How to get over fear of being rejected in dating?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chicken_Pigeon
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
C

Chicken_Pigeon

Guest
I wasn’t always terrified of rejection. At one point I was doing just fine and I could flirt with whomever. But now that I take my faith seriously, somehow it feels wrong to think of catholic women as potential mates. I may feel attracted to them but in my head all I hear is that they deserve a better, more devout man than me. So I don’t go for it.

My parents divorced too. And most everyone I know has a bad marriage or bad relationship. Even the Catholics. I see a lot of manipulative behavior going on. I know no relationship is perfect but phew the bar is pretty low I guess.

Anyway I got off topic. I’m terrified of rejection because I feel inadequate and when I get rejected or if I get broken up with, I feel even more inadequate. Then I start thinking “see, she does deserve someone better. I was right”

I’m seeing a therapist and a priest about my problems with feeling abandoned and feeling insecure (was abused as a kid) but I just don’t know what to do. I feel like I’ll never be good enough to be a husband because right now I don’t even feel good enough to ask someone out on a date. Help?

Bokbok?
 
The only way to overcome fear is to do the thing you’re scared of.

And yes, rejection is part of the dating game. Ask any married person if they’re married to the first and only person they were ever interested in🙂
 
None of us like to be rejected at anything, whether it’s getting turned down for a date, a job, a team, a club, a sale if you’re a sales person, etc.

The only way to conquer this fear is to step up your asking so that rejection ceases to be the Big Bad Wolf and just turns into one of the 50 “No’s” that will get you to a “Yes”. Sales people are taught to do this. It is almost inevitable that you will need to go through X number of “No’s” to get the one “Yes” so they’re taught to actually feel energized by getting “No’s” and just keep on plugging.

Taking rejection personally is a very natural thing to do but it’s also the worst way you react to it. You just have to grow a super thick skin and basically tell yourself, “Their loss”. Of course if the person gives some positive feedback you can learn from - example: you get turned down for a job because you were late for the interview or don’t have an XYZ certification - then you learn from it, such as being on time for the next interview and getting that XYZ certification as fast as you can. But dating is so subjective that unless you have some major issue with, say, your personal hygiene, there’s not much you can learn from there. You just have to present a clean, mannerly, friendly self and keep on asking till you get that “Yes”.

Your particular case might be compounded by the fact that you have past personal issues you’re dealing with in therapy; however, I know a huge number of people who are receiving mental health care, or did so in the past, and they all have managed to have dates and relationships.

Just face your fears, power through them and keep asking out as many girls as you can. If you can do some self-esteem building exercises that would help you too. I sometimes think the Catholic doctrines of humility can backfire on some of us (including myself when younger) who tend to be down on ourselves. We need to build ourselves up a bit, not constantly be reminding ourselves we are unworthy. “God doesn’t make junk”. I used to write my name and underline it. This sounds stupid but over time it actually helped. I still tend to underline my signature even though it’s been decades since I needed to build my self-esteem. Ask your therapist if there’s an exercise he or she might recommend you do. Also, pray to St. Joseph about the being a good man and a good husband thing. He will help you. Remember he was probably afraid of not measuring up to his responsibilities also.
 
This is actually something I have given talks about at my college, how a lot of people are lacking the confidence in themselves to ask someone out. While I can’t write out my entire talk lol, I want to give you four pieces of advice:
  1. Dating should be for determining if the person you are with would be a good spouse for you and a good parent, dating is not suppose to be a social symbol of you being “accomplished” and society seems to think that’s the case.
  2. Marriage is really three people not two. It’s Jesus, husband, and wife. I like to describe this with a rubber band. When you put three fingers in it and make a triangle there is space between the husband and wife and Jesus. But when you pull the top finger up (which is Jesus) the husband and wife fingers become closer and nearly touch. This is the same in marriage and relationships. When we let God lead our relationships we becoming closer to Him and each other in a more loving and profoundly merciful way.
  3. The ultimate goal of marriage is to help your spouse get to Heaven. Fr. Mike Schmitz says that marriage is like oil in water because as you put in the water (which is God), oil (which are sins) come to the surface. Marriage brings out the parts of each spouse that need to be purified. Nobody is perfect but a relationship built around Christ lets each spouse grow in their faith and love.
  4. Do not build your self-confidence around how other people view and feel about you because that will leave you never satisfied. Instead you have to build your confidence around the love Jesus has for you and let your relationships flow from that love.
I hope these four short pieces of advice help you, like I mentioned I have given talks on this so if you need more help just let me know. All this said, I’m 20YO and haven’t been in a relationship before because I’m waiting for whomever God has planned for me so I don’t know everything, far from it haha!

