“No” is Redirection, Not Rejection

Getting rejected feels terrible, but hindsight teaches us it wasn’t meant to be. Getting a no, or being broken up with, is like a physical punch to the stomach and resembles actual heartbreak. But looking back at all the times a relationship or a courtship didn’t work out allows one to see the past through a clear lens.

Did their values match with yours? Did you bend your standards for just that person, when you knew you would never do it for anyone else? Did you think this was love, or was it compromise before you even knew what you were compromising and who you were compromising for?

Relationships either end in marriage or breaking up.

If you stay together and you aren’t your best self with this person, wouldn’t you rather your relationship had ended instead? Many people do not have values that match up with what they want.

Fundamental values like marriage, family, and children are often misaligned. For lovers in their honeymoon phase, they may think these values will change or improve to what they desire in the future. Sometimes this happens, but often it does not. Moreover, differences in views towards marriage may show commitment or a lack of. This can cause serious challenges down the line for the future of the couple.

When a breakup occurs, either you reject them or they reject you. There are times when it is mutual, which happens when there are problems from both parties.

You reject them because of how they treat you.

They don’t treat you well. They don’t make time for you or make you feel bad about yourself. If they make you doubt yourself in the relationship and make you question your future with them, then life is redirecting you to someone who treats you better. Looking back, you’ll realize that you deserved better.

Or they don’t treat you badly, but they do treat you like competition.

I’m a software engineer. Some men hear this and assume that I make more money than them. One went as far as to interview to figure out what I do so that he could get a job in the same sector. Looking back, a few men I dated did this. Either made some underhanded comment about how they make less money than me or indirectly ask me to affirm their manliness despite their perceived financial shortcoming.

As Astrid Young said in Crazy Rich Asians:

“It’s not my job to make you feel like a man.”

A significant other is not someone who sees you as better than them or as competition for a better job.

What would happen if you lost your job? Would they begin to consider themselves as better than you? Would they try to put you down to elevate their position to feel better about themselves?

Someone you want to spend your life with needs to be a partner. In the future, you will face both terrible loss and tremendous joy. Choose someone who will support you and celebrate life. And someone you want to do that with too.

They reject you because you’re not what they thought you were.

In dating, especially online dating, people will have a pre-determined idea of who you are. For me, people assume I am the fun Asian Baby Girl based on my Instagram feed.

That is me, but 5% of the time.

At the club, at a music festival, sure. But mostly, I’m just a Brooklyn girl, born and raised, who is family-oriented and career-focused. When I sway too much, or 95% of the time, away from the image that people have created in their head of who I am, it creates mental dysphoria for them. So they tell me that we should just be friends.

But that’s fine. Because why would you want someone who doesn’t want you. Who you aren’t just showing the best parts of yourself online.

What kind of life is that to fit yourself to the mold that someone else has set for you? Or try to mold you into?

A guy I dated asked if I would grow my hair out for him. My hair was at my chin at this point. I told him

“Yes, I will spend the next several years growing out my hair. For you.”

I said it too sarcastically, apparently, and in response, he broke up with me.

Date a man who is happy with every version of yourself that you choose to be, not the version he has in his mind.