The Thing and the Whole of the Thing

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Rather than waste its time on hateful bigotry and petty violence, if only mankind devoted its time and energy to solving the more difficult problems of the soul. Such as how to handle and process rejection in a sane and rational manner.

There are few on earth who haven't experienced the sting of feeling unwanted. It may be a passing pain, quickly overtaken by better emotions, or it may be a dreadful burden that weighs on the soul for decades. But no human is universally accepted - we are all disliked by someone or the other. Or perhaps not liked as much as we would prefer. 

I have long bemoaned the despicable practice of turning on the one that rejected you, armed with insults and fury - a practice which has, as part of it, the concept of the friendzone. A section of society that seems to consist overwhelmingly of men attack viciously the objects of their affections once they have been turned down by them. They speak resentfully of their failures in love, dwell on the subject until it mutates into a dark obsession. They send themselves down the path of vengeance, hoping perhaps to restore their lost dignity in that fashion. 

And yet, what dignity do any of us lose? No one can be universally loved. Ergo we must all experience rejection in one form or another. How can another person's feelings about you steal anything from you?

It cannot. So even though we haven't suffered a loss of dignity, we feel as though we have. That seems to me to be linked to pride. It is our pride that is wounded, our assumption that we cannot be refused. But how can this be love in any form? This fury at being refused implies a certain entitlement to a person, of all things. And none of us can be said to be in love with our cars, apartments, or prized pair of shoes. (Granted, a lot of people joke about it, but...) One does not fall in love with one's possessions, so to treat a love interest as a possession gives rise to an essential conflict.

Pride and entitlement. That's what it comes down to.

The principles associated with polyamory hold that jealousy is natural, but an indicator of one's own emotional conflict. A red flag that should allow us to examine our own feelings and better our own personalities so that we may stop treating the people in our lives as possessions we can assert claims over. The sting of rejection holds a similar position, in my opinion.

So how can we healthily process and move past the negative backlash that comes with feeling rejected?

I think perhaps the most important aspect of it may be letting go. Letting go of our attachment to the idea of a particular relationship - to the images we longingly built up in our own imaginations. And the memories, if there are any, while probably beautiful, must not represent something that shapes our future. Allow the past to remain in the past. Should anything change in the future, then that's something to be thankful for.

But in the meantime, it is essential that we forge our identities independently of anybody else's. That we know who we are, as individuals, as people. That sense of identity should not be defined in terms of "Strong, independent woman who don't need no man," or "bros before hoes" or any other populist catchphrase; but rather in terms of our passions, our interests, our careers... our sexuality, our gender identity, the role we wish to play in society.

Here I come to the last factor - fear. Fear of loneliness. Fear of who you might be without that relationship. Fear of imagining a life without that person in it. Fear that such a life represents a loss.

Our lives should be complete in and of ourselves. Anyone else could be an equal partner, a teammate in the terrible circus that is life. But they cannot be a part of us. The concept of a soulmate is a flawed one - your soul is yours, and yours alone. It is a complete soul, capable of standing alone and thriving. You are not incomplete until the day you find your "other half." You are not half, but the thing and the whole of the thing.*

* Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant