Rejection hurts. In fact, studies have shown that rejection really hurts; that is, the feeling of rejection actually stimulates the pain centers in the brain. You know, those same ones that always go off when you stub your toe on the dresser drawer. While rejection will always sting a little (unless, that is, you’re made of steel), there are ways to dampen the pain. You just need to learn to deal with rejection effectively, and not let it get in the way of your search for the right person.

1. Tell yourself it’s short-lived. The truth is, the pain you feel when you’re rejected is temporary; any hurt you feel will soon fade and you won’t feel it anymore. This sounds like it might be oversimplifying, but it really does help. Even though it doesn’t change the fact that you feel hurt now, telling yourself that it hasn’t done any permanent harm can speed the healing process. It sounds silly, but “tomorrow’s another day” really does work sometimes. Because the more you focus on feeling rejected, the more painful it’ll be.

2. Don’t take it personally. This should really be “don’t let yourself take it personally.” It’s perfectly natural to want to take rejection personally; just as it’s perfectly natural to want to take any painful or disappointing situation personally. A lot of people who are rejected go straight to themselves to figure out what went wrong; they forget that the person doing the rejecting may have entirely different reasons for turning them down.

3. Search out some moral support. When a rejection is especially painful, like if you’ve been dating for months and were rejected out of the blue, you may be tempted to lock yourself inside with your miserable thoughts. Don’t! Spend time with the people who you love, who are best at making you feel better or who can always make you laugh. This is a good method even after being rejected by some stranger in a bar. Go back to your group of friends, and let yourself be comforted by their affection for you, after all, it’s the opposite of rejection!

4. Try again… and quick! Whether turned down at a club or having somebody you’re internet dating lose interest, it’s important to “get back on the horse,” as they say. If you spend a lot of time wallowing in your feelings of rejection, putting yourself out there again will only get harder. The faster you try again, the sooner you’ll be able to put your bad experience behind you.

5. Get some perspective. For those of us with self esteem problems, being rejected feels like a personal judgment on our worth. But it’s important to remember that it’s not. While you may want to blame yourself for lacking whatever it is the person who rejected you wanted, you must make an effort not to internalize. You can’t know everything that led to this person making the choice they did; to blame yourself will only make it hurt more.

6. Learn from your mistake. Most of the time, you will be rejected for things outside yourself; somebody is going through a difficult time, or isn’t ready for a relationship, or just isn’t a good fit for you. But sometimes you’re rejected because you consistently make the same mistakes. So while you don’t want to take rejection to personally, you do want to look at it objectively. Are you often rejected when asking a girl for her phone number? There might be a problem with your approach. Learning from rejection will help you do better next time.

this article was written by shawn wilson, a member of the customer support team at datepad, where internet dating is always free. datepad has a massive directory of informative dating articles along with a great list of dating site reviews on their dating blog.

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