fits you instead of forcing a square block down a circular hole. Lebron James could have easily been a failed artist because he wanted to grit and grind vs choosing basketball.

I looked at it like this from my dating perspective. I was a bitter red pill incel because I lived in a white dominated city and only approached preppy white girls. I was constantly getting rejected by women, but I never gave up. Eventually, I moved and said fvck white women and branched out to different races. Guess what, as my successes increased, my confidence increased and surprisingly my last two exes ended up being hot white women that I could have never gotten in my hometown. However, my confidence has forever been tainted due to the amount BS rejections & mental trauma I went through in college. You can tell me to just simply forget about it, but we are all on this site for a reason. We are all not blue pilled for a reason. Like it or not, it does have negative effect on us long term.

Most of the time, the logical answer is to just give up.

 

[GoodMan32]

Interesting. I would dislike being reminded of a failure in seduction.

A misreading of a woman's interest level is a seduction failure.

If I'm asking a woman on a date, it's because I'm feeling a good vibe and feeling my odds are good.



@BeExcellent is correct there. Most neurotypicals will experience rejections going older simply because the woman has no interest in a significantly younger man.



The Old Town Scottsdale bars are quite an experience. Women are demanding there.

You would get crushed at the Old Town Scottsdale bars on a Friday or Saturday night.

See, I'm not an outlier with how I hate being reminded of my seduction failures.

As has been said on this forum, rejection is part of life, I get that. It isn't the individual rejection that's a problem. What's problematic is when a guy (me) gets rejected the vast majority of the time, even in instances where he thought there was a genuine vibe.

Another thing I should address is the creepy freak thing. I'm aware I've been out of high school for 16 years (and many folks online have told me I need to let it go). Unless a poster had to deal with being viewed as the freaky creep of their high school, however, they're really in no position to tell me how long the residual damage should last.

Good thing I have no interest in Old Town bars.

Ok so look at your measuring stick here. It's totally faulty. Craigslist took down personal ads nearly 10 years ago. So its not even a mechanism in the current market. Nevermind that. You are going to have to leave your house and go interact with others. You think random hook up success from 10+ years ago is success? That's a blind squirrel finding a nut my friend. That is the point various people here are making.

When I say its a numbers game, that is taken with the assumption that you go try, evaluate how you did, and go try again. Over and over. And you will improve if you are going through that process, and looking at how you did.

Listen. Here is your homework assignment:

Go to dinner by yourself tonight. Go to Pomo in North Scottsdale. Go around 5. Order a ****tail. Sip it a while. Watch a little sports on TV. Linger. The place will fill up with people by 5:30 or 6. Order a meal. Its not terribly expensive. People will sit next to you. Say "Hey, how's it going?" Chat about where they like to hang out around town. Its already 5pm here. So if you can't get to Pomo, do the exact same thing at City Hall in Old Town Scottsdale. You need practice socializing. At City Hall order the chopped salad and one drink. If you want to be super cheap, have a club soda instead. Go ASAP. Wear the best dress shirt you have, and jeans and dress shoes, (brogues if you know what those are, would be ideal.) But go.

You need practice interacting with people. City Hall will have a lounge singer and be full of interesting people. You gotta eat. So consider the cost the price of getting social practice. Just like a golfer buys a bucket of balls for hitting practice.

Come back and post a field report & tell us how it goes. At that point you are taking some action & getting somewhere.

That's your assignment. Now get!

Random hookup success from 10+ years ago on Craigslist goes to show there are gals who are willing to bang me.

As you said though, Craigslist is an outdated method to get cooch.

I got my last free lay (2021) from a woman I knew through her job (and no, she wasn't a coworker). I've managed to get laid through non-tech methods; just not in any significant numbers.

Just being honest with you: I'm not ready for the assignment you gave me.

I will share some field reports from the past 6 months or so, however.

First and foremost, I've mentioned on the forum that I started attending organized singles events. The fact I had a mini-date after an organized singles event back in February goes to show I'm getting better at my methods.

Additionally, I did an experiment similar to the one you just assigned me when I was visiting Texas back in November. I sat at the hotel bar for dinner. No one said a word to me.

 

[GoodMan32]

Can one also bring a Tablet and watch a Netflix show or movie, while on the go, with your sound-cancelling headphones on full blast while doing it and put it on a Tablet stand while following the above advice?

I'm talking about baby steps.

1) I'm anxious about these social settings, therefore, I'll go and bring the Tablet ONCE.

2) The SECOND TIME, I'll leave it at home and try it without it since I got my foot out the door and went into said social venue or space.

This eases the anxiety away in such social situations, especially if you are on the spectrum, right?

On a related note, I've been known to go to a cafe with my laptop.

 

[CheekyMonkey101]

If women are not routinely opening you, throwing themselves at you or at the very least making their interest obvious (you look at her & she holds gaze and smiles back broadly)...... you are not a Chad or Chad-lite. For a Chad tier handsome man this will happen regularly and there will be no question the market deems him handsome. I'd say @Hamurabimbi is likely a guy here with that level of looks.

But he is the only one here I'd gather that about. Why? Women seek him out, much like my husband.

Any less than that level of attention from women and a man falls into the normative range. I think many men over value their facial asthetics & physical attractiveness.

Then these men get frustrated because they think they rate a 9 but are really a 6. Women tend to do this too. Look at who you ARE attracting without much effort. That is the best read to get an idea. Some chick thinks you are attractive....

A lot of men have no chick finding them attractive. Dating apps are showing men's true ratings and making them face reality.

 

[GoodMan32]

If you are taking countless rejections it simply means you dont actually use that rejection for any real purpose of improving the next time.

Part of this is actually USING the information you get and then adjusting what you do the next time and continue adjusting until what you do starts working more than it doesn't.

