It’s interesting how just a few instances of surprise rejection early in life can have a big effect on personality. I ended up paranoid, always assuming that no one could really like me and anyone who acted as if he or she did was just pitying me or playing some cruel prank on me that I was too socially inept to see.
It got to the point that when I went to a school dance (I didn’t want to but my parents made me) and the prettiest girl in the class asked me to dance with her, I actually got upset. I couldn’t believe that she sincerely wanted to. I said yes because it would have been rude to say no, but I was convinced that everybody including her was secretly laughing at me.
I only considered the possibility that she was sincere years later, when I was an adult, but even now my brain is telling me “Nah, loser, she just felt sorry for you.”
Anon should’ve showered more often
Middle school kids he mighta done nothing wrong at all. Those kids at that age are terrors and will oust people from a friend group for the dumbest reasons imaginable.
Sucks because that person may have done everything right and years later still can’t trust people or open up to them.
If there is even just a chance that others wouldn’t understand, let alone disapprove you associating with kid X, you can accomplish 2 things by ousting them: 1. You get rid of the potential disapproval (wich is mostly just insecurity) 2. You help an ingroup getting rid of unambiguousness, by drawing/strengthening the border to the outgroup, while with the same move placing yourself on the inside.
I work with kids, and so far I think this is the objective rationality behind most or at least many acts of cruel exclusion.
The only long term, non authoritarian solution is the kids developing a moral compass, that makes violent exclusion more important to them than short term insecurity-management and of course beeing less insecure. (Plus the “weird ones” often have fluffin interesting perspectives)
As we can see in comments like “shower more” even many adults didn’t recover from the competitive-acceptance-bs other kids/their parents/ this fucked up society gave them.
Ok hol up. I had to read this 10 times. Reads like AI
Are you saying you think kids are quick to push otherness away because they themselves are insecure? And as a bonus, alot of them don’t gain confidence even into adulthood?
I’d just like to say that I didn’t find it read like AI personally
I agree, this does not at all read like GPT
Thank you lol
I mean, it sucks that you pinned your hopes on your crush having to follow a social pressure to kiss/fondle/fuck/whatever the “forfeit” for spin the bottle was in the first place.
It sucks that you had to go through that, but at what point does that declination of your advances suck less?
I mean, society has unfortunately favoured shitty games like “pull the bull” and “poke the bear” over any sort of genuine attraction which has usually disadvantaged women anyway - that’s not to turn it into a gender thing, but maybe the idea of sparking a relationship from a forced interaction sucks from the outset.
Anon didn’t make up the rules, and I wouldn’t wager that he was the one who decided to start that game. Everyone chose to play knowing they wouldn’t be comfortable getting anon. It doesn’t seem to me like anon made any advance at all. Rejecting someone’s advances for whatever reason is not morally incorrect, nor is denying them physical displays of affection. But going up to someone unprompted and telling them you find them unattractive and wouldn’t feel comfortable touching them is. This seem like an intermediate situation where they willingly and knowingly created a situation where they would have to do the latter. Refusing to kiss or touch anon wasn’t the fault here, initiating the game was.
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do people really get upset about this?
Yes. I’ll dive in, assuming that the greentext is real; the scenario is plausible enough.
Romantic rejection is painful, as it’s based on an instinct to achieve a strong mutual bond with someone else. This may or may not be conflated with a drive to reproduce, depending on the level of sexual attraction involved. The sensation of loss here, can manifest in actual physical pain in one’s head and/or viscera, and is proportional to the level of “drive”. This also gets coupled with a sensation of loss as the reward for achieving that mutuality is a moment that is usually followed by intense pleasure (even without sex); suddenly realizing that reward isn’t coming, hurts.
The second part, where the group continues without Anon, is similar but a different phenomenon. It’s rejection from the entire social group. Our instincts to be social creatures causes us to feel this as a loss (painful), because we’re safer and stronger in groups. Instinctively, the sensation will subside once Anon figures out how be confident with being alone, or (more likely) finds a more compatible social group.
Attempting to introspect the above sensations without support can also go to bad places. Anon mentions his self-esteem - they are blaming themself since that’s a position of “control”, but ignoring the reality that this was all impossible to predict or avoid. In reality, the other partygoers are a bunch of insensitive assholes and carry 100% of the blame here. This person really needs to be around people with more empathy.
Combined, Anon is in a world of physical and psychological pain. They were denied a potential romantic and/or sexual reward, and were rejected by the entire social group. Both forms of rejection provoke instinct and our reward centers in ways that just make a person miserable.
Would you be upset if you found out people considered you ugly?
Disgusting is more accurate.
Anon self pities instead of self reflecting and fails to grow because of it
