This was a hard diary to write. (And I warn you: it may be hard for you to read.)
It’s been one of the most difficult exercises of both my mental and emotional energy. it involved a lot of revising, pondering, parsing, revising again, and all the other steps you take when you want to make sure you’re saying exactly what you want to say, and you want to avoid giving off any stray bad impressions.
I hope my efforts have succeeded.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
I see where the lovelorn young men are coming from. Sort of.
Not the violent, hate-filled ones— just the everyday ones. The ones who either haven’t fallen in with the incels yet, or who are avoiding them. The ones who find themselves utterly baffled by relationships. The ones who’ve given up on ever being good at love, who have resigned themselves to lonely lives even though they are are not happy as loners.
Because after each rejection, they hear a variation of the title of this diary.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
“Work on yourself and everything will be all right” is something I stopped having faith in a long time ago.
Every one of us who has had any degree of difficulty with people in their life has heard those words at some point. We usually hear these words as the people speaking them are rejecting us in some way.
Those words are meant to imbue us with hope and optimism, as the people uttering them are forever closing off a door of opportunity to us; letting us know that even as this particular door is closing, they want us to have faith in another door opening.
Meanwhile, they’re rejecting us because of who we are, because our personal faults were too great for them to bear, because they outweighed the good things we brought to their table.
Moreover, they’re casting us out into a unforgiving world with our foibles intact. And so, having failed to correct our mistakes, we are doomed to repeat them with other people, bumbling through life always the last to know what’s holding us back.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
“It’s just something for you to work on.”
“Just be self-confident and you’ll naturally attract good things to you.”
“There are other fish in the sea.”
“There are other employers who will want you.”
Etc. etc. etc.
A lifetime of hearing these words, without any change in your circumstances, feels less and less like comfort… and more and more like a trap.
What are you supposed to do while you’re “working on yourself” anyway? It’s implied that you need to become a better version of yourself before you stand a chance of succeeding in life. So you need to take yourself out of the game for a while, supposedly. Scale back what you believe you’re capable of, because it’s apparently less than you once believed.
“Working on yourself” feels like a sentence to sit on the sidelines of life, waiting for a wiser person to pronounce you ready before you’re allowed to jump back in. You lose trust in your own instincts, your ability to judge your own readiness; because too many people in your life very confidently and authoritatively pronounce you not ready.
It’s assumed that your instincts and judgment are unreliable, because they've gotten so much wrong before. Other people have better, more accurate spidey-senses than you; and they know you better than you know yourself.
You resist at first, but gradually you start to cave in. What if other people really do know you better than you know yourself, you think. After all, if you’re trying to improve your relationships, isn’t that kind of the first step— seeing yourself as others see you? Isn’t the rule that if twenty people call you a duck, you should check yourself for eiderdown?
But seeing yourself as others see you ends up shattering your self-confidence. You hear your voice on a tape recorder for the first time, and cringe. You see yourself in a photograph, watch the way your clothes hang on you, watch your posture, witness your smile; and you cringe again. You really do look and sound this way, this way that’s inferior to your imagination, to the rest of the world, you think. And overnight, you’re less happy, less brave, less sure you’ll be all right.
How can something that’s supposed to be so good for your character, make you feel so miserable? How can something that’s supposed to help you grow, instead make you wish you’d never been born?
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Seeing yourself as others see you— and trying to fix how you come across-- means reading into everything. Making sure you don’t miss a single signal, so that no one can ever accuse you of being unaware, self-centered, or a poor listener again. It means being hard on yourself, because you just know you have to: because every time you’re been easier on yourself, you’ve suffered the consequences: being called unaware/self-centered/poor listener, yet again.
It means you can never relax or have fun. Partly because of what happens when you do, and partly because you may not be able to relax or have fun the right way. You don’t look or feel right to yourself when you see yourself from a distance; and you must assume you come across even worse to others. You’re not fun enough. There are too many other people whose personalities outshine yours, and who will get chosen instead of you.
The absolute worst thing you hear during this time is, “don’t try so hard.” In one fell swoop, your powers of intelligence and hard work are swept away like nothing. Because hard work and thinking mean nothing when it comes to relationships; in fact, attracting them seems to demand the opposite. All about that “looking like you can relax and have fun".
To you, it feels like an edict, an ever-moving goalpost, another item on your never-ending checklist; and as such, the exact opposite of fun.
It’s easy to start mild and ratchet up your efforts. It feels almost impossible to start intense and then dial it back. Because, once again, it doesn’t matter if you see your intensity level as just right— all that matters is how others see it. Your point of view, your intentions don’t matter one whit when it comes to the world of relationships.
And so, what else is there to do but give up? No relationship is worth all this futility. And why would you want to pay such a high admission price for being liked, anyway? Life is too short for that.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
You are very much loved by your family. But outside your family, you get nothing. You don’t get the opportunities, the promotions, the relationships. You don’t get the evidence from others that your social skills are indeed better, than all your hard work on yourself has, in fact, worked.
Oh, later on you get hellos and smiles. You can do small talk (though you don’t like it) and you can cut loose at the odd party. But that’s it. The meaty stuff, the connections that will bring you success and wealth and true emotional healing, they continue to elude you.
