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Frankly as much as I read it (twice now) I find nothing good or bad to say, I don't seem to get the point and maybe someone can enlighten me? Is this a piece ab

Frankly as much as I read it (twice now) I find nothing good or bad to say, I don't seem to get the point and maybe someone can enlighten me? Is this a piece about how people became fragile at the face of delayed gratification or when something doesn't go their usual way (it seems a twitter unfollow initiated this whole thing)? So many questions. I understand that for some, that represents a drama which surely begs the question of what the person who wrote this thinks a friendship means and what the boundaries of that friendship are since a benign online transaction shattered their world view. I also don't get the parallels to other people? Am I missing the point? What is OP trying to say? I have friends I haven't talked to for ages and that friendship is not quantifiable by the amount of likes they give me on twitter/ig/fb and even less on the amount of messages we share but it's qualitative, when we meet we always have a blast and I can count on them if I have to move to another place (well some would help, others I am damn sure they won't lol). To me this comes over as a bit hollow and a tad whiny? I don't know. Again, I might be missing something crucial here. (As a sidenote I'm getting a few GPT-3 vibes but seriously there surely is a function that states "any article has non null probability of being written by GPT-3" so you can ignore this last part...)

brabel 5y ago
Seems to me you are not very acquainted with rejection, which is the topic of the article. It talks about how, in our modern age, we face rejection all the time: at work, dating, in friendships... and how the internet has made the number of rejections you might face in your day-to-day explode... and how we're not psychologically prepared to face that. An article, IMO, doesn't need to have a call for change, or a very deep insight or idea.... this one just calls to our attention what's happening and how that might be causing consequences we're not paying much attention to (like the appearance of incels culture and other "avoid rejection at all costs" movements), which is something I do agree with.
- ilovefood 5y ago
  Well the first part might not be true, as a north african immigrant in Europe I am very well acquainted with rejection in so many things I lost count, a simple case is searching for a flat in Munich which made the news a few years ago. My name only is a reason for rejection and frankly nothing can ever prepare you for that unless, you get a lot of rejections. Has it ever stopped me? no. Thank you for clarifying though, I get it, I definitely had a different definition of what a rejection is which is what caused my confusion. For the last part, I absolutely agree, some people tend to be too focused on the rejection itself and define themselves by it instead of doing something to changing it or themselves. Which always leads to bad things.
throwaway316943 5y ago
I agree. Was the “friendship” actually just someone they chatted with on Signal occasionally? That’s not really what I’d call a friend. It would barely class as an acquaintance. They also mention they interact with hundreds of people this way. I’m sorry but those aren’t friendships. Has modern life completely done away with actual friendships where you know each other fairly intimately and actually spend a good deal of time together? If you barely talk to someone’s online persona why should you even bat an eye when they ghost? You haven’t actually invested anything so you haven’t lost anything.
- runawaybottle 5y ago
  Well here’s the thing, you are putting friendship on a pedestal. Everyone is lucky to have anyone to talk to at all. Enjoy it for what it is, but why feel entitled to a life long commitment? These things come and go, and it’s better not to judge how life progresses.
  - bonoboTP 5y ago
    Having a few solid, long-term friendships where you trust each other over decades is something important for many. Maybe not for you. It has nothing to do with a pedestal.
Scandiravian 5y ago
From how I understand the post, it's about the disconnect between human nature and modern relations (personal, romantic, professional, etc) As humans we have a limit to how much rejection we can process in a healthy way. It varies from person to person, some can process things pretty quickly while others (like myself) quickly reach a breaking point This becomes an issue, when (as the author points out), we try to rationalise people's emotional response away ("you're overreacting"). The author points out that rejection doesn't happen in a vacuum and the cumulative effect of these can have profound negative effect on people. This means that what might seem like a disproportionate emotional response to being rejected, in actuality is proportional to the cumulative build up of multiple rejections over time Personal take: I agree with the author on the unhealthy nature of framing such emotional responses as a failure of the individual. This is especially true for the large part of the population who's neurodivergent I myself have ADHD, and rejection sensitivity is something that I have to spend a lot of energy on, since I have to make sure I'm able to withstand a large emotional response, when I think I'm being rejected The cumulative effect of a significant amount of rejection over the years combined with emotional dysregulation can result in me feeling actual physical pain because my emotional response is so intense Advise like "you just need to not take it personal" is damaging, because it doesn't address the fact that feelings are out of our control - just like telling someone who's having an anxiety attack that "there's nothing to be afraid of" is missing the point of what is going on and is actually harmful to the person experiencing it The post doesn't provide any solutions to this problem, but I think that acknowledging that this is an issue, might be a good start in any case
- ilovefood 5y ago
  I get your point and thank you very much for taking the time to write a detailed answer for me. Put like this it makes a whole lot of sense now, I was maybe just distracted by the examples the author brought in which confused me. It really shows that there's a spectrum of possible ways on how to deal with rejection that I am not aware of. I never took rejection personally but in contrary saw it as a challenge. Maybe that helps to frame why I wrote my initial question. I agree that it's tirening to have to work twice or 3 times as hard as others for the same result and having more roadblocks on the way (metaphor for rejection) but one thing that is sure to me, I never really gave any importance to emotional rejection because that one is very subjective and I don't understand why people think how they think. I might lack the emotional intelligence? The one that might have challenged me the most was rejection at work or rejection for just having a foreign name or foreign face because the latter is a checklist with all the marks ticked but still, something didn't quite fit completely.
yoz-y 5y ago
The article didn’t resonate with me at all either, but I think it’s mainly because I don’t fit into the collective “we” the author talks about. > We apply to hundreds of jobs. We swipe on hundreds if not thousands of people on dating apps. Many of us are like me, and perpetually have an infinite loop of notifications on an infinite loop of communication apps. Naturally if you go head first into potentially thousands of interactions, there will be a lot of rejection. To me, friends and social media are separate concepts, but I understand that most mix the two.
- bitexploder 5y ago
  Have these people forgotten how to live in the world without these apps? I understand how some folks get there with technology, but put the apps and screens down and go live in the real world. This concept that people are somehow captive to these apps blows my mind a little. I am generation X though, I grew up being kicked out of the house during the day and was forced to run around and play outside when not in school when I was younger.
  - scsilver 5y ago
    You know everyone out in the real world is looking at their phones.
  - yoz-y 5y ago
    One of the reasons might be urbanisation and such? Although it is easy to go out in a city, the question sometimes is "what for"? I wonder if time spent on social media is correlated to population density of the area.
    - bitexploder 5y ago
      Unclear. I know my post was a bit curmudgeonly, but my point was, people and friends exist outside of the phone and the comfort of our homes. Even if you meet someone on an app you must leave the safety of your home. COVID-19 obviously complicated this. I think a lot of people stuck in this loop with their devices and lives would be well served to take up hobbies that force you to meet and interact with other humans. That is a starting point, as COVID-19 winds down. Nothing ventured, nothing gained and this applies for social networking as well. Real life rejection is also much less common outside of dating. It’s a skill and you can’t learn it on apps. Even as introverts, it’s worth it to find your social groove and things that work for you. I think cities can be more isolating in a lot of ways.

