“At the time of rejection, the player, not the respondent, should be in a position of vulnerability. The player should be sensitive to the feelings of the person being asked.”
How does one implement this? One of my barriers to social interactions is the ethical aspect to it; I feel uncomfortable imposing on others or making them uncomfortable. Using other people for one’s own therapy seems a bit questionable. Does anyone have anything to share about how to deal with guilt-type feelings and avoid imposing on others with rejection therapy?
I used to have the same, to the extent that I wouldn’t ask even ask teachers, people paid to help me, for help. I hated the feeling that I was a burden somehow. But I got over it in the space of a couple months by getting into a position where people were asking me for help all the time—and that made me realize it wasn’t an unpleasant or annoying experience, I actually liked it, and others were probably the same. In most cases you’re doing people a favor by giving them a chance to get warm-fuzzies for what’s (usually in the case of rejection therapy) a relatively simple request to fulfill.
Of course, there are still certain requests that might be uncomfortable to reject, and my thoughts on those are that they’re usually the ones where you feel like you’ve left someone out who really needed your help. So to get over this, don’t choose things to ask that are going to go bad if you don’t get it—for instance asking for a ride when it’s pouring out, or telling someone you need some money to call your kids at home so they don’t worry (instead of just ‘I need to make a call’). As long as what you ask is casual and you don’t seem desperate, people should have no problem rejecting it without feeling bad, and to lessen any impact even more you can smile and say ‘no problem, thanks anyway’ or something similar to show you’re alright without it.
Also use your sense, if you ask and they look uncomfortable going ‘oh, umm, well...’ you should be the one to jump in and say ‘hey, it’s no problem, you look busy so I’ll check with someone else’ or something like that, rather than waiting for them to have to say outright ‘no’. Some people don’t mind just saying no outright, some people do, so be attuned to that and no-one should be uncomfortable. Good luck!
In general, people in a public space are to an extent consenting to interact with other humans. If they aren’t, we have a system of recognized signals for it: Walking fast, looking downward, listening to music, reading, etc. I don’t think you should feel too guilty about imposing a brief few seconds of interaction on people out and about in public.
From wikipedia article on rejection therapy:
“At the time of rejection, the player, not the respondent, should be in a position of vulnerability. The player should be sensitive to the feelings of the person being asked.”
How does one implement this? One of my barriers to social interactions is the ethical aspect to it; I feel uncomfortable imposing on others or making them uncomfortable. Using other people for one’s own therapy seems a bit questionable. Does anyone have anything to share about how to deal with guilt-type feelings and avoid imposing on others with rejection therapy?
I used to have the same, to the extent that I wouldn’t ask even ask teachers, people paid to help me, for help. I hated the feeling that I was a burden somehow. But I got over it in the space of a couple months by getting into a position where people were asking me for help all the time—and that made me realize it wasn’t an unpleasant or annoying experience, I actually liked it, and others were probably the same. In most cases you’re doing people a favor by giving them a chance to get warm-fuzzies for what’s (usually in the case of rejection therapy) a relatively simple request to fulfill.
Of course, there are still certain requests that might be uncomfortable to reject, and my thoughts on those are that they’re usually the ones where you feel like you’ve left someone out who really needed your help. So to get over this, don’t choose things to ask that are going to go bad if you don’t get it—for instance asking for a ride when it’s pouring out, or telling someone you need some money to call your kids at home so they don’t worry (instead of just ‘I need to make a call’). As long as what you ask is casual and you don’t seem desperate, people should have no problem rejecting it without feeling bad, and to lessen any impact even more you can smile and say ‘no problem, thanks anyway’ or something similar to show you’re alright without it.
Also use your sense, if you ask and they look uncomfortable going ‘oh, umm, well...’ you should be the one to jump in and say ‘hey, it’s no problem, you look busy so I’ll check with someone else’ or something like that, rather than waiting for them to have to say outright ‘no’. Some people don’t mind just saying no outright, some people do, so be attuned to that and no-one should be uncomfortable. Good luck!
In general, people in a public space are to an extent consenting to interact with other humans. If they aren’t, we have a system of recognized signals for it: Walking fast, looking downward, listening to music, reading, etc. I don’t think you should feel too guilty about imposing a brief few seconds of interaction on people out and about in public.