Getting rejected sucks, especially when it's done rudely. These stories are mostly from teenage years, and as you won't be surprised to learn, kids are mean.
throwaway32241 asked: What is the worst/rudest way you've been rejected?
Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity.
This is cartoonishly mean.
GiphyThis happened in sixth grade. I was bullied badly throughout elementary school. For reasons I still don't understand, I was made a social outcast by the mean girls. I was walking home from school with one of the cool boys in class, who was always nice to me one on one, but eagerly joined in the bullying otherwise. He told me that one of the girls in class was having a party after school and that I should come. I was so excited to be invited to a party with the cool kids. I went home, told my mom, and rode my bike to the girl's house. I rang the doorbell, and the whole group answered. One of them said "oh my god she actually came", and they all laughed. Then the girl whose house it was said "you can go now", and shut the door in my face. I was too ashamed to go back home and tell my mom what happened, so I rode my bike around aimlessly crying for a couple hours before going home. I am 35 years old now and that memory still stings. I am so grateful that I had a loving home life, and social media wasn't around yet. I don't know if I would have made it through otherwise. Don't be bullies kids.
Way too aware.
Went out for lunch with a dude I had a crush on. Told him I liked him. He said, "Are you aware of the concept of the friendzone?"
My friends and I have laughed about this for years.
Oh man I know that must have stung but that's f*cking hilarious.
Yup. One of those things at the time that was like "ouch" but also definitely fit the character of the guy. Now it's a hilarious anecdote!
The one line no woman wants to hear.
GiphyIt's not exactly a rejection, but it was me being completely oblivious and optimistic because a cute boy was nice to me. I met a guy at a club meeting in college who I thought was pretty cute. He invited me to hang out a couple times to do homework or grab breakfast together in the dining hall and seemed into me-compliments and lots of eye contact and listened to me when I talked, etc. but never made a physical move. But we were both 18-year-old virgins meeting in public spaces so it wasn't unreasonable to assume he was just shy, because I certainly was.
After a while, he invited me to go see a movie, so I figured that this was like, a date. I meet up with him at the movie theater and it turned out he was going with a group of people, and it wasn't just the two of us. That should have been a signal, but nope. I spend the first half of the movie trying to snuggle up to him, hold his arm or hand, be cute, etc. I finally started to realize that he was super not into it when I rested my hand on his knee and he picked it up and returned it to my lap. We got out of the theater, and he turned to me in front of everyone and said "You know I'm gay, right?" If the ground could have opened up and swallowed me whole at that moment I would have welcomed it. I felt awful that I'd spent an hour or so trying to snuggle with someone who was uncomfortable and too polite to tell me to back off and still cringe to think about it now.
Did you stay friends after?
Yeah, of course. It's not his fault I misread his signals, and I can see why he would want to come out to me with his friends around for support in case I turned out to be rabidly homophobic. It was embarrassing but rejection is a normal part of dating.
That's a slam dunk of rejection. Kids are the worst.
In fourth grade my bf broke up with me by slamming a basketball in my face on the crowded playground.
Should have drop kicked him.
Ouch.
I was having a party for my 13th birthday. I sent my crush an invite, a week after giving them out I found a bit of torn paper on the school field, I recognized the color/pattern, then looked up and there was the rest of it, torn into tiny pieces. The kind of tearing that takes time and effort to get it into as many pieces. 10/10 would not be a teenage girl again.
When I was 16 I was in love with this guy I was friends with. He was into me too and we we're relatively inseparable for a few months. I noticed he started seeming like he was into one of my friends.
The one day we we're sitting in class together and he was acting weird. We had recently taken a class trip to Canada and one of our friends took a picture of us on the bus. She came up to us and excitedly gave us the picture she took of us hugging. He grabbed it out of her hand and ripped it into a million pieces. I was absolutely horrified and had to run to the bathroom so I didn't start crying in front of everyone.
Oh my god this is so heartbreaking to read.
No one deserves this.
GiphyWhen I was about 14, a new kid came to our school and I made quick friends with him. We played on Xbox live a lot together. I developed a quick crush.
He texted me to get on Live because he needed to tell me something.
"Hey, I wanted to tell you that I really like you".
I am excited but pretty sure it was a joke.
"Are you messing with me?"
"I really like you this is not a joke".
I believed him.
"Krissy, will you go out with me?"
I said "Yes".
"APRIL FOOLS! I would never go out with you". Then he laughed for a good few minutes.
He moved away before Senior year and I got to actually enjoy my senior year without getting bullied.
Edit: Thank you everyone for being so nice and reassuring me that this person was horrible and I never deserved what he did to me.
F*ck this kid.
I can't think of many as an adult if I'm honest, but I always remember an incident when I was around 11.
I was picked to go on this summer camp type trip for a week with a bunch of kids in the year above me (12/13 year olds) because of good behaviour. I was the only 11 year old. There was a boy I'd had a crush on for a while and on the first day he asked me to be his girlfriend. Obviously we were all children so that doesn't even mean anything! But he kept it going for the whole week, sending me notes, hugging me in the hall before we were sent to separate dorms etc.
On our last night I got a note asking me to meet him in the hall, when I went out the entire group was there (35-40 kids) all crying with laughter. He announced to everyone it had been an entire joke that the whole group had all been in on and he'd never be interested in an ugly teacher's pet.
As an adult, I'm obviously not remotely upset about the "romantic" rejection because I was 11 ha, but the social rejection and the public humiliation aspect of it was tough.
Anyway I'm 24 now and he slid into my DMs after high school and I told him to go f*ck himself, which felt good.
Anyway I'm 24 now and he slid into my DMs after high school and I told him to go fuck himself, which felt good.
I can't imagine what's going through his head that made this sound like a great idea.
Boners make think thoughts quiet.
Pity dates are obvious.
I had a similar thing! It was some guy in 7th grade asked me out, and I said "no"
For the next few days his friends kept coming up to me and saying how upset he was so finally I said I would date him.
Then a few days later I told him I would date him, he looks around and goes "hey it worked" and they all laughed at me because I guess it was a big joke.
Looking back at it (like even a few months later) I realized that he did that to make himself feel better. It's like when a guy flirts with you, you reject him, then he tells his friends you're ugly. Like obvi you didn't think that when you initially flirted with me.
Yeah what a dumb "hey it worked". He was basically saying "making someone go on a pity date with me worked!"
I think your assessment of that kid was probably spot on.
Sometimes, rejection haunts you forever.
GiphyMiddle school. My best friend down the street and I tried talking to the cute new neighbor kid.
"Naw, y'all's foreheads too big"
Lifelong forehead insecurity ensued.
Yep, wearing my fringe out today, helps turn this five head into a four.
:'( -Someone with a big forehead.
What a strange story.
When I was about 17, I went to the park on a "double date" with a good friend of mine and two guys we just met. We'd been there for about 10 minutes when dude #1 suddenly shouts, "I'll bet you $10 I can run through those trees and back in 60 seconds!" And he just takes off into the forest. After a few minutes, dude #2 decides his friend "must've gotten lost", runs to his car, and drives away. We never saw or heard from either dude again. It was a very strange experience because these guys pursued us and we're still not sure what made them run for the hills after spending just 10 minutes alone with us.
Just wanted to comment and say this is the strangest one. It's so weird it's almost funny how weird it is.
Jane Rosenberg
Jane Rosenberg
@arianagrande/Instagram
@arianagrande/Instagram