The three Rs

Rejection, relapse and resolve

When Channel 4’s Virgin Island first aired back in May, I wrote an article about my experiences with romantic rejection, and how the therapists on the show helped me to process rejections without letting them obliterate my self-confidence, as they so often have done in the past.

A lot has happened in the half year since I wrote that article. By far the most important development is a positive one: this summer I started a new job, and once again have career satisfaction for the first time since I was made redundant as a result of the 2024 election.

My career has always been my top priority, so my interest in dating fell by the wayside somewhat in the year that I spent unhappy in a job I hated/out of a job entirely. With my rediscovered career contentment, I’ve thus been able to devote more emotional bandwidth to the dating struggle. Indeed, in the past three months I’ve been on more dates than the previous year before that.

Unfortunately, more dates means more rejection. It’s a statistical inevitability. I may have gained a large amount of romantic self-esteem on Virgin Island, but I didn’t lose my hard-headed realism. I may not be ugly, but I fully accept that I’m nothing special in the looks department either. Nor do I possess the natural charm that many guys shorter, uglier or less successful than I evidently use to great effect to get women.

To be clear, not all dates lead to me getting rejected (sometimes it’s the other way around), and not all rejections are particularly damaging to my still fragile self-confidence either. After all, it’s hard to get that upset when a woman you’re only half-interested in turns down an indifferent request for a third date.

There are however some women, I’d estimate about 10-20% of the women who I go out on dates with, that I really do fall for and so when the inevitable rejection comes, it hits like a bullet straight to my heart. Think Ralph Wiggum getting rejected by Lisa in The Simpsons, with the key distinction being that the rejections I receive are always polite text messages rather than angry outbursts. I may be awkward, but I’m not quite as awkward or socially oblivious as Ralph.

Fortunately, I am a fairly resilient person, and the many painful rejections I’ve experienced have left me with a strong emotional immune system which recovers very quickly from setbacks.

In the short period before those injuries heal however, it can sometimes be very difficult to stop the old feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing from flooding back, and I’m ashamed to say that I did briefly relapse recently after one particularly crushing rejection. “I must be ugly and repulsive - what else can it be?” I thought to myself angrily after being (kindly) rejected by two separate women I’d gone out on dates with.

Of course, I did quickly regain my senses. The vast majority of my dates originate from apps, platforms where attraction inherently skews towards looks. If I really were hideous, there’s just simply no way that I would’ve matched and then been out on dates with such a large number of women; many of whom have been objectively knockout beautiful, highly intelligent and working in successful careers.

Nevertheless, each rejection does chip away at my confidence somewhat. As silly as it may sound, I have to constantly and consciously remind myself that I am in fact not ugly and hideous, and that the idea that a normal woman may actually be attracted to me is a realistic prospect rather than some far-fetched fantasy. A childhood of bullying (usually focused on my appearance in some way) followed by an adulthood of dating rejection sadly mean that romantic confidence will likely never come to me naturally; it will always have to be repaired and reinforced.

But I am repeatedly finding myself wondering just why then so many women who agree to go on dates with me evidently aren’t keen on what they see (at least in a romantic sense) once they actually meet me in the flesh. At times, it can be incredibly frustrating. That I now know that I’m *not* hideously ugly or deformed just makes it even more perplexing, although I also accept that modern dating is unfulfilling for many people and that my struggles are far from unique.

That said, it can be demoralising and downright soul-crushing to feel so unwanted and incapable of being loved, but not having the slightest clue why. I see countless friends and acquaintances get into serious relationships with people they love and who love them back, and at times it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that this is simply a world that will always be closed off from me, an aspect of human existence that I will forever find myself with my face pressed up against the glass looking in.

I’m not looking for sympathy here by the way, but rather trying to explain why my romantic confidence can be so fragile, and why the fear of relapses like the one I had recently is always at the back of my mind. A relapse of course is nothing to be ashamed of, but I am fiercely protective of the self-worth I gained on Virgin Island, not least because many women can smell low self-esteem from a mile away.

There is also an element of not wanting to feel like I’ve let people down, as I’ve had so many people who watched the show reach out to me with positive messages of support. To sink back into old habits will make me feel like I’ve betrayed the faith and trust they’ve so kindly showed me.

When I confide in friends about my perennial dating struggles, one of the most common responses I get is that I should get off the apps and take a break from dating entirely. On the surface, it’s sound advice. Dating is undeniably a net negative on my mental health, and indeed is about the only facet of my life now that I’m not happy with.

People sometimes say to me “I don’t think online dating is for you, you’ll meet someone in real life when you least expect it”. But here’s the thing: I probably won’t. As detailed in a previous article, a combination of my geographic location, teetotalism, introversion and general “quirkiness” mean that it’s highly unlikely I’ll meet the right person anywhere other than on these apps, especially now that couples meeting each other offline is becoming such an increasingly rare occurrence. This is borne out by my own experiences: around 95% of my dates originate from dating apps and websites.

I fully admit that most of the time I feel like I’m running repeatedly into a locked door. I do occasionally manage to force open a tiny crack in that door, but inevitably it slams shut in my face again. And yet still I persist. Why? Because I don’t really have any other choice. I can be tenaciously stubborn when I want something, and giving up just isn’t in my nature. This is where the resolve comes from.

So while there may well be more relapses to come (there certainly will be more rejections I’m sure), my resolve will remain unshaken and I’m going to keep trying again and again and again.