"Learning About Love Requires Rejection"
by David Nurenberg
When I was in college at Brandeis, the Office of Campus Life used to mail out little guides before every school dance which, I kid you not, explained in great detail, "how to date" someone. Most people threw them out, some were annoyed, some laughed. The intention behind these inane leaflets seemed noble enough, packed as they were with warnings and instructions how to avoid date-rape, stepping on someone's gender identity, mismatched partners - in short, the administration tried its best to prevent people from getting hurt. Well, with a dangerous practice like dating, there are many ways people can get hurt beyond all that. Maybe that little "guide" didn't go far enough.
Connecticut College, to my knowledge, sends out no such guide on the emotional consequences of dating either. But I spent more than an hour on the phone with a friend there who just turned down a guy who had asked her out, and was now dealing with the consequences. No, he's not stalking her. No, he's not throwing pumpkins through her window. He's just hurt. And so is she.
Yes, this stuff happens all the time, in college and beyond, and I've yet to see any "special leaflets" or "workshops" arise to address it. In intense environments like college, a person can wind up opening up a great deal to someone they barely even know. Any freshman can tell you that, amazingly, you can wind up feeling closer to people you've known for three weeks than you do with people you've known all your life. It's crazy, but that's the way it happens. Attractions can come and go with a kind of power that we've never encountered before.
This is all easy enough for me to say from a comfortable distance. It didn't make my friend feel any better. But I have been there, on both ends - been crushed, and done the crushing - and although it's far worse to be on the receiving end, neither is pleasant at all. But these are the scars we accrue along our journeys. They are necessary pains of growing up. Even in our early twenties, most of us have accrued a list of so-called emotional "crimes" done to us, and by us, and that list helps make us who we are.
People who "dump," or reject outright, are not awful people for their refusal. As hard as this may be for dumpees to realize, everyone has a right to love who they want to. What's more, a person has a right to not know precisely why she doesn't like someone. Nearly everyone who's been rejected seeks an answer, something that will make it make sense. Well, sorry to poke holes in the entire foundation of academic thought, but not every question has an answer. Note that this doesn't absolve the rejecter from the obligation to be as kind as possible. Having someone's heart in your hands is an incredible responsibility. There's no way to avoid hurting someone, but there are ways to not be a jerk about it.
Simultaneously, people who are dumped are not "deficient" somehow. Unlucky, perhaps. Hurt, certainly. But we don't get angry at a puzzle piece for not fitting into another. It's the wrong fit, it's not a "bad" piece. Besides, being rejected again and again is like falling off a bike. Eventually it hurts less and it gets easier to get back on. There really is a point you can reach when you realize that anyone who doesn't appreciate you probably wouldn't be a good match for you anyway. Maybe years down the line, they will be. Maybe they never will be. Whatever the case, you can't reach inside people's minds and rearrange the wiring and make them like you . . . and even if you could, they then wouldn't be the same person you liked.
Again, it's all easy enough to write, but I doubt it's of much comfort. Single answers aren't available, though, this is the best I've come up with to help me sleep at night. I am convinced that the more "dumps" you give and receive, the more relationships you experience, the better you get at this crazy system. It's kind of like building up frequent flyer miles . . . except you learn to expect crashes as routine.
Now, as most of my friends and I explore what passes for the dating scene in the "real world," part of us even longs for that frenetic college-time . . . or give thanks to college for all the experiences. The more people you date, the more you know what you want in a relationship. That's why I always feel badly for people who either don't date in college, or those who have a steady girlfriend/boyfriend the entire time through. These "couples" may look like they have it figured out, but I really think they're missing out on a vital part of the whole college experience.
Love is indeed an experience, and it is a process. We're so used to getting everything prepackaged in America, and Hollywood leads us to expect relationships are the same way. Well, they aren't. Love is the great democratizer - rich, poor, pampered, deprived, we all have to work our butts off and go through a lot of hardship before we even come close to getting what makes us happy. We're all in the same boat, even if that boat seems to be the Titanic.
So if you haven't found your true love by age 20, don't panic. Not all learning happens in the classrooms. Relationships are tough, and we're going to fail along the way. Everybody does, and, consequently, as REM says, everybody hurts. Perhaps that little "dating guide" should have warned us about that as well.
David Nurenberg is a freelance writer from Massachusetts whose credits include the Boston Globe and FamilyPC Magazine.
This article is reprinted on this site with the express permission of David Nurenberg, and for which we are grateful.
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