Do you fear rejection/exclusion?

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I wasn't exactly bullied at school like some Aspies here unfortunately were. But I did still have a hard time with friends, and the older I got, the more I got rejected and excluded, and I've had so many bad experiences with feeling rejected and excluded that it has now knocked me back socially.

I remember often at High School all the girls in my class hung out together, so I did too, but I hardly ever got any greetings from the other girls in the morning. I just joined the group and nobody bothered to look at me, and yet other people from the class would join and they'd be all over them. It's like there was this social box, and I was always outside of the social box, even when I tried my hardest to fit in and be pleasant.

I think it has made me grow into a very bitter person, and now I find myself getting resentful when other people talk to me about what they're doing with their friends (although I make sure I do not let them know I'm feeling this way). But I've just become very tired of being excluded, but I'm so reluctant to ask people if I could tag along or whatever, because I fear rejection. I fear rejection so bad that I have panic attacks if I am rejected because I start blaming myself. I fear exclusion so bad because if I ever saw pictures on Facebook of my friends having fun without me or without even telling me, as though it was meant to be a secret, I would completely break down and lose all hope in people.

Anyone else feel like this?

I don't think I fear it, I'm just used to it. I expect it. It seems a fact of life. Am I bitter about it? Oh yes, most assuredly.

But the truth is, if they did include me, it would only annoy me. Neurotypical interests and activities are so shallow and pedestrian.

Yes, people have made me feel rejected and excluded.

Local project services billed as actually being for us can in practice have ethics to sweep discriminatory excluding behaviours under the carpet and expediently tolerate them:

www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2013/04/508835.html

YES,

Its not the rejection that I fear so much, I'm petty used to that by now. What I do fear is the subsequent panic attacks and the further damage that can be done to what remaining confidence I still have.

I think the rejection from NTs seems to be motivated by a predatory instinct to exclude and weaken those they perceive as different.

It's painful, yes. I've mostly experienced it at work, though sometimes it may even show up in hobby clubs and the like. Typically when I attempt to join a group, I do a lot of stuff wrong that or I say the wrong things that make me incompatible in the eyes of the greater group. As a consequence, I've adopted a bit of a stand-offish attitude, and I will be even more aloof toward people I meet than I used to be as a teenager. My reasoning is that I'd rather be the one who does the rejecting, than to be the one who gets rejected. I would not recommend this to anyone, though, it can get you into some complicated situations when you need to interact with others.

I think i fear rejection more than anything. my whole life has been a series of rejections, sometimes by people i really loved, and other times by people who i felt kinda neutral about. my first forms of rejection came within my immediate family, then by my relatives. first from my fathers side and then on my mothers side. as i grew up, i was immediately considered of low standing, due to my shyness and appearance. i truly believed i was that way, and i probably still do.

primary school wasn't too bad. i got bullied a few times but mostly by my teachers, believe it or not. high school was absolutely terrible but really due to my own ability to humiliate myself in front of people. i did a good job of that, and people wouldn't pass an opportunity to laugh at someone like me. the feeling that i was something really pathetic was entrenched in me by the time i was about 15, and over the years it just grew stronger.

nowadays i get rejected too, though mostly on the web. i don't even bother trying to make real life relationships, although i crave them immensely. i am used to it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. am i bitter about it? yes, to a degree, but throughout my life i was solitary and regarded as the odd one, so i guess this is nothing new to me. you can't break a heart that's already broken, so they say.

YES. THIS. ALL OF THIS.

I expect it. If I were afraid of it, my whole life would be a giant Tales From the Crypt episode.

I fear it all the time, because it has happened to me a lot. Even in grad school when I thought all that petty BS was behind me, it still came to pass. I recall suggesting to my classmates that we all go see Coraline. "Great idea!" they all said. I sent out messages, no replies. A few days later I see a posting on one of my classmates facebook pages to another classmate: "Coraline was so great last night!"

I also would message my classmates for weekend film screenings I'd host at my apartment. I'd have food and drinks and set up a projector on a big wall I had which was perfect for showings. I did this for several months.

Only two people showed up, on separate occasions.

If you ask me, Auties and Aspies don't have the problem. We don't play games. We value others, and are grateful for the connections we make. It's the NTs who are rotten, who are anti-social, who lie and cheat and f*ck with others. They can be damned.

I was once talking with a young man who was reluctant to ask a girl out for a date. He also was afraid of rejection. I asked him to consider a worst case scenario. I asked him to suppose he asked her out and she climbed on a table and pointed at him telling everyone around that he had the temerity to ask her out and they all laughed at him.

One possible reaction to such an unlikely scenario might be to say, "Thank you, I could have wasted a lot of time and money before I found out what you were really like".

It can be helpful to use a "litmus test" rather than a direct inquiry in these situations. You can suggest to someone that it might be fun to have coffee sometime. A vague proposal such as this can be used to solicit a response that can then be evaluated. For example, a response of, "Well I'm usually pretty busy" tells you that there is no interest. A response of yes, that would be fun, should we set a date?" could be a response that tells you there is an interest.



It helps to know that there are several different types of "friendships" and even the ones that are partial or superficial have value as long as we don't expect too much from them.

There's no point in fearing the inevitable.

I have feared rejection and exclusion all my life. I have felt rejected by most people at one time or another. But as I've gotten older and discovered a few things about how people actually felt about me when I was in school, I am forced to consider the possibility that the rejection was little more than my own knee jerk assumptions about how people felt about me.

Far too long after the fact, I learned that a few women had crushes on me when I assumed that I was so repulsive that my best option was to keep to myself. I have had old friends express surprise to hear I felt like a loser because they thought I was just too cool to be bothered with them. I don't really feel any more confident after hearing these things. I just have come to realize that most of the rejection I felt came from inside myself rather than outside. I know a significant percentage of people here are more appealing than they realize, but I have no idea how anyone can get over their own internal fears and just live their lives boldly.

I expect it and I create it when it is not there. This comes from all of those unexplained rejections when I was growing up. I am at a point now where I try to socialize as little as possible. I don't want to do or say anything to make people hate me. I admit that I am paranoid, but I have a knack for saying the wrong thing and offending people so I just have this strategy of following the script for public interaction and talking as little as possible.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

I notice with me i become so entrapped in my repulsiveness, that i push away people that might like me, the way i like them. when i gather feelings for someone i feel so afraid that this person will reject me, or treat me the way others treat me, that i almost reject them, before they might do the same to me. it hurts a lot when ordinary people treat you badly, but to have someone i care for "frown upon my defects" as mr. shakespeare puts it, i don't think i have the strength for.

Very good letter in today's Metro, credited just to "16 year old" - and a town, calling for school Christmas dances to be banned. I never experienced any school Christmas dances, but think the concept has caught on a bit here now under American TV's cultural influence. Why do I think none of the slick careerist adults running kids' charities would have written this publicly:

"Many schools hold a Christmas dance, which may sound harmless enough but can actually be very distressing and have a detrimental effect on children with fragile self-confidence. If you are not a very popular child, not part of the "in-crowd", it can lead to exclusion."