brabel 5y ago

Seems to me you are not very acquainted with rejection, which is the topic of the article. It talks about how, in our modern age, we face rejection all the time: at work, dating, in friendships... and how the internet has made the number of rejections you might face in your day-to-day explode... and how we're not psychologically prepared to face that. An article, IMO, doesn't need to have a call for change, or a very deep insight or idea.... this one just calls to our attention what's happening and how that might be causing consequences we're not paying much attention to (like the appearance of incels culture and other "avoid rejection at all costs" movements), which is something I do agree with.

ilovefood 5y ago
Well the first part might not be true, as a north african immigrant in Europe I am very well acquainted with rejection in so many things I lost count, a simple case is searching for a flat in Munich which made the news a few years ago. My name only is a reason for rejection and frankly nothing can ever prepare you for that unless, you get a lot of rejections. Has it ever stopped me? no. Thank you for clarifying though, I get it, I definitely had a different definition of what a rejection is which is what caused my confusion. For the last part, I absolutely agree, some people tend to be too focused on the rejection itself and define themselves by it instead of doing something to changing it or themselves. Which always leads to bad things.

throwaway316943 5y ago

I agree. Was the “friendship” actually just someone they chatted with on Signal occasionally? That’s not really what I’d call a friend. It would barely class as an acquaintance. They also mention they interact with hundreds of people this way. I’m sorry but those aren’t friendships. Has modern life completely done away with actual friendships where you know each other fairly intimately and actually spend a good deal of time together? If you barely talk to someone’s online persona why should you even bat an eye when they ghost? You haven’t actually invested anything so you haven’t lost anything.

runawaybottle 5y ago
Well here’s the thing, you are putting friendship on a pedestal. Everyone is lucky to have anyone to talk to at all. Enjoy it for what it is, but why feel entitled to a life long commitment? These things come and go, and it’s better not to judge how life progresses.
- bonoboTP 5y ago
  Having a few solid, long-term friendships where you trust each other over decades is something important for many. Maybe not for you. It has nothing to do with a pedestal.