You don't know whether you’re really OK, and you just didn’t drift into others’ orbit this time… or if, in fact, you’re still not good enough, and they have voted with their feet.
And apparently, you’re supposed to be OK with this particular uncertainty. For your own emotional balance, of course.
Never knowing if you still have the same snakebit personality, and therefore you’re doomed to fail. Having “did others choose me?" as the only reliable test for where you stand with people. Because they are too nice to tell you your personality is snakebit and you’re doomed to fail.
“We’ve decided to go in another direction.”
What does that mean? Since when did disagreeing on the direction you two should go, become a dealbreaker? A transgression that can only be addressed by severing the relationship and never looking back? The crime of not having perfect alignment.
Or is that just a euphemism for “I find you completely unsuitable and hope we never cross paths again”?
Or could it be both?
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
And knowing, even if your personality isn’t doomed, that their rejection still means you miss out on life experiences.
Personal growth happens through relationships. Rejection stops relationships from forming in the first place. Therefore, rejection stifles your growth. Your life.
You fail to become that better version of yourself, because of others’ rejection. You don’t learn to become a friend, a lover, a leader, a confidante. You don’t learn to make a difference. You don’t develop connections with people.
Rejection doesn’t just foreclose on any given life experience. It’s a denial of permission for you to live your life. It’s a statement that you cannot both be who you wish, and have the other person be happy. That you must, in order to respect the rejector, allow your life to become smaller. “Thank you sir, may I have another. Another bite out of my life.”
Rejection is unavoidable and happens to everyone, but that doesn’t make me feel any better about it. Think of who we could be, if not for rejection. How much more capable, sophisticated, interesting, and connected we could be.
Think also of what we give up when we try desperately not to be rejected. All the molding ourselves into what we think others want. All the subsuming our identities to the tribe, because we are constantly told that making ourselves similar to others is essential for rapport and liking.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
You wonder if the average person realizes how lucky they are. Their good job, their marriage, their circle of friends, their rock band, their activist group all happened because somebody else said yes to them. And they said yes back.
Lucky enough to have the people you like, like you back. That you’ve made a hidden mutual agreement to be a part of each other’s lives.
Most people don’t give this a second thought— they don’t realize how precious this consent really is. It’s just something in the water, and they’re fish.
If any of those yeses had been replaced with a no—they lose that particular experience. If everyone says no, they lose everything.
And there’s nothing you can do about a no but back away. Forever. Rejections must be treated as forever, thanks to the rules of boundaries.
Thanks, too, to the bad behavior of too many before you who thought rejections weren't forever. Who thought they still had a chance. And who were so focused on staying in the game, that they made the other person feel unsafe.
Unsafe. A word that makes you feel dirty and contagious. If you were the one who made this person feel unsafe, that’s devastating. To think you actively detracted from someone else’s life, that they would have been better off if they’d never met you.
You must get rid of whatever it is that makes you unsafe, now, before any more of your life is ruined and any more connections are irretrievably lost.
How do you make yourself safe, without taking yourself out of commission?
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Say goodbye forever to those who say no to you— and wish them well. Wish them well for making a good decision about their life. A decision that enhances their life, by shriveling yours.
Because you were not the person to make them happy. You were not the qualified applicant. The one best for the part. The one to love and be loved.
You failed to make their hearts sing, so you could not be part of their life.
If no one wants you, if you cannot make anyone’s heart sing— what is the point of your existence? Are you not just “surplus population”?
Aren’t you failing at the highest calling of humanity— to bring joy and beauty to life?
How do you learn to make someone else’s heart sing without jettisoning what you love about yourself?
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
And if you cannot make a lot of people’s hearts sing— does that mean you will never have a positive impact on the world, that you will only ever matter to a small circle of friends and family? If you are driven to achieve broader impact, you will probably never be able to be content with just the esteem of a few.
It feels as if the world has told you, “we have decided that making a big difference is just not your strength, so you should just focus on what you’re good at.” Meanwhile, you can never forget how good it felt to be part of a campaign, a social movement, a something else big. You can’t just walk away from that easily, no matter how much happiness and tranquility you are told you will gain.
You wonder why your “happiness” apparently demands your resignation. Why does “balance” involve so much scaling back, so much limiting yourself?
How do you take care of yourself, without removing yourself from the game?
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
One thing you can do during the indefinite limbo of “working on yourself” is therapy. So many people throw around the advice to “go to therapy” like peanuts at a circus. Without regard for whether the receiver of this advice can afford it, can access it, or will click with the available therapists in their area.
What if the current trends or best practices— say, CBT, self-esteem enhancement, religious-oriented therapy— simply don’t address your needs? Or what if your therapist just doesn’t get you? Therapists are humans just like you, and can be wide of the mark as to your needs just like your friends and family can be.
I spent years visiting counselors who made it their mission to increase my self-esteem. Who saw me feeling better about myself as a prerequisite, without which nothing else could go forward. Because that was the “hot” therapy trend at the time; and they were either unable, unwilling, or hadn’t the time for further exploration.
Meanwhile, nothing I really needed to talk about— what I really needed to address in order to emotionally heal— got addressed. My workplace culture worries. My fears about my place in society. My fears of being a far less capable or intelligent person than I’d always been led to believe. My fears of never being able to make a difference, because who I am was incorrigibly flawed.
But in particular, fears of the remedy being worse than the ailment. What if the “work on myself” was going to turn me turn into a person I didn’t like? What if it was going to force me to give up qualities about myself I wanted to keep?
Apparently, the always-calm, flatly unhelpful, bureaucratic counselors and superiors in my life who were my most common source of negative feedback, were my emotional betters. I thought I had to make myself become just like them in order to be emotionally intelligent. An utterer of platitudes like, “just feel better about yourself and everything will fall into place!”
We talk about the importance of learning the system; but is one of the goals of learning the system that you see it as just fine the way it is, and have no desire to see it improve? Is the goal of “working within” to wear you down so you no longer see the situation with fresh eyes?
It seems the main result of “working on yourself”, then, is that you go away. Take yourself out of the game. Or, spend so much time working on yourself that you don’t do anything else.
Remember, making a difference is for people who are “all better”. Who are easy for people to say yes to. Who are liked by people.
A certain quote from Karl Rove comes to mind. You sit on the sidelines, studying judiciously, watching society’s actors shape their world and actually live their lives.
Counseling, instead of living your best life.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Another message I have never believed in, is the oft-touted power to choose your own attitude in any given scenario. (Sorry, Viktor Frankl.)
I do not believe that changing my outlook is good enough. I see no power in choosing my attitude. Choosing your attitude is something you do when you can't change the bad situation. It certainly doesn’t qualify, in my mind, as “choosing my own way".
It feels more like the kind of choice that you give your misbehaving child when he refuses to do the chores: “You can choose to take the garbage out, Timmy, or you can choose to have your bottom smacked.” And then if Timmy does choose, again, not to take out the garbage, you can then turn around and say he chose this consequence for himself through his behavior.
Any choice where the answer is obvious is a false choice.
Any choice where the consequences are unacceptable is a false choice.
If I know a situation can be changed, and should be changed, I am not going to content myself with just changing how I feel about it.
I don’t need so much to be happy that I let things go that shouldn’t be let go.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
I will admit, I probably bring all my relational problems on myself. I’m not willing to do whatever it takes to be happy and calm. I’m not willing to make myself similar to others in order to be more likeable. I’m not willing to spend money and energy I don’t have on a good impression.
Which means I will probably continue to have the same social results the rest of my life. Which is sad.
But equally sad is the idea that social connections come from copycatting body language. From dressing, thinking and living alike. From agreeing to only tell others what they want to hear. From never questioning leaders. From running in a perpetual first-impression hamster wheel. From “achieving happiness” through resigning yourself and letting go.
#MeToo has gotten a lot of us thinking about the hidden, everyday coercions in our relationships. Why shouldn’t the implicit bargain in too many relationships— I will love you, as long as you remain exactly the person I want you to be— be thoroughly inspected, dissected and vivisected?
Why should the very qualities that make us skilled at relationships be the same ones that leave us wide open to tribalism and groupthink?
Seth Godin says we must have a tribe. How about safeguards to keep our tribes from turning into People’s Temples?
I wonder if people think a little group coercion is A-OK; after all, they get good relationships and purported emotional health in the bargain.
I say: the minute you decide to stand up for what’s right for you, the moment you decide you won’t be coerced; your community and relationships disappear. Sometimes in a flash; more often over a little time. But what a devil’s bargain: we love you, we want to make you feel welcome, we have your back as long as you fit in. As long as you follow the leader and never talk about the elephant in the room.
And ergo: we have why the Republican Congress is so cowardly. Why too many Democrats acceed to corporate wishes. Because they imbibe the same message we do: that relationships are something to be gained and kept at all costs, even your integrity and personal safety.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
So that’s basically what I think of “work on yourself”: a nice-sounding Catch-22 designed to keep you chasing your tail. Plenty of people will tell me I’m wrong, and I respect that. I just haven’t found the hard evidence to make me believe it’s anything but a double bind.
I probably would be happier if I allowed myself to buy in to the "nice platitudes”. After all, they are probably Something That Works, and my refusal to do Things That Work likely complicates all my efforts to build a better life.
But I guess that’s the whole theme of what I’m driving at here, and one that, curiously, reflects a kind of optimism: I think and do how I do because I want a better choice of Things That Work. So that we don’t have to choose Something That Works that ends us leaving us dead inside.
So that we don’t have to “choose happiness” by resignation and surrender.
I don’t know if my life is ultimately going to make any kind of positive difference. I don’t know if, when I get off my duff and start writing those books I say I’m going to, my words will make anyone’s heart sing. I don’t know if I will make any kind of political impact. My shortcomings, and unwillingness to do What Works, may end up overwhelming all of my good qualities.
I hope not.
But at least I know I will have kept searching for better answers, a better way to live, and especially relationships that don’t have coercion as their foundation. At least I know I will have kept those things in my mind all the way.