Last thing: feeling down about yourself and feeling that you are not worthy of a spouse could lead you down the dark and sad road of pornography. If you have experienced this, know that Jesus loves you and wants to forgive you! If you need any help on that or other struggles with impurity, just let me know
 
Last edited:
With all due respect, I think when people are very young (teens and early 20s) and haven’t dated much and not in a position to be getting married yet anyway because they are still finishing school or working out what they want to do in life, dating can just be for building social skills and having fun. You don’t need to approach every date like you are possibly getting engaged to the person. You need to get to know and socialize with a lot of different people just to understand what personality traits and activities you like and don’t like, so that you can finally choose a spouse for a lasting relationship.

If you go into every date thinking about marriage before you’ve even shared a pizza together, that’s way way way too much pressure on yourself.
 
GospelOfMatthew said:
Last thing: feeling down about yourself and feeling that you are not worthy of a spouse could lead you down the dark and sad road of pornography. If you have experienced this, know that Jesus loves you and wants to forgive you! If you need any help on that or other struggles with impurity, just let me know
Click to expand...
I second this, do NOT do pornography out of depression or sadness of not having a partner of any kind. God will provide. Pray for your spouse, and pray with action! Make some moves along with praying.
 
My parents divorced too. And most everyone I know has a bad marriage or bad relationship.
Click to expand...
My parents divorced when I was eight. It was a tough time for me initially. My father did many bad things (no abuse, fortunately - I am sorry for yours). I felt rejected as a child. That type of rejection is something that can often stay with you for a long time, unfortunately.

I have been through many relationships - some of them I ended; some were ended by the other person. It is difficult to not feel rejected because, deep down, all we really want is acceptance - the type of acceptance Jesus gives us. I went through some horrible marriages where my ex-spouse was frequently unfaithful. Talk about a feeling of rejection…

Looking at a situation which ends badly, we frequently ascribe a person rejecting us for various reasons. That may be the case. On the other hand, it might simply be that we were incompatible on some level. Those incompatibilities, once recognized, can and should be our salvation of sorts. You do not what to end up in a bad situation in the long run. Then, it becomes a much more complicated situation. You might end up miserable with no foreseeable way out. (There’s always a way out, but we often stay because of fear of being alone, guild, ethical reasons, etc.)

As I indicated, I went through many a relationship that ended poorly. It was not until a little over seven years ago that I reconnected with a friend from high school (via Facebook of all things). We were friends first, back in high school, and re-established our friendship over time. Eventually, we realized a mutual attraction and began visiting one another. I was working on my PhD 1,000 miles away, so it was a long distance relationship. We quickly fell in love and married. We’ve been happily married since.

My point is not to flaunt my relationship; rather, it is to say that those we are likely most compatible with are friends. But that has to be that mutual attraction. Your spouse should be your #1 on Earth - your best friend. (Jesus is your #1 above all.) Often, we don’t want to date friends because we fear it ending badly and losing a good friend. Our friends see us at our highest and lowest. That type of person should be your spouse.

I fear I’ve digressed in what to look for, but it’s an integral part in the conversation, I feel. Dating strangers is risky because we all have issue and skeletons. Often, we take things too quickly and develop surface emotions towards the person we are dating. When a skeleton or issue comes to light, it’s a setup for the other person ending the relationship. That easily leads to rejection and all the accompanying bad emotions that go with it.

I guess what I’m trying to say in a very circuitous manner is that when we meet someone we are attracted to, we should endeavor to be their friend first. Get to know the person and allow them to get to know you prior to diving into a relationship. That way, when you’re ready to make the step towards a relationship, the person knows you. You also have the foundation for a spectacular relationship - friendship.

(continued)
 
(My continuation)

So, try to stop being so critical of yourself - i.e.,
in my head all I hear is that they deserve a better, more devout man than me
Click to expand...
Do the best you can in your faith life. Look for friends to whom you’re attracted first and foremost. Try to cultivate that relationship first. You might find yourself pleasantly surprised.

Sorry for the lengthy answer. I apologize even more if I made no sense! I hope this helps, though.

