1. Fear is an action, a process. It has an actor (yourself, in this case) and an object (someone else, for instance, or the act of public speaking, or a potential situation).
2. Fear is the process of alienating the actor from the object through the vehicle of ignorance. Your knowledge of the object diminishes and, as a result, you identify yourself as radically separated from the object. In the case of wanting to be someone's friend and "fearing rejection", you know less about the person and anticipate they will not want to be your friend, and thus you cannot imagine the two of you enjoying each other's company.
3. Fear is counteracted in its components through understanding and equality. You discover more and as a consequence feel closer. The understanding is entirely on your part. Again, in the case of a desired friendship, you need to understand human beings and feel like a human being, then you need to understand that person's culture, however vaguely, then their personal habits, and eventually they in their entirety.
4. Understanding is achieved through trial and error. Fail early, and fail often. Make lots of mistakes. Find out what works and what doesn't. Take that which is of substance and keep it; discard the rest. Move on, try again, and learn. If you want to pursue one person, talk to a thousand others first. Somewhere along the way, you'll figure it out.
5. When you figure it out, you won't be afraid anymore. We also call this empowerment.
6. Knowledge demands constant maintenance. You must regularly and continually update and expand your knowledge, or it will naturally degrade into ignorance. The human brain is not a computer system and will not store information infinitely; data disperses.
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