Perhaps the most heart-stabbing feeling in the world is rejection. At least for me. The worst is when it comes from men. If a guy dumps me, or isn’t into me when I’m into him, I respond emotionally like the world is literally ending, or my parents have died. I regress to the emotional volatility of an eight-year-old.
It’s an unfortunate pattern, one that’s followed me into sobriety. It recently reared its head after a breakup followed by a brief spell of dating on OK Stupid. Of course, I don’t just have to weather romantic rejection—there’s also the consistent rejection that comes when you’re a writer by trade. You pitch and pitch and pitch, and often get no responses whatsoever from editors. The one outlet that continues to ignore all of my many pitches is the New York Times. Though part of me knows it’s because they’re flooded with submissions from writers all across the globe, another part of me winds up thinking, “Maybe I really do suck.”
But that can’t be completely true. If I sucked that bad as a writer, I wouldn’t be writing this very essay for the brilliant Anna David, a writer I absolutely adore and respect. I also wouldn’t be published in the many other outlets that take my shit, and I probably would never have gotten accepted to the writing program at USC.
(It’s true some commenters have called me a shitty writer, mostly on my AA essays for After Party Magazine, but for some reason those vitriolic comments don’t get under my skin because the commenters seem as nutty as me.)
It’s equally irrational to believe that I’m somehow defective or unlovable just because some dude isn’t into me. Still, I manage to put this spin on these perceived rejections instinctually and certainly subconsciously, even when I try to fight them. Take my recent breakup with my boyfriend of five-and-a-half years, a breakup that was (for the most part) mutual.
“I feel I’m just being a bad boyfriend,” Horacio said. “I don’t have enough time to give.”
I’ve written a lot about our casual arrangement, about how we see each other just once a week, how it was technically an open relationship. For a while that worked for me, until it didn’t. When I started feeling hurt, and, ultimately, rejected every time I called him and said, “Hey! Wanna get together tonight?” and he would respond with, “I’m exhausted baby, can we do the weekend?” Once in a while, this is an understandable response, but when it’s every time I call? Just didn’t fly anymore.
This led to a big discussion about Horacio’s spiritual beliefs, how he doesn’t believe in attachments and how he is currently in a position where he has to work nonstop to get out of debt.
“I don’t think you understand how important it is for me to get my finances in order,” he said.
“But I’m just asking to hang out more than a few hours on the weekend,” I said. “Is that too much to ask?”
A few days later, he called and gave me the speech about how he was a shit boyfriend and he didn’t want to hold me back from seeing other men who might be able to give me what I need.
“If he really truly loved me,” I thought, “he’d be willing to make it work. But it’s clear I’m not that valuable to him.” And that was the end of us.
I thought I was okay. Until the dark thoughts started swirling around in my head late at night when I’d try to sleep. Now that I think about it, they weren’t even clear or complete thoughts. It was more of this mash-up of words and emotional reactions to the words. Never will find someone. Defective. Unlovable. Flawed. Happened again. Old. 37. Too old. No one. No one is in the bag. Give up.
Then I’d start to feel hopeless, despairing and sink into utter blackness. Usually, the feelings are accompanied by childlike sobs and subsequent hyperventilation. In these moments, I never show my face to anyone. Sure I could knock on my roommate’s door and tell her, “Hey, I’m upset,” but instead I keep it all to myself. To the rest of the world, I pretend to be normal and okay, often wisecracking about the breakup to my friends.
The same thing happened when I recently sent my novel to an agent who I really respect, who read the first three chapters and requested the manuscript. It’s possible he’s still interested, but it’s been six weeks so I’ve already concluded he passed. In my mind, not only did he pass but when he read it—or his assistant read it—he probably had this conversation with himself: “What a load of crap. Ha! This sucks so bad it’s an embarrassment! There’s no payoff and look at all the typos! She’s splicing commas everywhere. Tracy Chabala is the epitome of a wannabe writer and an idiot.”
The sane part of me doubts this actually happened. If he didn’t like it, or (more importantly) didn’t think he could sell it and therefore turn a profit, he just didn’t like it. There are more agents in the world. It doesn’t mean the novel’s worthless. But, as they say in AA, we often perceive ourselves as “a piece of shit the world revolves around.” I’d be lying if I told you this little phrase doesn’t define my point-of-view in most cases of rejection.
So how do I deal with this rejection? If I am to find the “love of my life” (I don’t think those exist, but let’s pretend they do) or get a book deal or get into the New York Times eventually, I can’t let this rejection get me down. Neither can I live in fear of putting myself out there, be it through a pitch, a query to an agent, or a date.
I wish I had some sage advice for you people and for myself. On my end, I’ve started to really dig up the root of these issues with a therapist, and that’s helping tremendously. I haven’t had a good one in around 13 years. Surprise surprise, my rejection problems with men stem from abandonment issues from my parents’ divorce. Even though my dad never abandoned me and just moved around the fucking corner.
Still, I was eight and impressionable and already a hyper-sensitive and neurotic kid who took everything personally, so I placed a negative spin on my father “leaving” in my child mind. What I’ve done to soothe this issue is open up a dialogue with my dad about it, to sort of hash out what happened. He’s got great advice and will hang on the phone with me for two hours when I need an ear.
With writing, the only way to work through rejection is to keep pitching all the more when editors ignore me. Usually, if I pitch to four or five publications cold, places I haven’t written for in the past, at least one editor will respond.
Horacio did call me recently, admitting he’d been selfish and stupid and that he didn’t want to lose me. He said he definitely wanted to be exclusive and thought I was worth it. I shouldn’t base my self-worth on it, but it does help to know all that darkness in my head was just that—in my head.
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