(I’m apparently limited to 3200 words. Or we all are. Sorry for the break in the text!)
 
Chicken_Pigeon said:
My parents divorced too. And most everyone I know has a bad marriage or bad relationship. Even the Catholics. I see a lot of manipulative behavior going on. I know no relationship is perfect but phew the bar is pretty low I guess.
Click to expand...
That may be true, but if you want to have a good relationship it’s up to you to not engage in that behaviour and make yourself an attractive marriage prospect.
Chicken_Pigeon said:
Anyway I got off topic. I’m terrified of rejection because I feel inadequate and when I get rejected or if I get broken up with, I feel even more inadequate. Then I start thinking “see, she does deserve someone better. I was right”
Click to expand...
This is hard for everyone, especially because of your own personal issues perhaps. But really the only way to overcome a fear is to face it and put yourself in situations where you have to confront it.

There’s nothing wrong with viewing other Catholic ladies as potential marriage partners, that’s what a lot of people do when they’re single. If you didn’t then you might never get married.

Also, remember that you should have your criteria in a potential mate too. And you need to be capable of rejecting someone else who you feel isn’t suitable. It’s not about rejecting them or devaluing them as a person, but seeing what you want/don’t want and going for it.

Perhaps if you start to see things in terms of your preferences instead of your inadequacies your anxiety about this may get better somewhat.

And when you hear the little voice that tries to put you down then you need to feed the other little voice that tells you that you’re actually a fine specimen of masculinity and she’d be lucky to have you because:
List good points (You’re reliable, handsome, financially stable, loving, caring, likes kids, can fix stuff around the house. etc etc.)
 
As @OScarlet said, repeated exposure to the feared thing is the answer if you want to build confidence, being rejected on CAF should help a little lol 😉

There’s no other way around the problem you have to face your fear and do it anyway, that rings a book bell!

Do you believe you have a guardian angel? If you do then ask him for help with confidence and be aware of him being with you when you approach someone you want to talk to, and whilst talking to that person you might remember that it’s not just you, you have back up. Obviously if you’re on a date later you may need to ask your angel to wear a blindfold and earplugs at some point but this should help generally speaking.

Good luck to both of you 🙏
 
Thanks for all he responses. I think I’ll just have to tackle my feelings of inadequacy in therapy. I’m nowhere near ready to date, if I ever date again.

Bokbok
 
It’s good to realize that everyone has a different preference for who and what they like. I would not take people’s preferences so personally. Just realize you’re not the correct fit for someone.

It’s also important to realize you’re in charge of how kind and selfless you are, and how loved you make the other person feel. Those things are a very large part of a successful relationship. It’s actually pretty simple. Everyone wants to feel loved, and if you can spoil someone this way, you become incredibly attractive to that person.
 
For men, not being confident is a killer. You can be physically attractive but still without the confidence it makes things a lot harder.

Bokbok
 
See… I don’t see how what you’re describing as a date is different from just hanging out with a friend. Quite frankly, if you make it to what I would consider dating territory with me it means you’ve already sat down and shown that you can be a friend and have a pizza with me without us trying to kill each other with the pizza server. If I’m dating you, you’ve made it from “we’re friends who can hang out and have fun” to “we’re friends and I wouldn’t mind seeing if a future together is also possible”.

Dating only comes into play if I can see myself marrying someone, but dating doesn’t have to wait until I’m sure I could marry someone; that’s what the dating it to find out. “See[ing] myself marry someone” could be just a tiny little mustard seed. Doing it just to gain social skills, have fun with someone, and learn what I don’t like in people seems so disrespectful in the context of dating the person in front of me honestly. It’s like telling me I can hang out with any of my friends and we happen to have permission to hug and kiss each other with no intention of it having any meaning past practice and education.

Granted, I know I have a much stricter qualification for what I consider a “date” compared to others. I know you’re not intending to sound like you’re advocating for just using a person because I’ve seen some of your other posts and you have great respect for people. It’s just the message I receive when I’ve seen others than just you explain dating in this fashion.
 
Last edited:
RoseScented said:
See… I don’t see how what you’re describing as a date is different from just hanging out with a friend.
Click to expand...
It’s not that different at first. That’s the point.

If you like the person and you keep going on dates with them and discuss your relationship, things deepen naturally.

You might want to read the post above where someone talked about how being friends first is the key to building a relationship that will last.

