Rejection is a part of life as a man, Mark Radcliffe explains, but women don’t deserve men’s anger as a result.
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It’s as common a part of the heterosexual male experience as there is: sooner or later, a woman rejects you. She turns down your offer for a date. Declines the drink you want to buy her. Side-steps the kiss you go for at the end of the night. Isn’t receptive to your invite to your bedroom. Or she just plain wants to not see you any more. Possibly even divorce you. And it’s never easy.
Sometimes we damn well deserve it. Sometimes we don’t. But either way, we have a moral responsibility of dealing with it better. Because let’s face it: male rage is a very real problem for women in today’s world. There are too many Elliot Rodger types in our midst, so incapable of dealing with rejection that their skewed perspective leads to needless tragedy – on a small or large scale. So before the next one of us says, “It’s not fair, I don’t deserve this rejection. I’m going to make her pay,” it’s time we all got the fuck over ourselves, and help our fellow men understand that part of being a man is accepting what we can’t change. Here’s a few reasons to get us started:
1) We’re not entitled to her acceptance.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you dressed up real nice. Put on cologne. Opened the doors for her, had great conversation and maybe bought her dinner. Even learned swing-dancing last fall so you could charm her on the dance floor. (Which she loved!) But, hey, for whatever, in the end, she opted out. Declined the kiss, the next date, the whatever. She said, “No thanks.” and maybe never even gave you a reason (which she has no obligation to offer).
You might be tempted to be pissed. Unfortunately, that’s the romantic casino you chose to roll the dice in. You gambled and lost. But don’t worry, you can gamble again. What you can’t do is make it your life’s mission to “get even” with her. You’re going to be a man about it. And being a man isn’t about not feeling hurt: sure, you can feel hurt, bummed out, whatever. Hell, you can even tell her that. The show of vulnerability is important. But you shouldn’t try to make sure she’s hurting, too, by lashing out emotionally (and certainly not physically).
2) She doesn’t deserve our anger.
She’s just living her life. And while the burden of initiation still appears to rest mostly on the shoulders of men, that burden doesn’t entitle us to expect compliance for putting our necks out there. We have no more right to a woman’s time & affection that we do to Harvard granting us unconditional admission. We can knock on the door, but it’s up to them who they allow into their world. Not us.
3) Want to impress a woman? Show her how you handle resistance.
A strong man doesn’t fly into a rage when things don’t go as planned. He handles it with maturity. With grace. With a smirk, and a nod of understanding. And adjusts his approach accordingly. This doesn’t mean “trying again” so many times until you wear her down (although a little persistence has been known to make a good impression.) It’s about knowing when your sights are best set elsewhere. And if you do want to change her mind, start by showing you respect her decisions.
4) Becoming a disgruntled “rejectee” makes you one step closer to a stalker.
Or an abusive boyfriend. Or a rapist. Or a murderer. Think I’m stretching? 1500 women are murdered by intimate partners every year. And they all started out somewhere–often just with getting overly upset at a casual dismissal. You letting yourself getting too wounded by her disapproval means you could be on your way to some ridiculous pattern of over-reacting, and at its worst, possibly physical abuse.
5) Getting upset at her isn’t exactly going to change her mind.
If she already was leaning away from you, you’re not exactly making her change her impression of you by freaking out and getting angry. Do you think she’s going to hear you call her a stuck-up bitch and say, “Oh, maybe I was wrong about him. Maybe he is the kind of charming, considerate, affectionate man I’ve been looking for after all!” We need to earn our place in their lives through love and respect, not intimidation.
6) It might not be about you at all.
Maybe she’s just exhausted. Or just got out of a relationship. Or is just getting over a cold. Or one of her parents is gravely ill. Or you remind her too much of her ex. Or her father. Or she’s in the middle of a job change. But to assume it’s always because she deems you unworthy is not only often inaccurate, but smacks of insecurity and self-pity–two characteristics that will make sure she’s not interested.
