Rejection

When life sucks and no number of pep-talks can magically make things better.

Let’s face it — at some point in our lives, each of us will face a rejection of some kind: be it social, romantic, career-based, or something else entirely. Of course, we hear all those inspirational stories — like how Dr. Seuss and J. K. Rowling were met with untold success after being rejected again and again by multiple publishing companies, only to make massive fortunes later in their lives. But these success stories are typically the exception and not the norm.

In reality, people face rejection all the time. We just don’t usually publicize it. People would be hard-pressed to find Facebook life events like “Just got rejected from Google!” or Instagram photos of rejection letters and e-mails.

But the truth is: the ratio of rejections to acceptances or successes is often greater than you’d think.

If anything, my life experiences before and during college have prepared me for rejection.

Let’s start with social rejection.

Since I was young, I’ve never tried to be the popular kid. I didn’t really have the Eurocentric beauty standard-inspired looks or the fashion sense or the glittery charismatic qualities to charm the pants off of the people I met throughout my high school and college years. I was never part of the “in crowd,” and I couldn’t afford the things associated with girls who had clothes or accessories to match the latest fashion trends, like Michael Kors bags or Hunter boots or white Adidas shoes with black stripes or whatever else happened to be trending at the time.

The only time I tried to “apply” to become friends with people was when I came to Duke and encountered the Selective Living Group program. For non-Dukies, Selective Living Groups (or SLGs) are all about exclusivity: each SLG touts a certain “brand” of person invited to join their ranks. There’s a whole rush and evaluation process, biased towards people who can advocate for potential friend-candidates on arbitrary review boards. At the time, I was hoping I could be accepted into one particular SLG, known for its quirky, friendly, and high-achieving members. As I was one of probably close to 200 people vying for maybe 10 spaces, I didn’t get in. (Shocker, I know.)

I was lucky to not be too personally invested in the organization, but the sting of rejection still hurt. It made me feel like I somehow wasn’t qualified to become friends with them, and it made my connections to the people I knew within the organization seem inconsequential. It made me wonder if my small talk skills just weren’t good enough, if I wasn’t able to make a lasting impression on anyone due to my own self-perceived social incompetency. At the time, I was really struggling with a negative self-image and feelings of low self-worth and low self-esteem, so rejection didn’t really help much.

Then came the times when I tried to join cliques. I tried to bounce from friend group to friend group, rarely finding one that really clicked. Most friendships I formed out of circumstance, as opposed to creating genuine, long-lasting connections. I tried to weave myself into established cliques but to no avail. The loneliness that resulted from me overextending myself and trying to fit in hurt like nothing else. I yearned to make a deeper connection with anyone — housemates, classmates, housekeepers, Duke staff, faculty — virtually anyone. But I felt a suffocating sense of isolation. It was a long series of social rejections — from people who often flaked on meetings, didn’t respond to messages, and ignored or excluded me from group conversations: People who didn’t reach out when I was suffering, who never checked up on me when I was hurting, and who honestly didn’t seem to care about much beyond what troubled them. And there were people who often reached out only for personal gain, rather than hoping to make a lasting or meaningful connection.

I remember frequenting anonymous discussion boards online to try and find people to talk to, only to find that loneliness plagued others as well, and it turned into a competition of who-had-it-worse.

It was tough. Complaints about not sleeping enough or having too many commitments and academic-related assignments turned into a one-upping contest that seemed to lack important aspects of empathy and understanding.

And that was just what I experienced as social rejection throughout most of my college career.

Moving onto romantic rejection.

I used to crush on people easily. I’d confess to them eventually and face rejection after rejection. Sometimes I’d tell them before I developed deeper feelings. Sometimes I wouldn’t, and I’d harbor crushes without them ever suspecting a thing. To this day, I believe I’ve been romantically rejected at least three times, with each one causing varying degrees of emotional pain. It was heartbreaking at first — two of them required that I make myself completely emotionally vulnerable before someone I thought I truly loved. And then, for days afterward, I’d question whether I was inherently undesirable in some respect: if I was unlovable and unsuitable for romantic relationships at all.

It sucked. There are no words to help me transform these rejections into something that inspires hope. At the end of the day, I just wound up giving up and hoping that, one day, I’d run into someone who loved and appreciated me for who I was.

Compared to social and romantic rejection, to me, being rejected from jobs and internships and other programs was nothing.

One of the programs I really wanted to participate in at Duke was called Common Ground — this retreat where students from diverse backgrounds could come together and share their struggles. I thought it’d be an inclusive setting where I could finally voice my concerns and understand others’ experiences. But I never got in, and I felt like there really wasn’t a forum through which I could communicate my thoughts and experiences.

When I applied to a bunch of jobs this past summer, I was rejected from Target and Barnes and Nobles. I didn’t have the experience they wanted, I suppose, and it hurt. It made me question why I even bothered to try and get my bachelor’s degree when workplaces that didn’t seem to have educational requirements still wouldn’t hire me. But what really hurt were the places where either they made it seem like I would be hired but never contacted me again (La Farm Bakery and Charming Charlie’s) or places that I just never heard back from (Omega Sports, Whole Foods). It made me feel like I wasn’t even worth a rejection letter, like I didn’t even deserve any form of acknowledgement for my applications and efforts.

Applying for a wide variety of internships has been somewhat difficult, as I feel as though I lack the experience to be as competitive as other high-achieving students and professionals. Too many of them have failed to reply to my inquiries, and multiple ones explicitly ask for master’s students in their requirements/qualifications. Some organizations asked me for my resume without replying back, leaving me in a state of limbo, wondering if they were actually considering me or merely requesting more information as a sort of formality.

But of course, as someone who’s, historically, struggled a lot with self-esteem and internalized a lot of self-hatred, guilt, and shame, I don’t necessarily have experiences that others may be able to relate to.

And take these experiences with a grain of salt — there definitely were times when I was successful: getting into Duke, having my feelings (through relationships or friendships) be reciprocated, getting jobs at H Mart and Bojangles, getting into DukeEngage, etc. And I won’t downplay my achievements: I just don’t think that blindly focusing on positives without acknowledging the negatives is an accurate depiction of reality.

I guess at the end of the day, what I’m trying to say is that, sometimes, life really sucks. And while people try to offer words of encouragement and support, those words are often cliched and empty air. What really matters, ultimately, is your perspective and attitude. It’s natural to feel sadness or anger or loneliness. And sometimes building up false hope for yourself or others can hurt. But what really matters is that you have faith in yourself — that you treat yourself with self-compassion. No one can be by your side for your entire life but you. Be gentle with yourself when you face these rejections, and understand that you are enough. You are good enough. Circumstances and people may change, and there are many things in life that are beyond your control — but ultimately, you shape your own reality, through your thoughts and behaviors. So be kinder to yourself: build yourself up rather than breaking yourself down. Don’t set unrealistic expectations for yourself, and understand that self-care isn’t selfish — it’s just a necessary part of life.

I guess I wound up being hypocritical and making this into a pep talk for people experiencing moments when life really seems to suck, but these are just insights I’ve gained from all the rejections I’ve faced in life.

I don’t think dreaming and hoping for success will make it manifest itself magically in life. But I do think that developing resilience and refusing to give up on yourself can do you no harm.

Maybe I’m oversharing. Maybe this post is too negative or too cliche. But I just hope that anyone who’s ever suffered from rejection in silence feels as though they’ve found someone they can relate to.