Simply thinking you are going to continue doing the same thing over and over again without changing it is not only stupid, it's the definition of insanity...doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result.

Sadly many guys adhere to this mantra.

When I was 21, I set up a date with a woman I met online for a few days in the future.

On the day of the tentative date, I reached back out to confirm we were still on. Not only did she say we weren't on; she was pretty rude about it.

For the life of me, I couldn't think of what I did to make her lose interest (I had barely even had any contact with her since setting up the date). So I demanded to know what I did to make her lose interest. Not only did she refuse to tell me; she even threatened to rat me out to the cops if I sent her even one more message.

My point: We can't learn what to do differently if the gals who reject us (or quickly lose interest in us) won't tell us what we did wrong.

And this story from when I was 21 wasn't an isolated incident. I was in a slump where I'd repeatedly set up dates from OLD, only for the gals to lose interest before the date happened.

 

[GoodMan32]

All my successful friends in careers aren't even applying to jobs lol. Their managers are just literally handing them lead offs and all they have to do is not fvck up. I hate to sound like an @$$hole, but I am being dead serious. The top successful people in sales, dating, careers, and etc are not living this Rocky Balboa Tough Skin life being preached in this topic.

Good point. My dad (now retired) reached a point in his career where he no longer had to apply to jobs. He had developed such a good name for himself, jobs would reach out to him (he even had companies begging him to be the CEO)

 

[BackInTheGame78]

When I was 21, I set up a date with a woman I met online for a few days in the future.

On the day of the tentative date, I reached back out to confirm we were still on. Not only did she say we weren't on; she was pretty rude about it.

For the life of me, I couldn't think of what I did to make her lose interest (I had barely even had any contact with her since setting up the date). So I demanded to know what I did to make her lose interest. Not only did she refuse to tell me; she even threatened to rat me out to the cops if I sent her even one more message.

My point: We can't learn what to do differently if the gals who reject us (or quickly lose interest in us) won't tell us what we did wrong.

And this story from when I was 21 wasn't an isolated incident. I was in a slump where I'd repeatedly set up dates from OLD, only for the gals to lose interest before the date happened.

That's where you analyzing the interaction comes in. Nobody is going to tell you what to do, you have to figure it out.

 

[BackInTheGame78]

Most of my friends did not come from a Lebron James background and my GF definitely did not. Did they have to grind initially? Yes, but they did it the smart way allowing them to leverage their natural confidence later on in life. They definitely have more confidence career wise than me because they never faced the same level of humiliation that I did. Someone that gets promoted every year is going to have a completely different mentality than someone that has been stuck in the same role for 5 plus years. Getting constantly rejected is not going to do anything but damage your confidence and make you bitter. More than likely, you are not going to get a legitimate answer especially from a woman lol and it just end up being a complete waste of time. The correct answer most of the time is to just give up and try a method that naturally fits you instead of forcing a square block down a circular hole. Lebron James could have easily been a failed artist because he wanted to grit and grind vs choosing basketball.

I looked at it like this from my dating perspective. I was a bitter red pill incel because I lived in a white dominated city and only approached preppy white girls. I was constantly getting rejected by women, but I never gave up. Eventually, I moved and said fvck white women and branched out to different races. Guess what, as my successes increased, my confidence increased and surprisingly my last two exes ended up being hot white women that I could have never gotten in my hometown. However, my confidence has forever been tainted due to the amount BS rejections & mental trauma I went through in college. You can tell me to just simply forget about it, but we are all on this site for a reason. We are all not blue pilled for a reason. Like it or not, it does have negative effect on us long term.

Most of the time, the logical answer is to just give up.

Yes that is the natural logical answer for someone that thinks like a loser.

Can't win at much of anything coming from the mentality of a loser.

You can't understand how I can be that way precisely because you don't think like I do.

You have poisoned your own well that you drink from every day.

 

[CornbreadFed]

Yes that is the natural logical answer for someone that thinks like a loser.

Can't win at much of anything coming from the mentality of a loser.

You can't understand how I can be that way precisely because you don't think like I do.

So Lebron James should've just pursued his art interests instead of basketball?

 

[The Duke]

I looked at it like this from my dating perspective. I was a bitter red pill incel because I lived in a white dominated city and only approached preppy white girls. I was constantly getting rejected by women, but I never gave up. Eventually, I moved and said fvck white women and branched out to different races. Guess what, as my successes increased, my confidence increased and surprisingly my last two exes ended up being hot white women that I could have never gotten in my hometown. However, my confidence has forever been tainted due to the amount BS rejections & mental trauma I went through in college. You can tell me to just simply forget about it, but we are all on this site for a reason. We are all not blue pilled for a reason. Like it or not, it does have negative effect on us long term.

Years ago I had a horrible motorcycle wreck. I tried to get into a really sharp corner designed for speeds of no more than 20mph. I was doing 100mph on entry and high sided at 60mph and shot up in the air 20ft where my hip was fractured from impact with the fuel tank in mid-air. I had a laundry list of injuries(shattered hip, lacerated liver, road rash abrasions, messed up ankle and shoulder tears, lots of nerve damage. I missed a sign post by 2ft that would have definitely cut me in half. It has forever impacted my life but its all positive. It took some of the wild man out of me for sure but that needed to happen. The physical pain I feel everyday keeps me grounded and helps me realize I'm not invincible.

Most people would have quit riding, but I didn't. As soon as I was healed up enough, I rebuilt the bike. I also figured out what led to that wreck and changed some of my riding technique. One of the first places I went back to was that same corner that tried to kill me. I made a few low speed practice runs and then attempted another run at the same speed I crashed at. This time I won, and got the redemption I needed.

I've never been one to let negative experiences cast a negative effect on me long term. Process them, learn from then, go kick some ass, and move on.