We live in the era of dating web sites; lunch dates set up by matchmaking companies who charge lots of money; singles bars where the patrons resemble sharks during a feeding frenzy; and speed dating events during which you are supposed to meet eight members of the opposite sex, have eight, three-minute meaningful conversations and decide if you are interested in going on a date with any or all of them.
Dating and courting are lost arts and, apparently so are both telling someone in person that you are not interested in going out with them and writing your own love letters from your heart!
For example, the Rejection Line, is a telephone phone number (provided by www.RejectionHotline.com) that members give out when they don’t want to give out their real telephone number.
Callers hear a humorous recording and are not-so-subtly informed that the person who gave them the number is not interested in going out with them.
For those who prefer to give an innocent optimistic pursuer an email address that will respond to their first brave foray into getting to know them better, there are choices, too:
The Rejection Hotline folks host noitcejer.com (that is rejection spelled backwards). Rejection Business Cards are available with your hometown Rejection Hotline telephone number and a noitcejer.com email address.
The screen loads and a message appears that in essence says…"We’re sorry, but Noitcejer is not a real company. You probably got this web address off a phony business card provided by The Rejection Hotline… because the person who gave you this business card did not want you to have any of their real contact information…"
Paper Napkin.com offers the same concept. If someone asks one of their members for his or her email address so they can contact him/her for a date, it is now possible to give them anyname@papernapkin.net (or paamail.com, to be less suspicious).
When they email the person, they will automatically get a response message much like the ones above.
Oh dear! While on the one hand I can have a sense of humor about things, on the other hand, I am concerned, to say the least, that the sheer numbers of people who are paying good money for these services are not joking around.
Telling our most personal truth and coming from our deepest place of personal honesty and integrity can be scary, intimidating and threatening.
We risk exposure, embarrassment, humiliation, anxiety and, yes, maybe sometimes rejection.
There is no substitute for connecting, even for just a moment, with the humanity of another and speaking from our heart. Maybe the hordes of people we are trying to meet and manage is the problem.
It has never been easy to tell someone that you are not interested in seeing him again or going out with her in the first place.
But life isn’t supposed to be easy. At the end of the day we have to live our best life through our values.
It certainly doesn’t match any of my values to give out phony telephone numbers and email addresses to innocent strangers whose only sin was to have an interest in getting to know me better.
And it certainly doesn’t match for me to send the man I love most in the world a fill-in-the-blank love letter.
How about for you?
Until next time remember…
Only YOU can make it Happen!