I was married for 23 years, I’d still be married, but he suddenly died a few months ago. Our relationship started by just hanging out. After a while we decided to go out somewhere and make a day of it, so we went to the museum together for a day. From there we gradually started doing more romantic and nicer things, like holding hands, and restaurant dinners.

By contrast, I had other guys who wanted to push the romantic date thing right away and made it clear they were looking for a wife. It felt forced and uncomfortable. It did not develop naturally. I had to tell at least one of them I was not interested in him in a romantic way.

On this thread we seem to have several younger people who are not comfortable with the idea of dating and have been on very few dates. I am saying that if you don’t start interacting with the opposite sex in a comfortable way, and instead build every coffee date into a potential matrimony situation, you’re not going to have many dates, and you will likely continue to feel uncomfortable around the opposite sex, and the odds of you actually meeting someone to marry is going to decrease. This is just common sense.

Edited to add, I’m also not sure how people arrive at the idea that dating someone without matrimony in mind is “using” them. There are plenty of people in this world who would just like to have some unpressured social fun, without expecting it to either end in an engagement or end in sex. It’s not “using someone” if you’re both on the same page. That is why I was uncomfortable with guys who were looking for someone to marry right away - some of them even had timelines for this. I didn’t want to marry someone right away. I did want to go out and have fun with someone special though, which is a pretty normal thing to want when you’re 22 years old.
 
Last edited:
When I was 17 years old, I kept asking a girl I like, I said, almost two years after that, I was giving up on her, and at that point, she told me she loved me. It didn’t work out, but you’ll never know unless you try.
 
I guess my hangup comes from the fact that to me “dates” are only romantic. There is no just being friends stage to dating for me; the just being friends part is before the dates. If I’m hanging out with you and we’re friends and we happen to go somewhere that’s not a “date”, that’s me hanging out with my friend. My friends have always been mixed sex so the idea of dating someone to get comfortable around the opposite sex is so foreign to me. I do know that for some people that is their exposure to dealing with the opposite sex. Instead of encouraging people to do actual dating to get comfortable I’d instead encourage them to get into group activities that have mixed sexes in them and then just learn to be friends while having a “support” of a group instead of adding the stress that is “dating” to the mix. If there are no groups nearby, the Internet has now made it easier for people to connect with others who have their same interests and they can learn to navigate interacting with each other that way; either through text, videos they post, actual video chat, game chat, or agreeing to meet up as a group or at conventions.

If someone’s dating me without any intention of considering a future with me I’d be highly upset. They don’t have to be set on it actually happening. They could decide that the whole “forever” thing isn’t for them some time down the road, but if you’re approaching me from the beginning without at least considering and acknowledging that it could happen I’d be offended. I’ve seen one too many friends have their emotions, and in one case their life by actually quitting their job and moving to his area to make visiting easier, ripped apart because they figured out their boyfriend/girlfriend just wanted to be distracted with some fun for a while. That’s why dating “for fun” has such an offensive and negative connotation to me.
 
Last edited:
RoseScented said:
My friends have always been mixed sex
Click to expand...
So have mine. In fact, most of my friends were guys, almost all straight guys. I studied and worked in a male-dominated field.
It is pretty easy to move a guy from friend zone to romantic zone if you’re interested in him.
I’m sure there are some women out there who want hearts and flowers from the first date. I didn’t want that stuff till I was sure I felt romantic about the person.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
I’m sure there are some women out there who want hearts and flowers from the first date. I didn’t want that stuff till I was sure I felt romantic about the person.
Click to expand...
I don’t want hearts and flowers during dating. I can’t actually smell many of the flowers that come in bouquets. I like books. I’d rather he come to the house with a stack of books which I then will have to ignore for the evening because I’m with him. 😅

The second sentence seems to be where we part ways. I’m not “dating” you unless we’ve reached the point of romance being permitted. Everything before that is just “hanging out” with no expectation of exclusivity. (Which, if I remember a previous thread we also part ways on the whole when to be exclusive thing too. 🤣 Though, at this point that seems to be because we have different definitions about when someone is considered to be dating.)

OP, the best thing for me to get over my fear of rejection (or anything social related really) was to just go for it and find out first hand that I can survive it and I learn how to pick myself up again. Can I say it was fun? Absolutely not. Can I say that I gained nothing from it? Also no. I leaned on the Lord when I needed and I learned what He wanted from me even more.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top