(2021-10-03) D F86 Rejection Sensitivity

Default Friend #86: Rejection sensitivity. We apply to hundreds of jobs. We swipe on hundreds if not thousands of people on dating apps. Many of us are like me, and perpetually have an infinite loop of notifications on an infinite loop of communication apps.

When you attend film school they warn you about this: People aren’t designed to be rejected as often as you’ll be as a filmmaker. Take it all with a grain of salt or you’ll lose your mind.

It’s not just artists now though. It’s everyone, all the time

Ghosting, another behavior that’s ubiquitous both professionally and romantically, speaks to our shared disposability. A formal rejection just isn’t agile.

seem like most of our complaints about modern life stem from our insistence on living life in a consumer/creator dichotomy

When people make an angry TikTok, what seems like an overblown reaction is really the proportionate reaction to a culmination of rejections.

“Self-care,” another consumer product, can’t ameliorate our alienation.

At the end of the day, rejection doesn’t ever become a statistic. It becomes a painful memory, no matter how many.

(cf Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria)