My name is Josh, and I am single. I like being single. That doesn’t mean I want to be single my whole life, just right now. I’m happy having no responsibilities and being able to make decisions with only me in mind and not a significant other. No kids in the picture either. I’m 25, own my house, have my own consulting business on the side, and make a pretty good salary that I get to spend any way I want.

But I’m not gonna talk about the sweet life I live buying big screen TVs, fast cars, and…waking up alone every morning. I’m gonna talk about the rejection. Rejection comes in a lot of different forms when you’re single.

First is what I call the Prejection. It comes before you even say a word to a girl. You see the cute, petite brunette across the bar and your eyes meet. You smile at her with the hope that she’ll flash a shy grin back, and all you get are rolled eyes, a disgusted look, or sometimes a middle finger. A part of you thinks, “…Who wants to meet a girl at a bar anyway? I want to meet a girl at church…” and brush it off. But inside you’re disappointed. You’ve just been rejected based completely on your looks. Or you had a booger. Either way, you’ll spend hours in the mirror trying to convince yourself you’re not a troll, even though deep down…you know.

The next form of rejection hurts deep. This is the Gut-Wrench Rejection. About a year ago, a buddy of mine was in town with a group of his friends. I didn’t know any of them, but we met up at a country-western bar. Immediately I gravitated toward Sarah. She was blonde, beautiful, and had the cutest face I’d ever seen. We started talking and soon we were sitting in a booth by ourselves, finishing each others’ sentences. We both liked the same music, movies, and TV shows. The conversation flowed with no awkward pauses. We had just met, but it felt like we had known each other for years. “I think I just found my soul-mate” I started thinking, when less than a minute later the words, “My daughter…” came out of her mouth. Immediately, my eyes shot down to her left hand, and the wedding ring was laughing at me. The intense disappointment sets in, but you can’t let it show. She’s in the middle of talking about her kids now, and her wonderful husband. You start getting a little angry. Why couldn’t she mention them, oh, an hour ago when we first started talking??

The final single-guy rejection is what I like to called Getting Scrabbled. This is when the girl gives you the strangest, mind-boggling, and sometimes the most clever rejection line you’ve ever heard. I went on a few “fake dates” with a girl named Becky in college. Fake dates mean working out together at the gym, studying in the library, eating in the cafeteria together, etc. After about 3 weeks of this I asked her out to dinner on Friday night. A real date. Her response: “I can’t, I’m playing Scrabble with my roommate Friday night.” I had heard them all up to this point. I’ve gotten the, “I think we’d be better as friends”, and the “I’m not ready to date anyone right now”, and every other standard, generic rejection line out there. But Scrabble? That was a new low…

The key to dealing with all forms of rejection is laughing at it. Tell the story to a friend and laugh about it. Make fun of yourself. The quicker you can do that, the easier it will be to accept the next board game that comes between you and a hot date.

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