7) You’re screwing it up for the rest of us.
If your over-reacting fills her with a heightened fear of men, then she’ll be less likely to open her heart to the next guy. So not only will she miss out on possible romance, but so will your fellow men whom she’s too gun shy now to even consider.
You’re also screwing it up for all the boys and young men out there in your life who are watching you, observing you are learning from your behavior when you get rebuffed by a woman. And you can change those abuse numbers. Those rape numbers. Those homicide numbers. Even if just a little, by simply starting to take the everyday reaction of “Sorry, I’m not interested” with more maturity and aplomb.
Start today: go ask a woman out. Have her say no thanks. Than smile and love along. And don’t complain about her, don’t call her stuck up or a “bitch,” don’t over-think it and assume she thinks she’s better than you. And don’t be surprised if she comes tracking you down later wondering why you moved on so easily.
8) If you can’t handle rejection from women, how will you handle it elsewhere?
Any life spent chasing goals is going to run into some resistance–romantic pursuits aside. If we can’t handle when a woman says she’s not interested, how will be handle it when an employer says the same thing? Or when a bank says they won’t approve our loan? When we get injured and can no longer run the marathon we’ve trained months for? Or when we fall prey to layoffs during a bad economy and find ourselves unexpectedly unemployed?
How we handle rejection in our romantic lives is a good barometer of how well we’ll adapt when our personal or professional goals meet resistance, too. Making our romantic dreams come to fruition isn’t so different from doing so with any other goal. Sometimes you don’t get the result you want. But it doesn’t mean some other wonderful result isn’t still possible for us. We just need to accept the things we can’t change, yet have the courage to change the ones we can.
And often that “thing” that needs to be changed is simply our attitude.
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Photo: Shutterstock 167161316
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Guys, if you are lucky, you will reach the point where you have found the woman who is right for you, and you are right for her, and you will live happily ever after. You will realize that the women who rejected you were just not right for you- you’re better off without them. You may even still be in touch with women you split with more amicably, and you may find that they are with men that are better for them than you would have been, and they are living happily ever after as well. Win-win. It takes awhile… Read more »
Thanks Mark, that was a very thoughtful piece. I can totally understand that many men are raging at women these days because, yes, women are NOT perfect. Many have their own personal issues & some are just downright unwell. Their manners are thoroughly lacking & throw in the surge of hormones people have in their late teens through to some time in their 30’s,… well it’s a bad mix for both genders. I ask the gentlemen reading to consider (please) that nearly all women have been sexualised often from before they even started school, and the fear that instills lasts… Read more »
Some of these comments are from bitter mgtow dudes who hate women. That’s fine if you’re better off alone, but quit bitching about women already. They can’t just go their own way and leave it at that. They have to launch into an all out rant against women .
There are a lot of very good men out there that desire a true loving relationship with a good woman, but were or what happen to them? First and foremost it seems a good majority of them desire something that is unreasonable off the bat. Money. Lots and lots of money! A women that desires only that is a broken female. Abuse from men to women is sad just because of rejection. Yes. We know that. When this happens a bit much then he gives up trying to find true love and please don’t even go online to dating sites.… Read more »
Ajames, It is the women of today unfortunately that have certainly changed for the worst of all which they certainly do have of a lot of problems with us good men. I did the online dating thing as well since these women don’t even show up at all when you plan to meet them at a certain place. Quite a change today from the old days since most women were very Normal back then compared to today.
Well unfortunately many women do have a lot of very severe mental problems nowadays since they’re ready to take their problems out on us good innocent men for no reason at all when we will try to talk to the one that we would really like to meet which doesn’t go well at all for many of us men trying to meet a good woman today. Most of the women out there now don’t even have any respect for us men at all today since most of them have the worse personality and no manors at all either. And back… Read more »
Since some of us are guaranteed outright rejection every time, there is no point in asking any woman out in the first place. I don’t fear rejection because I know that it’s guaranteed – so I just don’t open myself to it. If there was even a tiny chance that a woman would say yes, I’d enthusiastically ask her out – but there is no chance of that, so I don’t say anything. I’ve never asked a woman out in my life and never will – and in fact act completely professionally with women in all circumstances. I’m not angry… Read more »
#MGTOW is the answer
Thank you for this article! I hope it sparks some self reflection.
