A random thought that popped into my head sometime during the "lying down and trying to fall asleep" process last night -- despite how much I've always been afraid of it, when looking back it actually seems like I tend to handle rejection (in the sense of attempted relationship-stuff) a bit better than a lot of people.
Like... some people go nuts when they find out someone they really liked doesn't feel the same way. I know I've heard of people freaking killing themselves (or worse, attacking or killing the one who rejected them) or otherwise going to crazy extremes just because somebody said "no" to them. Even for those who don't degenerate into a thrashing mass of crazy the moment things don't work out with someone, it seems like a lot of people take it pretty hard.
For a long time I thought I was one of them -- not the go-crazy type, of course, but the ones who just don't handle it well -- but I think for me the fear of rejection was much, much worse than rejection itself. So for a long time I pretty much never actually tried to bring up the possibility of anything relationship-ish with anyone, even on the rare occasion that I started to like someone. Basically, my idea of what rejection consisted of was based more on "most of the girls I liked in high school kinda treated me like crap, and that was without me even asking them out or anything, so how much worse would it be if I'd actually tried?" and this weird lingering idea that rejection is the worst thing ever (I'm blaming society on that one... the idea does seem to be floating around out there and the late high school/early Dabney years were pretty much the last time I ever absorbed any of those hovering stereotype-y ideas rather than swatting them out of the sky with a nail-filled baseball bat before they got anywhere near me XD), rather than what a more typical "sorry, I'm not interested" rejection from a halfway-decent person is actually like.
Speaking of which, the quoted sentence is almost exactly what rejection from a halfway-decent person is actually like. Not always in those exact words, but generally with a similar meaning -- no anger or insults, no overdramatic "I could never like you in that way" stuff like what some middle-schooler might blurt out, no suddenly-we're-not-friends-anymore nonsense... just them telling you that they don't feel the same way about you as you feel about them. And then seconds/minutes later you go back to talking about stuff and just being friends again (you are already friends with the people you like as more-than-friends, right? if not close friends, then at least you've known each other for a month or so? asking out complete strangers would be really weird, borderline creepy, after all...), and it's not really awkward at all most of the time (and if it is, it's only a temporary awkwardness and not the "every interaction afterward is a little weird" kind.) Sometimes it hurts a little if you're really, really attached to that person before you bring up the possibility, occasionally there's a little bit of crying (...actually that's only been the case with one specific person now that I think about it... both times I asked... hmm), but you'll recover much quicker than expected -- usually within minutes. And then you feel better afterward, even though things didn't turn out the best way possible, because now that "what if" isn't constantly hovering over you and driving you insane.
At least, that's how it happens when you ask like a halfway-decent person and not a creep, anyway. I wouldn't know about the creep version, since that's not how I am. XD
I think in the future, when/if (...okay, most likely "when," though it does seem to be happening less often lately) I come across other people that I like in a more-than-just-friends way, I'll have to remember that -- for once -- the advice people used to constantly give me whenever I brought up my fear of asking people out was actually accurate. The worst that can happen (assuming she's not a terrible person) is that she'll say no. And then at least you'll know, and actually knowing things is good. Rejection itself isn't actually so bad; what always drives me nuts in "oh hey, I actually really like this person" situations is the fear of rejection combined with those annoying "what if" thoughts bouncing around in my head during the time before I manage to bring myself to ask (if I do -- and if I never end up getting to the point where I can actually come out and say it, it takes a loooooong time for those "what ifs" to finally go away. Like, I don't think I recovered from my high school era "what ifs" until 2010-2011ish. >_<) I've found that the quicker I actually manage to get the words out once I realize I do like someone in that way, the easier it is (within a day of getting the thought? no problem... after thinking about it for weeks? near impossible!) -- and I figure if someone else actually feels the same way, she'll probably have felt that way long before I ever did since I take so long to develop those kinds of feelings toward anyone, so the chances of her just not liking me in that way yet and me asking too soon aren't too high. I'll have to try and remember that in the future and try not to drag out the process of actually-getting-around-to-mentioning-things forever like I've usually done before.
