Dealing with Rejection

Asalam alaykum loves, I hope you all enjoyed my last post and there was something useful or beneficial you took away from it ! I should also push myself to follow my own advice more as well. Like today I was thinking sometimes we feel we aren't deserving of certain blessings or opportunities because we aren't good enough. I also thought that Allah is capable of anything even the impossible so even if we are praying or hoping for something and think it won't happen for us, know that Allah will bring it to you if its meant for you. In the battles in Islamic history, the Muslims were outnumbered in soldiers and still won. The Prophet Zakarayia Alay Salam was a very old man and prayed to Allah because he saw Maryam receiving food and other provision from Allah. He said to himself if Allah provided for her He would also provide him with children even in his old age.

Allah is capable of providing us with opportunities we have only dreamed of so never give up or think you do not deserve something!

Moving on to the topic of this post, lately I have been more confident in myself and what I want which includes when I am approached for marriage or just to "talk" by the opposite gender. I have always been the type of person who wants to give everyone a chance. I realized with time by doing that, I was giving time and attention to people I really was not interested in, it made me feel unhappy. It made me feel like I was leading this other person on to believe there was a possible future between us when really I was replying to messages out of boredom and just because I felt bad ignoring the persons messages. I think sometimes when you are a person who is too nice, you think you are doing yourself a favor by giving everyone that demands or asks to talk to you, the power over you. They see that you will respond to their messages and they think even if you are not interested they can convince you or change your mind to fall for them. Or there is that famous line, well hey I am not trying to marry you, I just want to talk to you to get to know you to see if we match well.

If my heart is not invested into the conversation and I feel annoyed or irritated getting messages from you, I know the "getting to know you" stage is not even worth it. I know this may sound crazy but I can just tell right away when I am not interested especially the way someone approaches me. Some friends of mine told me well how do you know you don't want to talk to them if you haven't tried it? Because I go off what my heart and mind tells me and I have been listening to my initial and gut feelings lately and they always turn out right.

For example, I get a lot of these messages just with one word "Hi" from people on social media. Completely harmless right? Well if they are a man because I am in this mindset right now on focusing on myself my first reaction is no thank you. So I politely will tell the person I am sorry I am not comfortable speaking with guys I don't know on social media. MOST people understand that, they are respectful and back off. Then you have the very FEW, that keep trying to persist even though you say no you would not like to talk to them. One brother had said to me after I told him I wasn't interested in talking to him, "wow rude, I thought you were a nice girl." I think that had set me off because at that point I should have not replied to the message or blocked him.

For some reason because I decide to post certain things on social media apparently I am this Nice Girl Saint, so that's the line I get often, oh I want to talk to you because you're this Good Muslim Girl. (ya'll have no clue who I am you are basing this off social media!) So when I say I don't want to talk to them all of a sudden I am rude and get called names. 

So continuing with this story, I snapped on the brother, saying basically hey I told you politely that I did not want to talk to you, what do you want from me I don't have to talk to you if I don't want to and I could have been a lot more rude and cussed you out. Then the last message this individual sent confirmed the gut feeling I had about not wanting to talk to them in the first place. The last thing they said was, "B**ch you better not cuss at me." SEE THIS IS WHY I JUST AM NOT INTERESTED IN PEOPLE ONLINE. Like I know some people find their significant others online, power to you but for the majority of us we have to be careful of falling into the manipulative and rude trap of individuals who can pretend to be something or someone they are not. 

That message definitely bummed me out but I was grateful to Allah for revealing this person's true nature!Imagine If i continued to engage with this individual and found out later how mean they were.May Allah show us people's true nature right away when we first talk to them!

Another example of having to politely reject someone had me really shook recently. It was similar this person approached me on a social media platform and wanted to talk to me and I said no thanks sorry (which I always apologize when I really don't need to). They then proceeded to say oh I am not Christian we are both Muslims so it should be okay for us to communicate. (Really what does me talking to you have to do with religion bro). I then said this has nothing to do with our religion I am just not interested in talking to anyone right now. They said fine and then moved on (or so I thought).

They proceeded to a few days later reply to something I posted and had made a dua and I replied and said Ameen. Then they kept going from there saying they would like to speak to see because they see I am a "good girl" (really I am tired of being called that) and I follow Shariah and they are asking Allah to give them a good girl like me. I told them hey I already let you know I wasn't interested please respect that.

His next comments got me rely annoyed because he wanted to try to use Islam to make it look like I was obligated to speak with him. He says oh but we are both Muslims we are supposed to talk to each other and figure out what the other person wants. Oh in Islam we shouldn't hurt someone knowingly or unknowingly. I kid you not he said this. I think I replied back something along the lines of Islam also gave women the right to refuse to talk to someone or refuse a suitor, do not try and twist the religion to manipulate or push someone to talk to you. At this point, homeboy still does not understand NO MEANS NO, and then decides to say oh I am going to call you from ANOTHER SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM. If I refused you on one platform, why would I talk to you on a different platform?

I absolutely don't like blocking people unless it is absolutely necessary and at this point it was, so I blocked him on platform not realizing he had tried to call me from this other platform. Basically you can hit ignore messages on the other platform so it went to a folder where I couldn't see it. I posted on the same platform (where the person wasn't blocked yet) and vented my frustrations of trying to nicely reject people and explain my reasons to them why. Also I was upset that this individual thought it was okay to use Islam to tell me I had to talk to them or couldn't hurt them (sorry I am not responsible for your feelings you complete stranger). I check my ignore messages folder and of course who did I get an angry message from? Yup this same person, calling me stupid and ugly and that I was making stuff up about them and that I should to hell. Mind you, in all the interactions I had with this person, I NEVER called them names or cussed at them. Each time I tell someone politely and they feel the need to swear and call me names because they didn't like that I wouldn't talk to them makes me feel like that is a part of their character and it was a good thing that I refused.

Call me names all you want but rejection is a part of life and yeah it sucks and it hurts sometimes but there's no reason to be using vulgar language because you didn't get what you wanted.It says a lot about your manners and character if you cannot respect someone's wishes to be left alone. Rejection is a part of the process when you apply for jobs, scholarships, colleges and various other opportunities. This is no different when you approach someone wanting to be friends or be in a relationship. I have felt the stung of being rejected or feeling ignored before, yes it sucks because you are hoping for something and don't get it. You cannot push or try to convince someone, not everyone is playing hard to get and wants to be continuously pursued until they give in. 

I do not like rejecting, ignoring or blocking anyone but sometimes for your own mental health you have to. You DO NOT OWE ANYONE A RESPONSE JUST BECAUSE THEY APPROACH YOU. This is something I learned the hard way. We have to deal with rejection as well as sometimes reject others, it is okay to give people a chance but sometimes you need a break from that or you just do not want to try and that is okay. Listen to your gut and May God guide you to kind and supportive individuals. May Allah always love and provide you with the best in this life and the next!