  Romance/Love
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I'm fifty years old, a female, and I'm not in a relationship.
And sometimes (often), it hurts.
I'm no expert on relationships ( )! Or psychology.
I'm just someone who is trying to analyse why it hurts. |
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Dear Reader,
This November would've been my 25th wedding anniversary -- except that I didn't get married. In October, 1992, six days before my 25th birthday, there was a phone call to say the guy's family was breaking off the engagement.
It had been an arranged match. My Mom had met him first, checked his background with some community elders, got my Dad to meet him (and his parents) and then got the two of us to meet. It was exactly six months from the day he and I first met to the day of the breaking-off call.
I was, of course, devastated. There had been no friction, no fight -- our last conversation before the break up had been about which flavour of ice cream we would serve at one of the pre-wedding functions. I cried. Then, I went back to my work and my hobbies. But I never really forgot.
Nothing significant for a while, personal-relationship-wise
Cut to last year.
I found myself, at the age of forty-nine, with a crush on a single guy 10 years my junior. I thought I didn't stand a chance, given the age difference and the fact that he's in theatre and surrounded by prettier, more 'appropriate' women. Then, in a casual email chat, he mentioned that he wasn't going in for an arranged marriage because of me.
What did he mean?
He's clarify in person, when we had coffee together, he said.
That meeting for coffee hasn't materialised yet. It was in October 2016 that he said we'll meet to talk, and it hasn't happened yet.
"Should I give up?" I asked him a couple of times, in the meantime. "No, no," came the reply. Several excuses, but still the promise of a meeting.
I have given up now. He's shifting to another city and doesn't keep in touch. Well, he occasionally 'likes' something I've put on Facebook, but doesn't keep in touch otherwise.
On both occasions, I hurt.
So, of course, I thought I'd make use of the emotion in a story. That's the advantage of being a writer, isn't it? No emotion goes waste!
I thought I'd analyse it.
Why does romantic rejection hurt so much? Probably the only rejection that hurts more than romantic rejection is rejection by one's parents, and (fortunately) I'm not dealing with that here. The difference between parental rejection and romantic rejection is that parental rejection occurs in the formative years and can become part of the personality, while romantic rejection usually occurs in adulthood and is a rejection of that personality -- and if the personality is strong, it can bounce back from the rejection.
So, why does romantic rejection hurt?
I guess it's because these factors come together:
1. It's the rejection of the whole of you.
Other rejections, such as, maybe rejection of your singing voice or your professional attributes, are part rejections. In most cases, for a romance, you've put the WHOLE of yourself -- mind, body, heart, soul ... out there and it has been trampled on. And that hurts.
2. It should've been two-way.
I hope I can explain what I mean here. When there's a professional transaction, it's a one-way street, or at least, it's an exchange. For example, a copywriter writes an advertisement for a product -- the client, if s/he accepts the advertisement, pays in money. So it's writing for money. In the case of a romance, it's the whole of you for the whole of me. So it's the same thing, in that sense, being exchanged. And when the whole of you casts the whole of me aside, it's like you hold the upper hand and I've been diminished in some way. It affects my self-esteem at a very deep level. If you consider yourself 'better' than me, and I value your judgement, then I am 'worse' or 'not acceptable' in some way.. And that hurts.
3. There is the implication of a long-term change in one's life.
A romance implies a pleasurable change. It affects the present and is projected to affect the future. So, along with the romance itself, there's some degree of hope that dies. And the death of hope hurts.
And which one hurt more, the broken engagement, or the non-starter?
One of my friends, when I told her I was giving up on this recent guy, said, 'Well, at least you didn't get in to it, so it won't be as painful.'
I'm not so sure.
Maybe it's because the broken engagement happened half a lifetime ago -- but the recent non-starter hurts me more. The reason is, I can at least say the first guy did accept and love me for a while. He was forced to break it off by his Mom, who thought I was taking complete possession of her precious son and didn't want to let him go. I heard from his cousin that he cried for a couple of weeks after the break-off. So his fault was cowardice, lack-of-spine. It wasn't anything to do with my not being attractive or desirable enough. After the long bouts of crying, I can comfort myself that I am still lovable. With the second guy, I need to question myself. Am I not good enough, for a guy to love? (And yeah, yeah, of course, everyone is lovable blah blah. Try telling that to my broken heart, will ya?)
What does everyone think?
I decided to do this newsletter soon after I emailed the recent guy that I'm done with making a fool of myself. And when I did decide, I thought I'd ask the Writing Dot Com community what they thought about romantic rejection. I created an in and out "Romantic Rejection" -- which currently has two entries:
ErinLynn  : Romantic rejection always hurts because it's so personal. When we present ourselves to someone and ask to be loved for who we are, it is devastating when any part or all of us is told we are not good enough. But we live...and perhaps,,,even love again.
🌕 HuntersMoon  I think ErinLynn's right. It is personal because to love is to trust and to have our trust betrayed is devastating. It makes us question our thinking and ourselves. I think we do as much harm to ourselves as the other may have inflicted.
iKïyå§ama  sent me this review, with her thoughts on the subject. Thanks, Kiya! Review of "Romantic Rejection" 
And justsonali responded with an email, which I'm going to copy-paste here, so you get it verbatim.
I've never went through a romantic rejection nor have i ever ever went through a professional rejection myself. But, i think that a romantic rejection would hurt more because in the case of a Professional rejection, if you are rejected, you can try some place else. But, in case of a Romantic rejection, you love that person and if that person ends up rejecting you, you cannot just go and try at another place like in professional rejections. You'll have to go through that heartbreak because there's no other way around it.
The duration for which a Romantic Rejection hurts depends on how truly you loved that person.
I think watching a family member or a friend go through a Romantic Rejection will hurt more because, you no doubt, love your family members and friends and clearly, you won't be able to see them getting hurt and going through so much. In my case, i'd pray to god that he lets me face all the Romantic Rejections before making any of my family members and my two best friends go through that.
I think the hurt will be directly proportional to the time you've been with that person because the more the time you've spent with him, the harder it is to forget him.
Thanks for listening!
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Thank you for the responses to "Romance/Love Newsletter (January 18, 2017)"
Turkey DrumStik 
I greatly appreciate a newsletter that puts the "love" in "romance/love". I feel that deviating from discussing the romance genre is not only a great way to embrace the diversity that "romance/love" implies but can also contribute to more nuanced stories that happen to have romantic relationships.
PS:
Here's an interview with our very own innerlight  , by our very own Elle - on hiatus  !
https://theroadtoelle.com/2017/08/19/an-interview-with-author-grace-maier-cook/
PPS:
writetight is planning to close his account here, due to health issues.
We're hoping he changes his mind and keeps the account open so that we can say 'hello' now and then!
He has been an institution on WDC for many years.
Please flood his notebook with good wishes -- by Friday, because that's when he says he's planning to say adios. |
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Romance/Love: August 23, 2017 Issue [#8454]
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