Anyone who has ever tried online dating knows that dating is a game of balance.
Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. Sometimes you find exactly who you’re looking for in the first five swipes, and you live happily ever after, and sometimes you get rejected right at the last minute.
The key to ‘winning’ at online dating is knowing how to play the game and rolling with the punches when they do come. Unfortunately, no matter how familiar you are with online dating, no matter how many articles like this you read that prepare you for what you might encounter when you’re on a dating site, and no matter how much first-hand experience you have from experiencing online dating yourself, you’re still going to find yourself stuck in the game sometimes. You’re going to have to play it.
I know that this is much easier said than done, and it can be challenging not to take every rejection you get when you’re online dating to heart because they are rejecting you and possibly choosing someone over you, but that’s all just part of the game.
Today, we want to help equip you for success while you’re on a dating site. And yes, sometimes getting prepared for success doesn’t look as glamorous as you might have thought it would. But it’s a natural part of online dating, and we don’t want you to get in your head about every rejection you receive and whenever someone hurts you online. In this case, we’re setting you up for success after rejection.
Unfortunately, rejection is a normal part of the cycle of online dating, and the more familiar you are with it and the more comfortable you are with accepting what it is and moving forward, the better your online dating journey will be.
Learning to get rejected and accepting those rejections naturally doesn’t sound most exciting, and you might start cringing right now because who wants to be told that they wish that they are going to fail when they’re approaching online dating?
But statistically, you will get rejected a few times when you’re on dating sites, and we want to set you up for the most success we can so you can stay focused on your journey to find love online. If you’re curious about how to reframe rejection in your life and how to make it work out for you, then that’s why we’re here!
Here are a few ways you can use rejection for your good.
Rejection On Dating sites
Unfortunately, no matter who you are, what you look like, or how you approach your time when you’re on a dating site, you’re more than likely going to get rejected by at least one person you thought you had a connection with.
As we stated above, one of the main reasons rejection is such a normal thing when you’re on dating sites is due to the ‘rejection mindset’ many dating site users adopt when they’re online.
Tila Pronk, an assistant professor of social psychology at Tilburg University, tells Cosmopolitan,
“The continued access to an almost limitless pool of potential partners when online dating has negative side effects: it makes people more pessimistic and rejecting… The consequence of the rejection mindset is that over time, people’ close off’ from mating opportunities when online dating.”
Continuing her research, Pronk found that the rejection mindset was the strongest in women, meaning that they often have the highest standards when they’re on dating sites, and they are often the people who are rejecting others.
So where do you go from there? How do you accept that the rejecting mindset and the possibility of getting rejected when you’re on a dating site are likely to happen because of the sheer number of potential matches that are constantly replenished when you’re online?
Although we’ll explore multiple ways you can handle rejection like a pro when you’re online dating, the truth is that you need to accept that rejection is not only a reality but also an understood part of online dating and then go from there.
Rejection is a part of dating, especially online dating, where people constantly cycle through everyone’s profile in hopes of finding their perfect match online. And that’s not necessarily bad, either. Many people tend to villainize others for rejecting them, and then they turn around and leave someone immediately after.
Unfortunately, that’s just a part of the online dating game. If you think about it, we would instead people reject a few of their matches along the way and end up with their perfect person rather than tiptoeing around everyone’s feelings while they’re on a dating site and letting their chance to find their ideal person pass them by.
But even though it makes sense why rejection happens, that doesn’t mean it hurts any less when it happens to you.
It’s not the most cheerful statistic, and if you’ve been debating joining a dating site for some time now, this is probably not going to sell you on it, but it’s better if you’re prepared for it. And who knows? You may beat the odds and not face a single ounce of rejection when you’re online.
But in case you do, and you start to feel yourself spiral or your brain can’t seem to handle it, here are a few things that you might want to keep in mind when you’re facing rejection that might shift the narrative and help you see rejection in a better, more positive way.
How to Handle Rejection When You’re on a Dating Site
Now that we’ve discussed the possibility of rejection on dating sites, it’s time to talk about how to handle rejection without letting it control you.
When you’re on a dating site, your emotions will be high and raw. You’re looking for love, and if you keep getting rejected, it will be difficult for you to keep bouncing back. Thankfully, there are several ways that you can take the rejection that is a natural part of your dating site experience and reframe it to work for you and ultimately help you find the person you’re meant to see on your dating site.
If you’re curious about some of these coping mechanisms, keep reading!
Allow Yourself to Feel Your Feelings
We’ve referred to dating sites as games about 50 times in this article, and you might be tired of this analogy. So here’s a new one: many people treat dating sites like a competitive sport.
Before they log onto their sites, they’re warming up, cracking their knuckles, and getting ready to find and match with as many people as they possibly can online. When they get rejected, or something doesn’t work out for them, they breathe, unmatch, and try again.
While we admire these people’s dedication to finding a partner online, we also want to acknowledge that you’re not a machine, and it’s okay to feel your feelings.
We’ve said that rejection is a natural part of dating sites. Everyone gets rejected when they’re online dating, but that doesn’t mean that it hurts any less when it happens to you and that you’re not allowed to stop after you get rejected and take some time to think about and process your feelings.
