Don't be a reject...

'tis time to cover another topic with the demystifying divas and the Men's club. This week's topic: how to avoid romantic based rejection and how to recuperate when you've been rejected.

Being rejected stings. Well depending upon the situation it can do a bit more than sting. For example being shot down when using an extremely horrid pickup line: "Hey darlin' you wanna go in halves on a bastard?" Isn't nearly as painful as say meeting your wife's new lover, who also happens to be your best friend's sister.

Just imagine the get barbeques after such an incident, "Hey aren't you they guy that Frank's little sister is dating now? Man that's got suck. So what'd you do to turn your wife into a lesbian?" There really isn't another scenario that deals such a crushing blow to a man's ego, except maybe if she became a nun and explained that you'd ruined sex for her completely.

When meeting women there are a several ways guys typically try to minimize the sting of being rejected. The most well known method is the use of pick up lines. At this point in time the women reading this are saying recalling all the times some poor sap walked up to them and said "Was your father a thief? 'Cause someone stole the stars from the sky and put them in your eyes." It's lines like these that some men resort to as ice breakers.

The way they look at it, is if you're willing to laugh of an appalling introduction you'll probably let us down easy when we finally work up the nerve to ask for your phone number. If you blow us off completely, well then we can chalk up your crassness to your lack of a sense of humor and we wouldn't want to waste our precious limited time anyhoo.

I promise you ladies we men aren't as stupid as we look, okay some of us are, but by in large we aren't. We know that you're a fierce lot and that your instincts to protect your young (born or unborn) can and does make y'all. We're just trying to soften the blow when we learn that you wouldn't even consider us as a potential mate (or playmate as the case may be).

After being turned down we'll there are several steps towards the road of repairing our damaged ego.
The first is to order another round of refreshing adult beverages.
Next we'll swear the lady that turned us down is:
a) Already engaged / married / in a committed relationship.
b) A hateful hussy we'd prefer not to spend any time around.
c) A lesbian.
d) ALL OF THE ABOVE.

Nine times out of ten we'll opt for answer d and swear all the ladies in the group of are from the lesbian convent just down the road. This helps to save our fragile egos since there really can't be anything wrong with us can there? Once we've convinced ourselves that it's you and not us we'll move along to the next unsuspecting victim.

Our methods of avoiding rejection once we're in a relationship go even further. We'll end a relationship / fail to pursue a relationship over the most insignificant reasons. She's got a mole on her right shoulder, holds the fork funny, snorts when she laughs, etc... the reasons men have ended relationships are as numerous as the days of the earth. Some of them may be valid phobias, however often times I've seen guys try to end a relationship prior to being dropped. If they sense things aren't going so well, zip, bang, pow, see ya darlin'. Its been real, its been fun, but it hasn't been real fun.

Primarily it all boils down to our fragile egos again. The blow seems to be less crushing if we end the relationship by finding a fault, no mater how insignificant in the other person.

Now should we be captured by surprise and dropped prior to being able to end the relationship ourselves there are a series of steps that we go through to recover. The first involves mentally torturing ourselves for about fifteen minutes until we realize it was your fault and that you really weren't worthy of us to start with. From there we call our college buddies, who are required by The Guy Code to take us out drinking as step two in the recover process.

While out drinking all the guys will take turns swearing how she was never "the right one"; never mind that just two days earlier they were swearing she was the greatest thing since canned peaches. Once there has been adequate ex-bashing it's time to start down the true road of recovery with means you've got to get "back in the game". If the friends are married, this will typically involve a trip to the nearest gentlemen's establishment so the kind young ladies can reassure your buddies you that they're you're still desirable. If they're all single, this will typically involve a trip to the nearest gentlemen's establishment so the kind young ladies can reassure your buddies you that they're you're desirable. (Catching a theme here?)

Once the customary trip to Bottoms Up is out of the way it's time to start over with the steps mentioned in how to avoid rejection when meeting women. It really is a vicious cycle isn't it? Makes me happy I'm happily married (at least the wife keeps telling me I'm happily married).

The Wizard, the Naked Villains and Stiggy are offering mo' better masculine points of view.

Kathy,Silk, Sadie and Phoenix are providing female prospectives. Chrissy isn't feeling so hot and may post tomorrow.