Rejection (emotion)

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Emotional rejection is a feeling of sadness and disappointment one feels when overtures of friendship or romantic affection are not reciprocated. It is a consequence of interpersonal rejection, which can take the form of many different kinds of social situations.

Feelings of rejection are commonly related to an unfulfilled quest for emotional relations, such as, but not limited to romantic involvement or peer acceptance. A person may feel rejected due to a specific act or acts targetted to indicate that the person or group was rejecting the person, or alternatively, the person feeling rejected may have made unwarranted extrapolations about their behaviour and wrongly interpreted this as a sign of rejection.

The actual rejection of person implies that a society, a group of persons or a person does not wish another person to be part of that society or group or involved with that person, either in a particular way or at all. There are innumurable reasons for this decision to have been made such as: lack of reciprocal interest, circumstances like societal codes or boundaries, desire to make the other person perceive difficulty ("playing hard to get") and fear of placing himself or herself in a situation of vulnerability and heightened interaction.

The act of rejection can be passive in that a person may be unresponsive to act or request from the other person, but not actually take specific steps to indicate that the other person is rejected. Examples of such behaviour may include where the targeted person is not returning a phone call, an e-mail message, which the caller or sender interprets as them being rejected.

Whether or not the action or inaction is done purposely to reject someone, the person who is requesting or expecting a response may perceive this event negatively. She may have negative thoughts about the reasons for the action or inactions of the other person, which focus on them being motivated by a desire to reject the other person. For example, such thoughts may include: "He is refusing to return my call because he doesn't like me," or "I don't matter, that is why she hasn't responded," etc. There may of course be reasons which are unrelated to the person who feels rejected as to why their message has not been responded to, other than this act being indicative of a desire to reject another.

The feeling of rejection (whether based in fact or on false beliefs) can make the person experiencing it undergo a grief response, upon learning or believing that their anticipatory desire has been dashed. This emotional response to rejection can manifest itself as symptoms ranging from a vague sadness to major depression. The rejected person may have feelings of helplessness , perceiving that he or she is at the rejecting person's mercy and/or limited by their own inadequacies of remedying the problem of rejection. The depth of feeling or the emotional impact felt as a result of the rejection may tangibly demonstrate the importance of the subject that one party feels has rejected them.

People avoid or cope with rejection in various ways. For example, they may wish to correct this situation and to bring the rejecting person or group within their control, or to address the feelings about this person, society, or group and make them less unmanageable. Composing poems or drafting unsent letters is is a relatively innocuous way of dealing with feelings of rejection. Destructive responses include stalking or forcibly abducting the rejecting person. Specialist medical intervention may be needed for persons who experience deep feelings of rejection, as they may lead to or exarcebate more serious psychiatric illnesses.

[edit] Spectators

The experience of rejection is often complicated in the presence of spectators. The mere attention of spectators, either during or drawn by an act of rejection, may seem humiliating to the person rejected. It goes without saying that in extreme cases he or she may feel pilloried. The prospect of this occurrence is often named as a cause for fear of rejection.