Scandiravian 5y ago

From how I understand the post, it's about the disconnect between human nature and modern relations (personal, romantic, professional, etc) As humans we have a limit to how much rejection we can process in a healthy way. It varies from person to person, some can process things pretty quickly while others (like myself) quickly reach a breaking point This becomes an issue, when (as the author points out), we try to rationalise people's emotional response away ("you're overreacting"). The author points out that rejection doesn't happen in a vacuum and the cumulative effect of these can have profound negative effect on people. This means that what might seem like a disproportionate emotional response to being rejected, in actuality is proportional to the cumulative build up of multiple rejections over time Personal take: I agree with the author on the unhealthy nature of framing such emotional responses as a failure of the individual. This is especially true for the large part of the population who's neurodivergent I myself have ADHD, and rejection sensitivity is something that I have to spend a lot of energy on, since I have to make sure I'm able to withstand a large emotional response, when I think I'm being rejected The cumulative effect of a significant amount of rejection over the years combined with emotional dysregulation can result in me feeling actual physical pain because my emotional response is so intense Advise like "you just need to not take it personal" is damaging, because it doesn't address the fact that feelings are out of our control - just like telling someone who's having an anxiety attack that "there's nothing to be afraid of" is missing the point of what is going on and is actually harmful to the person experiencing it The post doesn't provide any solutions to this problem, but I think that acknowledging that this is an issue, might be a good start in any case

ilovefood 5y ago
I get your point and thank you very much for taking the time to write a detailed answer for me. Put like this it makes a whole lot of sense now, I was maybe just distracted by the examples the author brought in which confused me. It really shows that there's a spectrum of possible ways on how to deal with rejection that I am not aware of. I never took rejection personally but in contrary saw it as a challenge. Maybe that helps to frame why I wrote my initial question. I agree that it's tirening to have to work twice or 3 times as hard as others for the same result and having more roadblocks on the way (metaphor for rejection) but one thing that is sure to me, I never really gave any importance to emotional rejection because that one is very subjective and I don't understand why people think how they think. I might lack the emotional intelligence? The one that might have challenged me the most was rejection at work or rejection for just having a foreign name or foreign face because the latter is a checklist with all the marks ticked but still, something didn't quite fit completely.

yoz-y 5y ago

The article didn’t resonate with me at all either, but I think it’s mainly because I don’t fit into the collective “we” the author talks about. > We apply to hundreds of jobs. We swipe on hundreds if not thousands of people on dating apps. Many of us are like me, and perpetually have an infinite loop of notifications on an infinite loop of communication apps. Naturally if you go head first into potentially thousands of interactions, there will be a lot of rejection. To me, friends and social media are separate concepts, but I understand that most mix the two.

bitexploder 5y ago
Have these people forgotten how to live in the world without these apps? I understand how some folks get there with technology, but put the apps and screens down and go live in the real world. This concept that people are somehow captive to these apps blows my mind a little. I am generation X though, I grew up being kicked out of the house during the day and was forced to run around and play outside when not in school when I was younger.
- scsilver 5y ago
  You know everyone out in the real world is looking at their phones.
- yoz-y 5y ago
  One of the reasons might be urbanisation and such? Although it is easy to go out in a city, the question sometimes is "what for"? I wonder if time spent on social media is correlated to population density of the area.
  - bitexploder 5y ago
    Unclear. I know my post was a bit curmudgeonly, but my point was, people and friends exist outside of the phone and the comfort of our homes. Even if you meet someone on an app you must leave the safety of your home. COVID-19 obviously complicated this. I think a lot of people stuck in this loop with their devices and lives would be well served to take up hobbies that force you to meet and interact with other humans. That is a starting point, as COVID-19 winds down. Nothing ventured, nothing gained and this applies for social networking as well. Real life rejection is also much less common outside of dating. It’s a skill and you can’t learn it on apps. Even as introverts, it’s worth it to find your social groove and things that work for you. I think cities can be more isolating in a lot of ways.