Most of the women of today are just so very nasty to many of us innocent good men for know reason at all which now they have become so very dangerous just to start a normal conversation with them. A bunch of very sad women everywhere these days unfortunately.
Thank-you, Mark! As a feminist man, I try to take rejection in stride. I’ve never called a woman a bitch for rejecting me, even on the inside. I don’t blame women for my lameness. Men chase, women choose… It just gets so hard to chase after too much rejection. Can you write an article on how to not give up? How to deal with constant rejection in a healthy way? For the record, I don’t get angry, I get super depressed. Any help would be great.
dont be the chaser, be chased.
I am a girl and I just rejected a guy. I was interested in him until I heard him make a negative commet about me. I had just met him and he didn’t know me. I felt like if I had giving him my number then I would have to deal with verbal abuse. Guys need to be careful what they say about a women as she’s walking away. I went to shake his hand and he pulled me towards him. Not knowing him I dident know what he was going to do. I have seen him several times after… Read more »
At first it is hilarious how the comments are all from men who can’t handle romantic advice articles for men yet have intentionally sought them out.It just gets a little sickening after awhile.If you can’t stand women and don’t want to date them why are you even reading this?Shaming men? More like it’s your life mission to shame any women who would feel just a smidgeon okay in the world knowing someone has addressed how bitter and angry men have become.The bitter comments just remind women that yes men are indeed angry,bitter,and hate women.
The most important reason men need to deal with women’s rejection better is that divorce, separation, breakup and relationship problems are shockingly well-tied to male suicide. An Australian study found young men were more than 91 times — 91 times — more likely to commit suicide in the year after a separation. An American study found divorced men were 2.4 times more likely to commit suicide than men of any other marital status. I think it is very important to teach men to better handle women’s rejection, although not necessarily for the comparatively trivial reasons this writer cited. References: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19128839… Read more »
Mark
I am sorry nobody responded to your comment here.
If being abandoned is a dangerous thing for some men,I will not decribe this as an attutude problem,It goes far deeper. Nobody commits sucide because they have bad attitudes ……
( I could not find anything on the second link)
I’m late to this discussion but I’d like to offer a topic for the good men project to start a discussion on. That is, male anger more appropriately directed at other men, but taken out on women. The way I see it, and have experienced, is the anger from men towards those men that women DON’T REJECT. This is possibly the origin of the self titled ‘nice guy’ against the ‘bad boy’ illusionary man. The latter is simply the type of guy that women find attractive and want to have sex with. These men aren’t ‘bad’ at all and I… Read more »
Likewise, women need to deal with the fact that I’m full-on #MGTOW, and have no interest in them whatsoever. I’m not going to take them on expensive dates or pay the bills they are stuck with when their baby-daddy left them cold
Ok so if she’s not even obligated to give me reason for turning me down then as far as I’m concerned I’m not obligated to waste 3 hours of my time and $60 to buy her dinner and drinks and show her a good time. Hell, why would I even be courteous when “she’s not obligated” to do the same thing in return. The kind of bullshit this mangina cuck is spewing is exactly the reason i dont take girls on dates anymore. If i like you then we go for drinks and you’re buying you’re own alcohol but I’m… Read more »
Dolan, You sound like the type of asshole who would verbally or physically abuse a woman even if you bought them nothing..NO woman deserves to get her ass beaten. Just ask any police officer.
