Share your rejection> acceptance stories here

In another thread, far, far away, we are discussing whether you could be rejected, even brutally or coldly, by someone whom you later came to be accepted by (or to accept) as a romantic partner. Rather than opine that in my experience you could, I’d like to elicit stories of Dopers who have found rejection blossoming into acceptance, from either side, male/female, straight/gay/, happy/unhappy ending, etc.

My own best anecdote is of the male/straight/unhappy ending sort: when I met a girl, whom I liked and who seemed to like me, when I was 16, she basically told me “Give it up, I’m a world-class beauty, older than you, WAY out of your league, with a terrific boyfriend and zero interest in you romantically. Got all that?”

I told her that I did, and then proceeded to stay as close to her as she’d allow–cut to seven years later, still in touch with her, off and on in a more or less platonic sense, when she finally broke up with the boyfriend, dated me, lived with me, married me, had kids with me, and divorced me eventually.

She couldn’t have been clearer about rejecting my initial romantic overtures, nor clearer that she was happy to be my wife, after only 12 years of pursuit.

I don’t have one yet, but what I do have is a master plan.

I did the rejecting.

I met him at a huge business meeting for a very large project that ultimately failed – we are talking hundreds of participants in an auditorium. He heard a comment I made to the moderator and also managed to catch sight of me and thought I was hot (he’s blind, what can I say?). He spent the next three years trying to get me to date him. Yes, three years.

I finally did date him beginning in January 2002. We got married in October, 2003 and he still gives me grief about those three years. That’s OK, I deserve it.

so why did you reject him first and then change your mind? Were you seeing someone else, did he have a facelift, did you lower your standards?

@Freudian Slit : I’ve been using it for more than a decade. I’ve come to the conclusion that this strategy SUCKS :slight_smile:

I very rarely post, but I’m going through this situation right now, so here it goes.

I met this girl, Anna (fake name) through a friend about a year and a half ago, and I was immediately taken by her. She had it all - looks, smarts, humour. We ended up talking all night separately from my other friends. It was fantastic. My whole view of who I should be with changed. Not that I should necessarily be with her, but that I could be with someone who made me feel like she did.

Problem was I was living with my then current girlfriend, and I wasn’t going to do anything as long as that was the case. Met Anna again a few months later through the same friend, and we picked up like we hadn’t stopped talking to each other that first night. Again, it was fantastic.

A few more months pass, I break up with the girlfriend, move out, call Anna. We go on a few dates and I’m painfully awkward. I had (still have) no idea how to date. I’m even more sexually awkward. Anna wants to only be friends, I decide she’s too great to not have her my life in some way, and I agree to be friends. That was rejection number 1.

Over the next half a year, I actually became her friend - not the guy in xkcd secretly wanting more. We were (still are) best friends. But then something switches, and I start wanting it all again. After a couple months of being to scared to say anything, I blurt out what I’m feeling. She gets angry, I manage to convince her to give it a try, I screw things up again, which leads to rejection number 2.

At this point I’m feeling really down, lower than I have been in years. Fortunately, I had a rare stroke of genius. With nothing to lose at this point, I go for the final desperate “I’ve clearly got some issues, I need help and you’re the only person I feel close enough to talk to about stuff like this so let’s be friends + benefits” move. She said okay.

Without the pressure of needing to prove myself as long term relationship guy, my awkwardness slowly but surely goes away. She starts seeing me the way I really wanted her to. I was rejected twice by her, but it doesn’t matter. I’m happy, she’s happy, everything’s great. Of course it’s only been a very short time, but I’m cautiously optimistic. I’ll be meeting the parents soon.

That was long and probably boring for everyone but me, but you asked.

I met a guy on Match.com in July 06. We dated until January then he dumped me. On the phone. He called in May saying he’d made a mistake and wanted to try again. I agree and things are fine for a month or so. Then we have plans on a Sunday. I call to see when he’s coming over and he says he decided to do something else but I can come, too. I decline. Following Friday we’re supposed to have dinner together and when I call him on my way home from work he’s ‘too tired’. Twice in a row? I don’t think so. I call him and tell him it’s really not working out.

