Ouch. I just lost another Twitter follower. I really didn’t know the guy, especially since he only started following my tweets two days ago. So why does the fact that he decided to stop following me hurt? Why do I fret over a single-digit decline in my Facebook friends — and then search through the entire list to see if I can figure out who it was that left? Why do I feel rejected when an old colleague who started out as part of my LinkedIn network decides to un-link?
I thought jumping onto the social-media bandwagon was going to be an exciting new adventure. I was looking forward to meeting new people from all over the world, connecting with groups with whom I share common interests and reconnecting with some long-lost friends and colleagues. Not to mention family.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s been all of these things. But no one ever warned me of the twinge of pain I’d feel every time one of these new connections is broken or reversed.
No one ever told me that sometimes social media can be, well, antisocial. This is new to me. Am I being too sensitive? Perhaps. It wouldn’t be the first time that accusation has been made. I’ve been called a touchy-feely artist more than once, and I consider it a compliment. But I’m also guessing I’m not alone in feeling this way.
I’m sure there are others out there who, like me, feel at least a twinge of rejection when connections are broken or those requested by us are not answered, which I’ve discovered actually hurts a bit more.Turns out there is a downside to the ease with which we can now connect and subsequently un-connect with people on social media sites.
So I started asking myself what I can do about this phenomenon. Well, I did what any intelligent, perceptive, creative guy would do. I sulked. And then, while licking my wounded pride, I realized, hey, I’m a writer and an artist, rejection is my stock in trade! I should be able to handle this. No problem. Piece of cake.
In fact, since I’ve been a writer and painter for more then a couple of decades now, I should be able to write a book about how to cope with rejection. (But since I can’t deal with publisher’s rejection slips, I wrote this article instead.)
So, I’ve thought this through and I’ve come up with three ways to deal with social-networking rejection. Here goes:
Expect to feel some emotions, such as sadness, frustration and even a little miffed when you’re rejected, un-friended, un-followed or un-linked. But it should only last as long as the depth of the relationship, which in most cases is nanoseconds. If you’ve had a past colleague or two refuse to link or friend you, as I have, then realize they’re simply not worth fretting over. It’s very likely that you also have some former colleagues with whom you wouldn’t want to reconnect if they asked you. As much as we want to be liked by everyone, some folks just never will. And the reasons don’t really matter. I discuss how to deal with this a bit more in point number three below.
View the rejection in a positive light. You’ve been given an opportunity to move on. Simply go online and in no time at all you’ll find someone else to friend, follow or link to and, more often than not, they’ll accept your invitation to connect or follow you back. And just like that you’ve got a new friend or two to replace the one that left. And there’s also the fact that the more you’re rejected, the easier it becomes to deal with and you’ll bounce back quicker.
Just say **** ‘em! The people who have decided to no longer receive your witty, insightful and funny posts and links, or who will no longer see what interesting new projects you’re working on are the losers here, not you. And they’re not really friends in the true definition anyway. If they were they’d remain connected to you.
I think this last point speaks to the heart of the matter. We use the term friends so lightly now that its true meaning has been lost. How can people you’ve never met, know nothing about, and who’s name you’ve never heard before you got the invitation to connect, be real friends? They’re not. But even so, when folks reject us, even those we’ve only just met, it still hurts — some more than others.
But hey, rejection is part of life. And now that social media is becoming such a significant way for us to interact with each other, rejection is inevitable. But in the long run, just like it is in the rest of our lives, attempting to make new friends in the face of rejection is still worth the risk.
I have met and gotten to know some incredible people from parts of the world and cultures I’ve never seen or known before. And I did it while simply sitting at my desk. How cool is that?
To me, the short-term twinge of pain that comes with the possibility of rejection is more than worth the joy of making new connections with some very interesting people, or simply having another venue to use to interact with the people who really matter.
And let’s face it, do you really needs 1,000 Facebook friends or 13,000 Twitter followers? Of course you don’t. (So could you please reject a few and send them my way?)
Richard DeVeau freelances for a number of nonprofit organizations and the communications agencies that serve them, as writer/creative director/owner of Richard DeVeau Creative, and he can be heard laughing out loud every time he passes a mirror.