It’s women like you that don’t get it. We men, especially the good ones, are the punching bags of society. We are blamed for everything and shown absolutely no gratitude for the things we do. Most of us just want to find the right girl, fall in love and have a family. But you women have taken us for granted as often as possible. You use us to pay for your meals and entertainment, you flake on us or go ghost after a date without the courtesy of saying thank you for taking you out, you act like spoiled little… Read more »
Us men are better off taking a trip to Nevada, visiting a brothel, and having sex with a prostitute.
and sorry but thats reality , men DO need to step back and really read the signs , you should be able to spot the psycho women who want to use you or play games or play you and if they say no thats them saying no , your better if i am honest avoiding them all together , they Suck energy big time
i think the problem is i have seen many women who play men , they want to be desired and somehow unobtainable , its a power game ,i have seen really nice guys fked up by women this way and its common , sadly from my experience many many women are messed up in the head, seriously they are emotionally unwell a lot of them and of course if they say no walk away , thats their right to say no but watch out as a large % of women are Energy Parasites
Hey,don’t you guys get it? The moral of the story is that you need to slow your roll and have the women do ALL the approaching.If she is SO interested,then SHE can ask YOU out.Then NO ONE can say you were “entitled’, “stalking” ,”hunting quarry” , “assaultive” or whatever. It is their game, so let the women play it and risk the rejections.Problem solved!
this is how to end up alone
And why exactly is that a bad thing?
“So you can either actually listen, acknowledge the significance of the advice, or you can just rail against the article because it didn’t address the gender you wanted it to be directed to. ” ________________________ Because it’s little more then man-bashing settled nicely into a bed of misinformation, hyperbolic assumption, with its head resting on a pillow of conjecture. The author needs to do a bit of research into the matter before he first, attacks all men, then presumes that he is in a place of authority that allows him to apologize for the rest of us…after playing judge and… Read more »
As to the article, beyond the obviously misguided misanthropic bias?
If a woman rejects you, let it go. Her loss.
If the woman said a simple no, and wasn’t rude about it, they don’t deserve anger and vitriol. Heck, no one deserves it. You’re not supposed to date someone just because they asked you out whether it’s a man or woman. There’s problems with both genders in society and this article is addressing one involving men and guys here get really butt hurt over it. There decent people out there OF COURSE. But guys here are getting offended: “Oh hey! There’s something wrong with women too!” instead taking advice. Yes, there’s something wrong women too, a lot of them can… Read more »
“If the behaviors in the article don’t apply to you then you’re likely already a decent person. Why get mad?” Well, let me answer that by asking a question. If someone were to right an article about a black man that carjacked them, and insisted that black thievery is a real problem for white people, would black people speak out against it? Would we appropriately consider it a racial slur? Why not this, because we are men and if we speak out against such bigotry it is not the bigotry but us? This gentleman is casting a wide net over… Read more »
OMG. Women, grown adult women can’t handle a man saying horrible things to them?? How old are you? It’s called VENTING, ladies. It gets bad when that person is forced to repress those feelings. Also, it shows how cowardly you are when you can’t face up to the consequences of your actions, including rejecting some guy. I’m not saying abusive behavior is good. But I’m saying, it’s going to happen. What do you want? To put every person who makes you feel bad behind bars?? GROW UP.
Consequences of your actions?
If a man turns me down I can say terrible things to him, call him at all hours, and react whatever way I want and if he doesn’t just deal with it he’s a coward? Cool. Wanna go out? You better say yes. or else.
“I’m not saying abusive behavior is good.”
Cool. The women who are beaten, raped, murdered because men cannot deal with themselves, you agree, do not deserve it. That’s what the article is about.
Oh my god Luke you sound like this guy that I rejected named Sammy. I had to get the cops after him because he wouldn’t accept my rejection. Gosh Luke, if a guy needs to VENT he can vent by himself ….and leave me the fuck alone !
Brilliant!!!!!
I’m going to tell that girl I rejected earlier this week that she is not entiteled to my acceptance.