Handling Rejection

By Solomon Tommy I am sincere about getting married this year. As I told a friend, bachelorhood (or at least, the kind that I have practised) is rather too expensive, and the sooner I get settled down, the better for me. I know it’s selfish, and I should also be interested in making the woman happy – and for the record, I plan to – but at the end of the day, it is still me getting married to that woman. And I want to be married to her before she can be married (at least, that’s how it goes down in these parts), so I want to get married, and that is good news for her, I think. I said “I think” before y’all jump on me for being chauvinistic. Want to ask what it has to do with rejection? Okay. So I was talking with a friend about my aforementioned intention, and about how interesting it had been trying to get a lady, and what types of strategy I was adopting (besides my first praying about it). And then she made the statement credited to Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo that it is very likely that you have met your spouse (I think that the statement was that it was someone you had interacted with in the last 15 years or so; not quite sure), and then the discussion went to asking me if none of the ladies I had interacted with fit the bill of the kind of lady I am on the lookout for. And then I told her: “Nearly all the girls whom I’d have liked to marry all said ‘No’ to me when I asked them out then”. And for that, I got the look; yeah, the look. Well, ‘cos she was one of them!

So a little bit of information here; First ever girl, and no, I don’t mean when we were still doing the ‘daddy and mummy’ play phase – the first image of the big ‘M’ I ever had was my first girlfriend in the university. She was beautiful, and way out of my league. I knew that, and yeah, she knew it too. But she played along, for whatever reason. I was not exactly sure at the time, but now, I think I was serving a purpose (I was kinda the class ‘efiwe’) and she was ready for some give-and-take, but I knew I gave more than I got. Needless to say, I soon found out that I was on a fool’s ride, and I learned my first lesson in rejection: you gotta know when to accept it. Yes, accept it. I tried to fight it; helped her with assignments, did tutorials, wrote tests, etc. I worked hard doing the only thing that I could do, but at the end of the day, it was over before it started (that is, if it ever started). I didn’t use to court the bottle then though, neither was I associated with vices, so coping was hard. But learning to accept that someone was never for you, or that you were never going to measure up, or they did not have any belief that you had something to offer, and telling yourself that maybe it was for the better (when your head and heart is clearly speaking a different language) is your best chance at being a better person. Plus, if you’re into that karma belief thing, when you push yourself to become better, you could look out for them, praying that they are with someone who doesn’t measure up to you, and make fun of them. Yeah, I know, it’s immature – but somehow, you’d feel so good down there. So if a girl said no to you, I am not saying you should be like me and take solace in the fact that (a) they weren’t the ones for me, (b) maybe they were, but I wasn’t the one for them yet, (c) I needed someone to turn me down so I could hone my skills. And trust me, my skills are tight right now, but in truth, nobody got to walk down the aisle without being told off, laughed at, scorned, thoroughly embarrassed, etc by a member of ‘womendom’. And listening to Steve Harvey, I have come to see that rejection can be like the situation between the deer or gazelle and the cheetah. So someone says no; it’s like the gazelle that got away. Best response? Get better, get faster, and chase down that gazelle or any other gazelle for that matter ‘cos the man is made for the hunt, and rejection kinda just makes you a better hunter. P.S: I posted this on my Facebook page, and the comments on it gave me a hard laugh. So let me share it here too: “Best rejection lines I ever got: “I like you Solomon, but you’re not that tall…and I want a tall guy, cos I am not a tall lady”… “Solomon, you’re a nice guy, you’re smart and everything, but you can’t meet my needs. You’re not rich yet. Finish school, get a good paying job, then come for me.”  

Solomon Tommy is a young professional who lives and works in Lagos. Quite the Christian who believes in love, and life, and has just about no clue on relationships. I give relationship experience; not advice. So just laugh and learn. Follow Solomon on twitter @SouloSkillz  

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This article was first published on 3rd January 2014 and updated on January 20th, 2014 at 8:40 am

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