100 Days of Rejection

Inspired by Jia Jiang's challenge of the same name, I am going to seek out one rejection every day for the next 100 days. The aim of this is to fortify myself against rejection and looking like an idiot - that when these things happen I will be able to shrug them off, and will be more willing to put myself in situations where they are likely.

I will try to post here every day with my story from the day, any encouragement or ideas will be very much appreciated!

 

Day 1(?) - Buy half a vegan sausage roll from Greggs

For logistical reasons, it was impossible to do my first rejection yesterday, so instead I am doing two today - one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

I went into Greggs (a well known chain bakery here in the UK) and asked the guy behind the counter if I could buy half a vegan sausage roll. He seemed confused, then said "I don't think I'm allowed to do that, sorry", so I bought a whole vegan sausage roll instead.

It was an easy first rejection to find, and has started me off nicely. I'll probably do another relatively easy one this afternoon and work my way up to harder ones as I become more tolerant to rejection.

 

Day 2(?) - Taking pictures with strangers

I had this set up for Saturday night, but then I discussed with my housemate and realised it is completely normal to take photos with other drunk people, and I risked scaring people if they were just walking around on their own. I don't want to do something normal, and I don't want to scare people for my own benefit, so instead I went out this morning to a market in town.

My gut reaction was 'focus on men, focus on middle aged people', simply because I struggle to approach women, especially young, attractive women, and I expected I would look like a creep if I asked them. So the first person I approached was an older gent who seemed confused, but was happy to take a picture. Next I bought a bottle of water for a homeless guy and, seeing an opportunity, asked him as well - he was so grateful for the water that he didn't even hesitate and pulled a wide grin!

At this point, I decided "enough of being a wimp, time to approach a woman". I saw a lady walking a dog, on the younger end of middle aged, and decided she would be a perfect target. She was positively excited at the prospect of taking a picture with a stranger (and I took one with her dog as well, who was called Noodle) and made me more comfortable with the approaching part. My fourth victim was a local waiter, smoking a cigarette before the restaurant opened. He was a good looking dude so I complimented his style before asking, and he complimented me right back! Lovely guy, also down for a photo.

I decided my last one simply had to be a young woman, I want to make myself uncomfortable with this challenge. I looked around for someone more plain, who perhaps wouldn't be approached as often, because I didn't want to be rejected (my winning streak was going to my head and I forgot the challenge), but then remembered I was supposed to be uncomfortable. I looked around for the most attractive lass I could see (who I could say with certainty was definitely over 21, for safety, didn't want to risk accidentally chatting up a minor), and walked up to her. She seemed like she was very used to being approached by guys in all kinds of situations so I got the "go ahead, shoot your shot so I can reject you" face. I asked and she seemed bewildered. Evidently her thought process was "Why does he want a picture with me? Is he a creep or just really innocent?", so I jumped in with an explanation, and she happily obliged. Embarrassingly, my camera decided to stop working at this point, and it took me about 20 seconds to open the damn thing - but eventually I managed and finished my day 2(?) challenge!

What did I learn? I expected to get a lot of weird looks, and I did in some cases, but everyone was actually really friendly once they knew I didn't have some ulterior motive! I think the way that I approached people probably influenced their levels of suspicion, it's amazing what you can achieve with a small change to communication styles.

Finally I learnt that dogs are as amazing as I always knew, and approaching attractive women is still f***ing terrifying, but I can see it getting easier with practice.

 

Thank you Cirilla and fredisthebes, I really appreciate the encouragement! Just in the first 2-3 days of this, I'm realising how easy it is to stay in my comfort zone without really thinking about it - taking action to step out of it is uncomfortable (by definition, I suppose) but feels really refreshing! Highly recommended!

 

Day 3 - Learning how to make loose leaf Japanese tea

There is a wonderful tea shop, just around the corner from my house, that serves freshly infused loose leaf tea and Japanese inspired food. I went in for some tea and, curios about how they infuse it so perfectly every time, I asked them to teach me how to make tea. Unlike the previous tasks, I didn't expect a rejection here, but I decided to include it for the challenge since it involved asking for something unusual. I also have a bit of a crush on the woman I asked so that was another step out of the comfort zone!

It's a fascinating science - they heat the water to very specific temperatures, depending on the tea in question it could be anything from 68 degrees to 100 degrees (celsius), and infuse it for specific lengths of time (again depending on the tea, and the number of times those leaves have been infused already). It was amazing looking at how they judge whether or not an infusion is ready, and seeing them pour hot water into different vessels and into a steam tray to create the right humidity and to heat the jug/cup/teapot.

Learnings? Most obviously, I learned how to make tea! It also struck me how keen the woman was to talk about every aspect of the tea infusion process - I hadn't expected a rejection, but I also didn't expect to learn about the process in such detail! I suspect that is true of a lot of people - everyone loves to talk about something they are passionate about, it just takes the right question for them to really open up about it. This is definitely something I'd like to explore further. I also learned that I have a huge weakness for Scottish accents.