If you need to take a break from our dating site and help for a bit, that’s okay. Even if you talked to the person who rejected you for a week, your feelings are still valid, and you’re allowed to take breaks and time to heal when you’re on a dating site.
Often, people get swept up in the whirlwind that is dating sites, and they want to find their partner as quickly as possible when they’re online. And while that’s admirable, and we hope that you’re able to find success on your dating site, it’s also okay to take the proper amount of time to help you need to be a human and come back when you’re ready.
Don’t Take Rejection Personally
If there’s one piece of advice we want you to walk away from this article with, it’s not to take any rejection that you may receive too personally. Again, we know that this is much easier said than done, but if you’re putting all of your eggs into one basket and you’re basing your worth off of whether or not someone that you’re talking to on your dating site you’re going to get hurt no matter what.
Instead, enjoy your online dating journey for what it is and let good things come to you and feel joy throughout it, but don’t take any rejection that you face too personally.
You want to save time on people who reject you, and rejection is usually for the best, even though it might not always feel like it is.
If you’re taking every rejection that you receive when you’re on a dating site personally and you’re letting it affect the way that you see yourself or the way that you go about your life, then you’re not going to have any self-worth left by the end of your dating journey.
Don’t let anyone’s opinions of you or actions toward you affect how you choose to live your life and how you see yourself.
Accept that you’re going to get rejected when you’re online dating, and that’s just one of the natural things you’ll have to face once you’ve accepted that as a reality, you can move forward and reframe the narrative to make it more positive. But you never want to take anything too personally when you’re on a dating site.
Don’t Let the Fear of Rejection Scare You Away from Online Dating
Suppose you’ve read this far, and you’re not in love with the idea of getting rejected when you’re online dating, and you’re thinking about skipping it altogether. In that case, we encourage you to face your fear and embrace online dating for all that it is, with all of its peaks and valleys, and still go for it.
It might not sound enticing to sign up for a program where you’re more than likely going to get rejected nearly every day, but you have to look at it from a different perspective.
Yes, online dating has some kinks, and you’re probably not going to have the fairytale life that you want when you’re on the apps. Still, there is also no place like dating sites where you can log on at any given time of the day and find thousands of eligible singles who want to date you.
There’s also no other place like dating sites where algorithms bring you people that you can and should date within a matter of seconds.
When you join a dating site, you have to take a bit of the good with the bad. Sure, you’re going to face rejection, and it might not all be smooth sailing when you’re on an app looking for love. But you’re also never going to have another opportunity or palace where you can log on and find the love of your life more easily than anything you’ve ever done.
If you’re scared about getting rejected when you’re online dating, and you’re letting that fear dictate whether or not you’re going to join a dating site, you’re shooting yourself in the foot, and you’re not allowing any good to come from bad.
Yes, you’re going to get rejected. But you also might find the love of your life as a direct result of that rejection. Open yourself up to love and accept that good things are coming, even if it might not seem like it at the moment.
Take Rejection as Redirection
You’ve more than likely heard this phrase a few times in your life, especially if you’ve surrounded yourself with people who always like to look for the rainbow after the storm. But just because it’s a little more positive than most people think doesn’t mean that it’s any less valid.
Every time you face rejection, see it as the universe telling you that the person to whom you were talking wasn’t worth it and you were going to waste your time on them anyway. Try to find a lesson for your dating life every time you get rejected, and learn from your experience.
Maybe you never felt as though the person and you clicked, and you were trying to force something that was never going to happen. Perhaps you were settling a bit more than you thought, and their rejection helped you see that the relationship wouldn’t have been for the best anyway.
And maybe the rejection blindsided you, and you’re not quite sure why it happened, but at least now you don’t have to waste any more of your time on someone who isn’t worth it.
No matter what lesson you might learn from the rejection, try to take some time and reflect on your journey with that person and see if you can glean any knowledge that might be helpful to your love life going forward.
And if you don’t think that there’s a lesson to be learned, just take that rejection as a sign from the universe that the person was never worth it, to begin with.
A Final Note of Encouragement
This article might not have been what you wanted to hear today. You more than likely didn’t even want to click on it because why would you invite that negative energy into your life?
But if you’re entering into the world of online dating, you’re going to need to know what you’re getting yourself into and the troubles you’re more than likely going to face when you’re playing the online dating game.
Thankfully, you’re not alone in your journey, and rejection happens to nearly everyone who’s been on a dating site. And while that doesn’t mean that it’s okay or that you need to stop being sad or hurt over your rejection, it does mean that it’s natural, and there wasn’t necessarily anything that you could have done to prevent it.
We hope that a few of our tips and tricks about how to handle rejection when it comes to you help you, and while you might not be able to avoid it completely, you feel well-equipped to face it head-on if you do have to deal with it.
Our final word that we want to leave you with is to remember your worth and remember that your person is going to find you, no matter how many rejections that might take. You don’t want to waste your time talking to someone who’s rejected you and who doesn’t see your worth. Instead, take rejection as a sign and move on.
It’s easier said than done, but it’s all part of the dating site game. Thankfully, there are thousands of people who master the game every single day and find love online as a result of rejection constantly. We hope we helped you on your journey to can become that person now.
