I got rejected and I feel amazing!

A short warning. 

This is quite an extensive post, but I will be grateful if you read it through completely.

First, a bit of backstory.

I’m a 16-year-old male, who is in his last year at school. Until recently, I’ve never been hugged or kissed by a girl (relatives do not count). I’ve never been in a relationship or had any close connection with a person of the opposite sex.

Whenever I liked someone, I never came up and tried to get to know them better. I was afraid of being laughed at or rejected. Although on the outside I may have looked confident, I was the definition of low self-esteem on the inside, despite practising meditation, doing resistance and cardio training, reading, learning, taking cold showers, eating properly, etc.

Yet, recently, I got deeply attracted to a girl from the grade below. It got to where I couldn’t sleep because of thoughts about her and my lack of action. In the past, I had pushed those thoughts back, never acting upon them. But this time my strategy didn’t work. Actually, it made the situation even worse.

Eventually, I couldn’t fight my desire for connection any longer and gave in. I set the goal of making her my girlfriend. 

# The challenge
What did I have to do to get her? First, I had to talk to her, obviously. Yet, that simple thing was so damn hard. Whenever I saw her, she was always among her classmates or sitting in the damn classroom, unreachable. Moreover, my adrenaline and cortisol levels spiked so high up that you would have thought that I was about to fight to the death with somebody or approach a vicious beast.

I spent so much time thinking about some “perfect” strategy and the things I would say to her I forgot about the foundation of every good human interaction: authenticity and mutual interest. 

I didn’t choose to like her and she can’t choose to like or dislike me. The best thing I could do was to approach her and talk to her as a real human being, without worrying too much about it. If she was attracted to me, she would continue to like me, even if I messed up, unless I fucked up in some major way, of course. 

What about authenticity? Well, you can present yourself as another person, but people will learn about your true nature, eventually. Why not act as you usually do from the get-go?

Those things flew out of my mind, and I came up with a wonderful strategy, which involved one of my classmates. I would wait until she would be somewhat alone during the lunch break, go to her with my classmate, who would trail me a few steps behind, and tell her that my classmate challenged me to get a hug from her. Oh, this shit was so silly, but at least I didn’t have to wait for the perfect moment when she would be entirely on her own. My plan would work even better if there would be some of her friends around.

It worked, and I finally got hugged by my crush and two other girls. 

According to my direct experience and my classmate’s observations, she was pretty happy to do it. She was beaming, trying not to look at me, barely keeping herself from laughing.

There was one big problem, though. I wouldn’t have the chance to approach her again for over a week. Why? Because school break was right around the corner. The idea of spending it, not doing anything to advance towards my goal didn’t please me. So, after two days, I texted her, which was pretty stupid, considering that she didn’t know me at all. I was aware of that, but did it anyway because I was fucking impatient.

*“Hey, I liked your hug on Thursday. How about another one?”*

(I feel like I will get slaughtered in the comment section xD)

Hours go by. Day. Two days. No reply. She simply left me on seen, which created a lot of distress, sadness, disappointment, and eventually, anger for me.

I asked the good people of Reddit for advice, my friends, and the Internet. Some folks advised me to move on. Others told me to talk to her again, preferably in real life. I ignored the former group because I couldn’t move on without receiving a straight-up rejection or something that resembled it. I texted her again.

*“As I understand it, I was too `direct`. Still, I would like to get a concrete answer.*

*Well, there’s also the possibility that you don’t know how I am”.*

In the matter of 20 minutes, she replies: *“ahahahaa, who are you?”*

A short conversation ensued, where she agreed to give me another hug. My spirits were extremely high and I felt on top of the world. Yet, the thing that knocked me off my senses completely was the red heart emoji she had sent as a response to my name. 

You would think I’d stop here, right? Well, you would be wrong. Two days later, I pushed the plank further by subtly, but still pretty clearly, asking her out. 

Hours sweep by and she doesn’t even read the message, despite her status saying: *”Online”*. 

Again, I’m moving from one strong emotion to the next. From sadness to anger, from anger to disappointment, from disappointment to hope, from hope to anxiety. 

If you saw the texting history with one of my friends, you would think that I was going crazy. 

I couldn’t bear staying in that limbo, in the uncertainty, so I sent a follow-up message. 

*”You got carried off my ninja-turtles or something?”*

I didn’t care if it was wrong or stupid. My mind required an answer.

Two hours later, she replied.

*”What’s the point of the message?”*

That’s what I was looking for!

I don’t know about you, but that text screams the words *”Please, don’t talk to me again. I’m not interested.”* (couple that with the fact that she refused to read my text message)

In a matter of two or three minutes, I felt fucking amazing! My ability to concentrate came back. My intense emotions subsided, replaced with amusement. And my mental grip slackened. 

The fact that a simple sentence brought such a significant change to my psyche is astounding.

There was no sadness, frustration, despondency, or discontent. I was only experiencing positive emotions such as gratitude, confidence, motivation, satisfaction. My subconscious finally understood that it was time to move on.

The situation didn’t change on the next morning or on the morning after that.

Since then, I haven’t checked her TikTok or Instagram accounts. I haven’t texted her again and I’m not going to. Strangely enough, she doesn’t seem as attractive as she used to. She is still cute and pretty, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t feel anything for her anymore.

# Conclusion
I know my story sounds silly, but I don’t have any reason for lying. 

I know I’ve probably made countless mistakes, especially when it comes to texting without knowing her much. Yet, the experience was very insightful and taught me a lot about social interactions. 

You cannot learn to talk to people by reading books, watching videos on YouTube, or enrolling in different courses. Yes, those things can be helpful, but the true wisdom and knowledge come only from actual practice, i.e. going out there and talking.

Furthermore, it increased my self-esteem more than any positive habit that I do (cold showers, meditation, resistance training, long steady state cardio, etc.).

Why am I writing this post? Well, I want to keep myself accountable and continue on my journey of improving my social skills. All that knowledge will be useful only if I apply again and again. I don’t intend to give up after one rejection, like many of my male classmates do. 

And yeah, one of the key takeaways here is **fuck fear**. 

Thanks for sticking to the end.