REJECTION: When Will We Stop Taking It Personal

REJECTION: When Will We Stop Taking It Personal

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been rejected in my life, I’ve been rejected by women, prospective employers, friends etc. in fact we all have been rejected many times in our lives. Yet it still hurts to be rejected, for many people at least it does.

‘Your loss’ is almost a sour grape response to rejection, but at times it’s true, I’ve missed out on jobs I applied only to see a candidate of less quality being appointed (of course that’s according to me, and in some cases it’s according to once-to-be-colleagues). When in the midst of rejection pain do you ever stop and think, ‘He is so wrong about me’ or ‘It was not meant to be’? Maybe it’s because all my life, after every rejection there has always been, without fail, something better along the way.

I’ve worked as a TV Researcher, Scriptwriter, Content Producer all my working life and this requires weekly torments of being told by your colleagues and bosses ‘your brain-child is a retarded idiot’, in some cases they are actually the ones who are unimaginative retards. For any new journalist, creative – editorial meetings can be cruel, till you accept rejection as part of editorial meetings, part of life.

After many of the shows I’d produced we’d have post-moterm meetings with the crew and my then boss would say, ‘Great show, Msizi’, and I’d always modestly respond, ‘Yeah, it wasn’t too bad’, of course he hated that response, he felt I was being too hard on myself and not good at taking compliments. The thing is, TV taught me not to care much what people think – good or bad. The very same boss who tells me I’m a shit-hot content producer changes his tune about me during salary negotiations, people say things about YOU that reflect THEIR reality. Your lover will tell you how much they hate today and the following day without you doing anything spectacular they’d be gushing about how deeply they love you.

You’d by now have noticed I’m in a business of ideas, so if I allowed one retarded gatekeeper to make me believe my idea was not good enough my self-esteem would forever be crushed. There are many reasons why ideas are turned down by gatekeepers; maybe they can’t afford you, maybe they are not ready for your ideas, maybe you intimidate your insecure prospective boss, maybe they are too busy to read them, etc.

I, also have rejected people who were next to perfect, I wasn’t ready to receive them. You’d have a placed a perfect woman on my lap but I wouldn’t have noticed all her great characteristics because I wasn’t ready to. She’d have walked away wondering what’s wrong with her when everything wrong was me.

A few months ago I told a young woman with aspirations to be a TV presenter that she was too skinny and needed to gain a bit of weight because we don’t want to be seem to be conveying a message to kids that thin is cool. Recently she probably got some gig and decided she was gonna write on my wall on facebook and tell me how well she’s doing and how men drool over her skinny ass. She was hurt by my words which were just an honest assessment, took that as rejection of her tiny body and I earned myself a mention in her acceptance speech IF she wins an award someday. Our rejection-senses are so fragile that even things said innocently always seem to break our hearts.

Sadly, the really confident people are incompetent ones in denial about their poverty of talent. South Africa needs to start seriously appreciating confident mavericks who don’t care much about conformists. We must embrace and learn from these people, but please learn to separate confidence from asshole arrogance.

For some reason, people love forwarding me their TV proposal ideas, unfortunately I can never lie to anyone and say ‘awesome concept’ when I know that not even Soweto TV would be fascinated by that concept, and people take it personal when I politely say, ‘I don’t think this is a strong concept because of this and that…but if you disagree with me continue pursuing it maybe the people that matter would love it’.  

And once in a while, being rejected does mean you still have lots of work to do. However, in many cases, for that one person who rejects you, there are many who disagree with him. Don’t take it personal, he’s just being honest as far as his reality is concerned.

Sit your phat ass down and stop taking rejection so personally. SIT DOWN!

We have all been guilty of latex-free sex...no?

I’m not sure about you but having experienced sex both with and without a condom I’ll tell you this – without rubber always rocks, at least for that time, whether it’s two minutes or an hour, when you are doing it. Then you are immediately overcome with guilt and regret, could this be the day you just got infected with that dreaded virus we are all hopelessly scared of but constantly flirt with?

Look, sex can be excitingly good with rubber, but you always wonder how good it will be if you took it off.

You meet someone, a few hours later you are sweating and making all funny noises on top of each other, of course you have the magic stick wrapped up in that latex thingie. Oh sometimes I hate even the smell of it! But then again, it saves lives. Anyways, so you continue engaging in this activity with this person, using rubber consistently. Then, whatever it is you are having start resembling a relationship that stretches beyond just taking your clothes off when you find yourself in a private room. Voila, you decide you ‘trust’ each other enough now, the rubber can go fly a kite. Ushay’ama-straight manje! 

One of many problems with ama-straight is that once you go there, going back to the rubber thing becomes such an issue, even when it’s someone different, someone you just met a few hours ago. Even today, in 2011, many babies are a result of one-night stands. Scary, isn’t? Sunday World tells us every week celebrities who are latex-averse, it’s even more scary when you find out a celeb guy who has sex every weekend with different women does not always bother to wrap it up. He’s used to it now and the latex thingie will just mess with his fun and sensation. Amazingly, if you’ve ever been stupid enough to play this ‘extreme sport’ the most common reaction you get from the woman is that of pregnancy concern, and then you wonder, ‘Could any normal person be more worried about getting pregnant more than getting infected with you-know-what? Or is it because she already has it?’ That thought has always come up in my mind. And it’d torment you till you get tested for you-know-what.

Believe it or not, some guys test indirectly, they impregnate a woman and wait eagerly for her results. True story. We love ama-straight but the responsibility that comes with that latex-free sex is too scary. Guys even take off the condom while the woman is not watching. Another true story.

It’s just not that easy once you’ve tasted the latex-free sensation, but you got to give it to Durex, they’ve tried hard to make ultra thin condoms, it’s the closest you’ll get to ama-straight. And of course that always comes with such peace of mind.

So this should explain why married men impregnate their mistresses, at some stage they decide they just wanna get ‘in’ there uncovered. Come home to an unsuspecting wife and…

This is more true for the guys who love their drink, some people generally have delusions of invincibility without any intoxication, so add some whisky and all of a sudden he thinks he’s superman. He thinks the virus happens to other people, not him. He’s too special, he thinks.

A friend stayed with a mistress because other than his wife the mistress was the only woman who gave it to him without any latex, or the only woman he could take it from without wrapping it up. A very famous kwaito star once said, ‘Ag, if you fcuk my girl with a condom then it’s not gonna hurt much really’, of course he said that in a private space. Sometimes guys feel they haven’t really ‘done’ a woman till they do her latex-free.

And that obsession with latex-free sex is fatal, and I don’t know of any sexually-active adult who hasn’t tried it, regardless of their LSMs.

If you are hellbent on doing it latex-free, at least discuss this first even if niyantshontshana it’s not a bad idea to get tested, then you can bonk like rabbits, and if she falls pregnant and she’s married…at least you know it could have been much worse.

And remember before you indulge in latex-free sex , it's only beautiful if it's guilt-free.

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