Dating Will Never Be Fun If You Are Terrified of Rejection

Why and How Dating Can Be Fun

Photograh by Min An on Pexels

As I wrote in my recent article, “The Uncertainty Principle,” life is uncertain. From subatomic particles to our existence and everything in between, uncertainty is a part of life.

This includes dating.

We can’t know with 100% accuracy how someone feels about us when we start dating someone — even if a mutual like on a dating app tells us otherwise.

Certainty is built over time as people present themselves to us. We might find out they really like us, or maybe we’ll sense red flags that they don’t. Perhaps they’ll tell us they aren’t looking for a relationship but show us they are in other ways.

Uncertainty is the name of the game when it comes to dating.

You have to accept it, even if it triggers your rejection sensitivity.

Rejection Sensitivity in Dating

All of my bad habits in dating — the fawning after unavailable people, the ignoring red flags, absent boundaries, and allowing mistreatment — can all be traced back to one thing:

How I related myself to uncertainty.

It was a potent trigger for my rejection sensitivity. It made me doubt how someone viewed me and my value as a person. The experience of uncertainty and the belief I held around it was like gasoline to my feelings of desire: they lit a flame and made me chase.

I wanted certainty so badly that I became a control freak. I was the chaser, the double texter, the social media stalker, the chameleon, and the “Nice guy” you could always count on to say yes. Sex on the first date? Sure! Do you love that band? Me too. You’re not looking for a relationship? Ok, I’ll play along.

I wanted certainty that I was not rejectable and took every measure necessary to ensure I would not.

This was not a fun experience nor an effective way to pursue dating.

Despite all the stress I experienced in my efforts, I became resentful, bitter, and, ironically, rejectable. There’s a difference between love at first sight and limerence at first night. The latter is an anxiety-ridden mindset, and the former is a sense of clarity and comfort.

Don’t get them confused.

The Realities of Dating: Uncertainty

You never know who you’ll meet with when you enter the dating scene. That’s why it can be fun. It’s a time of mutual exploration, whether it goes anywhere or not.

And I get it. Numerous pressures can lead to a desire for us to date. We want to settle down and have kids soon. We want to find “the one,” we haven’t had a relationship in four years, and we doubt our likability, or we had a bad experience last time.

All of these pressures are valid, and they will undoubtedly come with anxiety when you re-enter the dating scene.

But as I said at the beginning of this article, dating is inherently uncertain.

We can’t know if the person we meet will like us or if they won’t. It might suck if we end up rejected, but everyone is entitled to their perceptions, thoughts, and feelings in life — especially during dating. Rejection can be painful but ultimately necessary to save us from ending up with someone incompatible with our likes/dislikes and desires.

Many of us fear this result, though. It scares the sh*t out of us so much so that we lose our ability to be ourselves — which is critical because we have to be ourselves if we truly want to find someone compatible for us.

Therein lies the problem, though. We fear rejection because we don’t believe we’re inherently worthy or choosable as we are.

The Self-Love Conundrum

I began to enjoy dating more when I cared less about being rejected. I didn’t just magically develop this mindset. I had to take time to find a way to love myself.

This included finding my core gifts, as Ken Page, psychologist and author describes in his book “Deep Dating”. Core gifts are the qualities we see in ourselves that we initially believe are “too much”, “too deep” or “too different”, for the world and others. Core gifts are the qualities we fear others might reject us for and hide as a result — but when learned to accept and even cherish, they become superpowers of unique, authentic expression.

You don’t need to be the most confident person in the world to find success dating, but I believe you need to accept who you are, including your strengths and weaknesses.

It’s about having your own back when uncertainty arises. Not only can we date with the mindset of, “I’m going to be myself, try and have fun, and see what happens,” but we’ll have our own back when if we are met with behaviors we dislike from not great people (who we may well cross paths with because dating is what? Uncertain).

I’ve been single for 8 months and don’t plan to date anytime soon. I know I’m not ready to put myself out there again; there is work I need to do on my own before I open myself up to judgment again. Without this work, I’d risk falling back into patterns of fawning and people-pleasing. I need to be sure of myself again.

Many of us date looking for someone else to love us because we don’t love ourselves, and we fear rejection because we’ve already rejected ourselves.

This isn’t a step-by-step guide on how to not get rejected. It’s an article that says that rejection is a part of dating and is sometimes unavoidable.

What we can avoid is rejecting ourselves. That is our work, and it makes navigating uncertainty and the complexity of dating easier and potentially more fun.