Sssssss……we all know that sound. You hear it while getting dealt the blow of a disssss, as well as the  hisssss of your deflating ego. How hard it is to realize that you’re not God’s gift to women/men, that someone could actually decide not to want you forever, or at least for a night. It’s always a tough pill to swallow, often requiring the swallowing of a different, non-metaphorical pill or pills. But we urge you not to use drugs – dispose of them immediately by sending them to us – and instead refer to this handy list of ways to deal with rejection:

1. Blame technology - so you got nailed with the NTB (no text back), NEB (email), or NCB (call). This is probably because you F-ed up and were overeager, but that’s water under the bridge. How do you deal with the sting? Easy. The email was sent to the spam folder. AT&T’s lame network lost your text and voice mail. You weren’t rejected – technology just didn’t cooperate. ** warning: do NOT use this as an excuse to call/text/email again. Your corresponding wound will be ten fold and all these excuses combined will not come close to healing it.

2. Focus on the negative – everyone has their flaws, even this person you like who doesn’t seem to like you – and you could argue that one of their flaws is that they don’t like you (yeah right.) The trick here is to equate them with their negative attributes. It’s a mind exercise, and works this way: find a flaw, preferably physical. For example, a hairy mole. Now equate absolutely everything about them to this mole – their name, face, clothes, profession = hairy mole. Do this for an hour or more. Pretty soon the person ceases to exist; Kafka-esque, they’ve morphed into a hairy mole. Would you want to date that? Of course not! Move on.

2. Reject them – this is a trick as ancient as time itself. If you start to feel that chilly wind of rejection blowing through the buttons of your coat, immediately convince yourself that they are completely wrong for you in every single way. This technique works especially well if used with #2, and soon you’ll be convinced that you dodged a bullet. Optional: writing them to say “how great” you think they are, but “the chemistry’s just not there.” They’ll be confused, maybe a bit angry, and you will have (sort of) won.