Rejection painful but necessary

I’ve discovered a legal loophole that is going to completely destroy the current ideas of… I’ve discovered a legal loophole that is going to completely destroy the current ideas of courtship as we know them.

It all started one lazy Saturday as I sat studying at the Carnegie Library with a friend. This friend, who is full of seemingly useless knowledge which he loves to spout out as soon as he sees that I am starting to make progress on my homework, informed me that the part of the brain that sends out the unpleasant response linked to physical pain – the anterior cingulated cortex, to be exact and nerdy – is the same part of the brain that reacts when a person encounters social rejection, and that these two responses share some pretty important neural pathways.

So that’s why it feels like you’ve been kicked in the stomach every time someone turns you down for a date.

At first I was all “please stop talking to me, I’m actually understanding this reading on temporal parts,” but then I began to reflect on this little scientific fun fact. And since I was already doing logic-ish metaphysical philosophy, I wrote down a little proof that went something like this:

Premise 1: Getting kicked = getting rejected

Premise 2: Getting kicked = legal action taken against kicker by kickee

Conclusion: Therefore, by substitution: Getting rejected = legal action taken against rejecter by rejected.

“Oh, snap,” I said to my friend. Do you know what this means?! If you can press charges against someone for assaulting you, and assault is the equivalent of getting dumped, ditched or not-dated, then you can take legal action against someone who rejects you!

At this point my library buddy’s face instantaneously filled with what I would describe as dread. You see, my friend is in a state of perpetually rejecting my romantic advances, so according to my new little scientific/legal/proof-thing, he is also in a state of perpetually causing me physical harm, or the equivalent thereof, and therefore in a state of perpetually being at risk of legal action.

And in my friend’s newfound dread, I saw the potential that this little law has. Imagine the implications of being able to press charges against someone every time he or she rejected you! People would never get rejected. Ever.

The world would be such a different place.

For starters, the economy would be completely revitalized. Because people would be dating so much more, they would be spending a lot more money. Dinner, movies, flowers, coffee, presents, etc. – all these little things would start to add up. There’s real money in new romance.

Second, dating obligations would completsly break down class boundaries. You know that person who is all “I am too classy for you?” Well, not anymore my friends, the playing field is now level. Because nobody, not even classy people, can escape the long arm of the law. Equality would reach a new dimension.

Third, and here’s the big one: world peace. Okay, why do you think people start wars? They’re bitter about being rejected. Rejection is not limited to just you and me; even world leaders are rejected from time to time. And let’s not lie to ourselves, that rejection-fueled acrimony builds up until all of a sudden you find yourself making up reasons to invade some place or ethnically cleanse a group of people or something. My Nobel Peace Prize is in the mail, right?

A world with no rejection seems amazing to me.

Here’s the thing though – I’ve seen enough romantic comedies to realize that if you never reject someone who is pursuing you, and you’re forever stuck with the first really gross kid who asks you out in seventh grade, then you probably won’t be so happy.

You won’t ever want to actually go out with this person, so your “dates” will consist of watching cable television at home and making frozen pizzas. So the economy won’t really be boosted, except for the frozen pizza economy, and is that even really lacking? People love frozen pizza now, and I can safely say they always will.

And not so desirable people will fight to ask out the super-desirable people, so the mediocre people, who make up the majority, will not have anyone to ask them out. So there’ll be a lot more loneliness. And even more class stratification. And there will probably be all this newfound hostility to fuel people’s war-starting fires. So no world peace, which means no Nobel Peace Prize for me, and that makes me very unhappy.

I guess rejection is a necessary part of life, as painful as it may be. It opens doors to new opportunities and shuts them on potentially unpleasant situations. It justifies teenage melodrama and provides fodder for pretty much any show on The CW. And most importantly, it is an excellent source of the bitter pills on which writers like myself subsist.

So I’d just like to say to my library friend, you can wipe that dread off your face now. And also, do you want to get coffee sometime? Maybe a movie