[Anonymous]

Hello, everyone. To keep this short: I had a crush on a guy and I had many reasons to believe he reciprocated. I found it very difficult to approach him in person, and he didn’t do anything himself; and after we stopped having a reason to see each other in this semi-professional setting, I decided to write him a letter. I’m 100% sure he received it, but he never replied.

I’m not going to list all the odd ways in which he behaved and ask you to analyse them for me. (Or the ways in which he used to behave in the past: we went to school together several years back, and he behaved strangely around me even then.) I’ve gone through all that a million times by now and I’m convinced he was interested in me, but for whatever reasons of his own, he just wasn’t interested enough. And I’m fine with that. If he’s not interested, I’m grown-up enough to readily accept that – and move on. But…

What I can’t get over so easily is that he never replied. I have re-read my letter several times, and it wasn’t stupid, awkward or stalkerish – and I’m not just some random person from the street. We didn’t know each other well, but we did actually have some kind of a history, at least.

So I feel humiliated, treated as if I weren’t even worthy of the basic courtesy accorded to a fellow human being. Rejection I can understand. No response at all, on the other hand, hurts me deeply. I make a point of politely answering even the most pointless inquiries that come my way, and I can’t imagine just blithely ignoring someone who tells me they like me as a human being and would have liked to get to know me better. It doesn’t help that life hasn’t been treating me well lately and I’m very inexperienced about relationships to begin with, so my self-esteem couldn’t be lower at the moment. This whole thing was the last straw to make me feel like a complete idiot.

I guess I have two questions here. How do I forget about this whole thing without getting any closure? And secondly: what reasons might a man have for ignoring a letter like this?

I’d be most grateful for any thoughts.

[AskApril Masini]

I’m sorry your feel humiliated by this rejection. Humiliation, hurt and anxiety are all very normal reactions to have when rejected. Eventually the feelings go away as you understand that rejection is always a possibility when you put your feelings on the line, and as you understand that this rejection is a gift so that you don’t have to waste any more of your very valuable time on a man who isn’t interested in you.

In my book, Think & Date Like A Man, that you can (and should! 😆 ) buy here, [url]https://www.askapril.com/relationship-dating-advice/think-and-date-like-a-man.html[/url], I write about how rejection frees you up to move on. Imagine if you received no rejection and this guy who wasn’t really interested continued to lead you on with no intention of ever having any kind of honest or meaningful relationship with you! That would be a lot worse than this rejection because you’d be lied to. In a way, this guy has done you a favor.

That he didn’t respond at all may not be polite or mature, but it is a form of closure if you will accept it. You got up to bat and you struck out. Now it’s time to move on.

I hope you’ll read Think & Date Like A Man, because I really believe from what you’ve written that it will help you a lot! 😀

And don’t forget to check out my newly forming Facebook group page, AskApril.com on Facebook at this link: [url][/url]. 🙂

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