A month or so later he calls, asking for another chance. I agree.

We’ve been living together for nearly a year and are exchanging rings for Christmas. And yesterday he cleaned the snow off my car before I got out of bed. I’m glad I gave him 2 chances!:smiley:

That is priceless. I’ve never understood that mentality, but it does exist

I was scared. I’d been divorced for a couple of years and had sorted out what was my accountability in that break up and what wasn’t, plus really done some thinking about what I wanted out of a relationship and hoped to have in a potential partner. There he was. YIKES. Now what do I do?

I never really said no, it was more not now. If that makes sense. When we did start dating, though, I did have to ask. He’d asked enough and I knew if anything were to happen at that point, I needed to initiate. So I did by cleverly asking him “you wanna try this or what?”

This did not happen to me, but I watched it happen because the people involved were in my social circle. The girl was dating a good friend of mine, but she was the kind of girl that didn’t like to give out-and-out rejections when men showed interest in her. She liked the attention. This guy had a huge crush on her, made no bones about it. He had a blog wherein he would talk about how great she was, etc. Very shameless pursuit of a woman already in a relationship. She stated, openly, many times that she considered him just a friend, how could she tell him this without losing his friendship, blah blah. But she would never do what I would do if I weren’t interested in a guy, which is to say, “This is never going to happen, so forget it, esp. if you want to be my friend.”

Eventually, he wore her down. It took about a year, but she cheated on my friend with this guy, and when they broke up, she moved in with him. They dated for about two years until the same thing happened again… another guy with an implacable crush “wore her down” and she left the second guy for the new one.

So it can happen. I’ve seen it. It could not happen to me, as I generally know within the first 15 minutes of meeting a guy if I’d ever consider date him, and that tends not to change. I also rejected unwanted advances rather firmly and finally, without being mean, so if the guy is my friend, he stays my friend.

When I first met my husband I thought he was kind of stalkerish and for about the first year avoided him like the plague. Then we became very close friends, and I told him I thought I might be falling in love with him (I told him this while he was at home for the summer.)

When we finally got together face to face, I rejected him within about 10 minutes of him coming through the door. Because I’m not a cold calculated heartless bitch, this made me cry and I had zero insight into my reasons for doing so and felt terrible. It’s possible if he had walked out the door, this would be the end to the story. But instead he climbed up next to me on the bed and held me while I cried and said, ‘‘It’s okay. I just want what’s best for you.’’ He really meant it. He ended up staying the night, and while I was sleeping he wrote me a 9-page letter professing his undying love. I wrote him back, and delivered the crushing blow: ‘‘You’re like a brother to me.’’ Buuuurn.

He left on a jet plane the next day, and spent three months in Spain. It took me approximately 24 hours to realize what an idiot I was.

Thank Og he is so stubborn.

You ought to post more.

Anyway, I used to work with this one girl who just seemed to hate me for no reason. The only reason I can think of is I called her “Hon” one time. It wasn’t in a sleazy way either. What I said exactly was “You doing alright today hon?” To which she responded with “Um, excuse me I’m not a honey?!” (No kid’n I thought)

She also didn’t seem to like the fact that I referred to the boss (to his face) by his first name. It’s kind of weird, everyone in the office except the sales people and me (A driver) called the boss by his last name.

I went bar hopping one night downtown. I met a girl, we did a little dancing and girl wants to take me to a bar across the street to meet some of her friends. As luck would have it, one of those friends happened to be that bitch from the office!!
BFO (bitch from office) proceeds to tell girl I just met that I’m a whack-off loser and that she should stay away from me. She does.

I then proceed to ask BFO WTF is her problem? We argued for a while but somehow, someway that arguing ended up with us at my place doing all sorts of unholy things that I wont share with you guys here on the boards.

Ah, to be twenty something YO again.