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Originally Posted by cylon  Whatever it is, it has absolutely nothing to do with what I was talking about. Let's just agree to call it "pain". |
It looks to me like it has everything to do with what you were talking about.
You said it's silly for women to think they know what a man feels when he experiences rejection, and I think you're right -- no one person knows how it feels to be another person. But the experience of "rejection" a woman experiences when a man stops being interested when he realizes she's not gonna put out is in the same family as the "rejection" a man feels when he approaches a woman who may shoot him down, and I don't think it's silly to recognize the similarity.
The big similarity I see is one of personal power. A person who views the risk of "rejection" as "the burden we bear" or something one gender will never understand about the other or that it's hurtful that men who don't want to participate in a sexless courtship are all about sex, not authentic connection...... people who believe thoughts like that ("Rejection is Real!") all have one big thing in common, and that's that they give away their personal power -- they put other people in charge of their state.
If you believe that another person's thoughts, behavior or words are a burden to bear, not understandable, or hurtful (unless they're slapping you across the face, of course -- that would be hurtful in a "real" way), you are effectively telling the world that you have no personal power.
And that affects how people relate to you, of course, so believing these thoughts actually keeps those hurtful, burdensome thoughts and behaviors in place. You create them powerfully (you can't give away your power to unconsciously create!) by believing your thoughts are The Truth.
It may be easier for you to see how the woman who believes men are all about sex, not connection, gives away her power by believing those thoughts than it is to see how you yourself do it by believing that rejection is a burden men bear, and vice-versa -- you've noticed it's easier to see the log in the other person's eye and I think that's especially true of limiting beliefs.
What would be possible in your life if you weren't believing thoughts that rejection is real?
Just as Edison saw his hundreds of early experiments not as "failure" but as successful ways to NOT make a lightbulb, what if men and women CELEBRATED each time they passed on a potential match, or were passed on, because it was a successful experiment in who NOT to mate with? Wouldn't that be a fun way to approach romance and sex?