How do you "keep your cool" when the rejection is over the top?

Okay. I want to address a serious issue. What happens when the person rejecting you is so spiteful or nasty that you can't help but take it personally? The question basically is: At what point is it okay to actually say "Wait a minute! Something's wrong and I intend to put a stop to it!"?

I'll give you three scenarios. Two are fictitious but prove a point. The third one actually happened to me in 2000. I was unable to keep my cool and shot out at the person who did this -- surprisingly, it worked.


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Scenario 1: This was actually from the "Sitcom" Two and a Half Men -- I've made reference to it several times, but I figure it's a great point because this is clearly the worst case scenario I can think of that doesn't involve bodily mutilation of some sort:


Alan goes into a bar with his brother Charlie and sees a group of like 8 girls. He is encouraged by Charlie to go talk to them. He doesn't usually succeed and this is no exception. Meanwhile, Charlie is able to talk to all of them and seems to be breaking the ice without really trying.


Charlie goes back and starts bragging about how great the girls who just turned Alan down were and Alan says "I'm going to die alone, aren't I?". He says "Hold On One Moment", goes over to the girls, comes back and says "If it were up to them, yes, you would die alone."


I'm sure there's a part of everyone that would want to hit one of the members of the group with an empty beer bottle or try taking a palm heel strike to Charlie's nose at this point.


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Scenario 2: This one isn't so bad, in fact, it's almost laughable. This was from a game and the ironic thing is that even after you do what I was thinking, the dialogue is still the same.



A guy walks into a bar and sees a redheaded girl sitting there. Upon saying "Hi there" to her, he is struck down right away by this woman who says "Buzz off, or I'll have my boyfriend take care of you when he comes back from the restroom!".


Needless to say, you go to the bathroom and no one's there. Now this one might be a bit funny, but deep down, I'm sure you're thinking about saying to her "Looks like your hot date skipped out on you to be with a prostitute."


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Scenario 3:

I was in my second-to-last year in college and after playing a game, a fairly attractive girl comes up to me and says that she noticed me on campus, even if I may or may not have noticed her and she wanted to get to know me, so she asked me for my phone number.



I told her I only exchanged phone numbers. In the meantime, she was standing in a way that it was impossible to not look down her shirt unless I was looking behind me. Well, after she left, I played a hunch and called the number -- yep, she gave me a bogus number. I was ticked.


I saw her again two months later and asked about the number, to which she said that someone kept calling her number so she had it changed (yeah, right!), and then she told me that she had a boyfriend and was going to become a lesbian. One or the other I might have believed, but both was a bit much for me. She asked me if I'd let her go and I said "Go on, you frickin' liar!", then walked off.



This actually worked. Five months later, I saw her one last time and she openly apologized, saying it was part of a prank that her friends had her do. I forgave her for the sake of not driving her crazy, but openly told her she needed to get better friends.


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When the rejection is incredibly over-the-top, is it even possible to not take it personally? If so, what do you do?


I also would like to hear any horror rejection stories that have happened to you and how you handled them.

Okay. I want to address a serious issue. What happens when the person rejecting you is so spiteful or nasty that you can't help but take it personally? The question basically is: At what point is it okay to actually say "Wait a minute! Something's wrong and I intend to put a stop to it!"?

I'll give you three scenarios. Two are fictitious but prove a point. The third one actually happened to me in 2000. I was unable to keep my cool and shot out at the person who did this -- surprisingly, it worked.


-----------------------------------------------------


Scenario 1: This was actually from the "Sitcom" Two and a Half Men -- I've made reference to it several times, but I figure it's a great point because this is clearly the worst case scenario I can think of that doesn't involve bodily mutilation of some sort:


Alan goes into a bar with his brother Charlie and sees a group of like 8 girls. He is encouraged by Charlie to go talk to them. He doesn't usually succeed and this is no exception. Meanwhile, Charlie is able to talk to all of them and seems to be breaking the ice without really trying.


Charlie goes back and starts bragging about how great the girls who just turned Alan down were and Alan says "I'm going to die alone, aren't I?". He says "Hold On One Moment", goes over to the girls, comes back and says "If it were up to them, yes, you would die alone."


I'm sure there's a part of everyone that would want to hit one of the members of the group with an empty beer bottle or try taking a palm heel strike to Charlie's nose at this point.


-----------------------------------------------------


Scenario 2: This one isn't so bad, in fact, it's almost laughable. This was from a game and the ironic thing is that even after you do what I was thinking, the dialogue is still the same.



A guy walks into a bar and sees a redheaded girl sitting there. Upon saying "Hi there" to her, he is struck down right away by this woman who says "Buzz off, or I'll have my boyfriend take care of you when he comes back from the restroom!".


Needless to say, you go to the bathroom and no one's there. Now this one might be a bit funny, but deep down, I'm sure you're thinking about saying to her "Looks like your hot date skipped out on you to be with a prostitute."


------------------------------------------------------


Scenario 3:

I was in my second-to-last year in college and after playing a game, a fairly attractive girl comes up to me and says that she noticed me on campus, even if I may or may not have noticed her and she wanted to get to know me, so she asked me for my phone number.



I told her I only exchanged phone numbers. In the meantime, she was standing in a way that it was impossible to not look down her shirt unless I was looking behind me. Well, after she left, I played a hunch and called the number -- yep, she gave me a bogus number. I was ticked.


I saw her again two months later and asked about the number, to which she said that someone kept calling her number so she had it changed (yeah, right!), and then she told me that she had a boyfriend and was going to become a lesbian. One or the other I might have believed, but both was a bit much for me. She asked me if I'd let her go and I said "Go on, you frickin' liar!", then walked off.



This actually worked. Five months later, I saw her one last time and she openly apologized, saying it was part of a prank that her friends had her do. I forgave her for the sake of not driving her crazy, but openly told her she needed to get better friends.


-------------------------------------------------------


When the rejection is incredibly over-the-top, is it even possible to not take it personally? If so, what do you do?


I also would like to hear any horror rejection stories that have happened to you and how you handled them.

I wasn't halfway through story #3 and I could have told you it was not sincere on her part. Did you not sense that too?