I was recently thinking about how both writing and dating cause you to be vulnerable in a similar fashion, and whether rejection actually gets easier the more you do both, and I think I’ve figured out the cure for protecting yourself. For all thin-skinned, delicate, and fragile beings like myself, I’ve got the answer for dealing with rejection. It’s actually to... just not try at all!
By not trying, you protect yourself from 100% of all feelings related to potential failure. You stay safe, snug in your cocoon of untapped potential. You’ll never hear “thanks, but no thanks,” or “let’s leave things here” because no one even knows you exist. No mid-week pockets of delusion in which you convince yourself they’re probably just really busy. When you don’t try, you never have to face the possibility that you weren’t enough. Instead, you get to preserve the fantasy that you’re great! You can stay perched, comfortably, on your high horse, critiquing everyone else’s efforts while maintaining the moral high ground of “I could have done that, but I chose not to.” It’s a beautiful, self-preserving cycle. 10/10 recommend.
Haha. Joking. But I don’t talk about failing or rejection much in public because I don’t like looking silly and because I wrote a memoir, I also feel like I’ve revealed enough for a few years, folks. But I’m going to try and change that here, in this newsletter, which is supposed to be about solo travel and solo working and writing, every other Tuesday. (Thank you for your patience I am now back on track after a few weeks off-grid, writing).
Of course I fail, and fail often, just like many others. I’m not special.
With my friends, I find talking through a lot of my rejections incredibly helpful. I am the queen of hashing it out. After my travel book came out in 2021 I pitched another one because I like travel writing and because the money for the first one was quite good. I got rejected from quite a few publishers before one offered me a paltry £5,000 (for a collection of essays from which I’d have to pay the contributors). I bemoaned the state of the publishing industry with my closest friends for weeks and took is as a failure. And a while ago I got left on read by someone I’d dated and really liked. I must have discussed his reasonings, his short-comings, our star-signs, and my own feelings, from about seven different angles and with about 12 different people. (I concluded he’s the loser, not me).
Writing and dating are acts of vulnerability which can be fun, but also involve a lot of rejection. Writing is like a muscle that gets stronger the more you flex it. But with dating, the more you do it the weaker you seem to feel. As a wise friend who suffered on the apps for many years, once said to me: “Dating is like taking a test you’re qualified for but keep failing. It’s the only thing you can do again and again with no guarantee of success.” Preach.
Talking it through with mates is helpful but I also whack on “Far” by Sza and draw reassurance from the fact the track opens with a confessional snippet in which she discusses dealing with “a lot” of rejection and Sadhguru says in response:
Oh, that's great
If nobody wants you, you're free
I hate rejection as much as the next person, but I guess I chose a life with a lot of freedom, and this is the price I pay for it. I have chosen to be single for the last few years instead of dropping my standards. I have a job that requires me to put myself out there as a self-employed writer and non-fiction author where I pitch article and book ideas. I’m also always rambling into my phone on TikTok with what looks like carefree abandon, so it might shock people to learn that I can’t hack rejection very well at all. Not every day footloose and fancy free. I’m also working on a novel, and let me tell you this: your skin will rival that of an armadillo by the time you’ve completed your own work of fiction, because the process is nothing short of brutal.
When you choose freedom—creative freedom, the freedom to move around and live in different places and carve out a life that doesn’t follow a traditional script—you’re also choosing uncertainty, a path with fewer guarantees. And maintaining sanity and dignity in both love and work as a self-employed, single person is hard. I can speak to how lonely, strange and isolating, doing everything by yourself, can feel. You’re a ship adrift at sea, with no-where to cast an anchor. Yes each day is your own, filled with possibility and choice, but sometimes that’s overwhelming. And with dating, unlike writing, you get zero feedback on the whole process! No polite padding that says: "thanks for this, I’m going to pass but here’s some notes on how to improve.”
I think I’m alright at taking feedback onboard with my writing, but with dating I find it near-on impossible and a bit infuriating because the whole concept of romance is nebulous, ephemeral and particular to each person. My standards and sexuality aren’t the same as anyone else’s, let’s not pretend we’re wired the same, or that we want the same thing. Oh you met your partner at Uni? I’ll just kickstart my time machine and go back to the SU club nights of 2010, shall I? You think I should date people older/younger/less ambitious. OK, but I don’t? With writing, there are rules—narrative arcs, character development, pacing. You can learn the craft, apply the feedback, and (hopefully) improve. But dating? It’s an unregulated market, and one person’s best-seller is another person’s bargain bin reject.
This is the first winter I’ve spent in London in four years. It’s been great overall, I feel focused and excited for the future. I came home with a mission: to complete a few goals, both writing-related and dating-related. I could write an entire essay on why my love life ground to a depressing halt in Lisbon (too transient, too small, too direction-less), but by 2024 I felt my career was also doing the same. I launched Raceless and Black Girls Take World in 2021 and flew back to do all the events, like speaking at the Cheltenham and Hay. I continued my travel writing with assignments in Brazil and the Douro region. I also launched my writing retreats for women of colour in Lisbon and continued my column at the Guardian. In short, I wasn’t sitting on my arse doing niff. But I’d started to feel stagnant in both love and work. I missed cultural events and concerts. I missed seeing people who looked like me doing cool stuff. I missed conversations that didn’t need subtitles, friends who’d known me since I was 11 and the chaos of losing yourself in a big city that wasn’t slow and sleepy. So I rejected the life of a full-time remote writer in Lisbon. I’m undecided about if I’ll return.
Rejection can be redirection, of course. In not getting the thing you thought you wanted, you’re forced to sit with the disappointment and examine your priorities. Sometimes, you realise that what you were chasing wasn’t really meant for you at all. Failing is good because it makes us stop and in that stillness, comes a reckoning. I also think writers handle rejection more than most because it’s par for the course in our lives. Rejection is a space we have to get familiar with because we go through it often. Managing your own business involves trial, error and making mistakes, writing a book results in feedback, and writing an article means having it shaped by an editor. I realised this recently and thought: yes I have been good at putting myself out there with my work, so why am I not with relationships?
With writing, you bear your soul on a few hundred pages, send them to strangers and pray for acceptance. Dating is… the exact same? Both result in the slow decay of your sanity and dignity before the glorious high. And that’s what we do it for, I guess. The elusive moments when everything clicks. When the sentences arrange themselves in a euphoric haze of sweet harmony, as if the words have chosen themselves just for you. When the conversation is effortless, laughter is easy, and you feel seen, understood, adored. And so, you go back for more, willingly subjecting yourself to the madness, the decay, the desperation—just for another taste of that fleeting, wonderful high.
The advice I give to others around rejection is to grieve it, but then move on quickly. I am not a fan of emotional repression, I like to mourn and moan and lick my wounds for a while, but then I return to the drawing board and re-strategise. Don’t deny the setback, talk it out, maybe take it onboard, then use it as fuel to push forward. That’s how you build a life by design, not by default.
Do you agree? Any tips for dealing with rejection, I’d love to know!
"Rejection can be redirection, of course. In not getting the thing you thought you wanted, you’re forced to sit with the disappointment and examine your priorities." 🎯
This is phenomenal.