If you invite me to your party this Friday and I decline the invitation, at what point have I made a value judgment about you? I explore the possible reasons why I may have declined in a new video Just Because They’re Not Interested, It Doesn’t Mean You’re Not Worthy to highlight how the reasons why someone does or doesn’t opt into something are about their reasons, not about confirming how you feel about you.

I listened to a guy fuming last year as he questioned what he’d done to “deserve” being turned down for a date. The thing is, he didn’t do anything and it’s not a question of rejection being for people who ‘deserve it’; she just didn’t want to go on a date. That’s it. She didn’t owe him a date because he asked and she wasn’t meting out some punishment on behalf of the universe.

If like him you’ve been plunged into a What’s Wrong With Me? / Why Wasn’t I Good Enough? Funk, it’s you doing a lot of the rejecting by taking it to the nth degree and interpreting their NO as a value judgment, when really, not only hasn’t it got a damn thing to do with your worth, but you know what I’m going to say next… they’re just not that special. I get it that you’re interested in them but who the hell is this person that they have the power to make value judgments about you? But they don’t have the power; you do.

If you take non-reciprocation to heart, it’s time to ask how much judging you are doing?

When you’re not interested, are you marking people’s cards and putting a black mark into the dating universe? Are you crunching all of the data that you hold (which may not even be very much) and judging him/her as “unworthy”? Unworthy of what? Your interest? Sure, but you’re one person in a planet of near 7 billion people – if you’re not interested, odds are that someone else will be interested… as long as that person doesn’t let their whole life go down the pan over your lack of interest and decide that your interest was far more valuable because you didn’t reciprocate because this has a knock-on effect with far reaching consequences because it means that perspective will be greatly affected, which means their choices will be affected.

When we don’t take ‘knock-backs’ very well, our vision can get a bit blurry. It becomes “This person has to be interested in me because I don’t take rejection well”, which isn’t a good basis for your interest, never mind theirs.

Are you attracted to people based on value judgments you’re making about them? If so, what are these based on? Why is this person so valuable and if you said the reasons out loud, would you either sound like a worshipper or like you’ve been smoking crack? If you don’t make these value judgments about others, why are you double standard-ing yourself?

In order to feel interested in someone, do you judge everyone else to ‘up their value’? Yeah… probably not. That would be a lot of judgment going on in your life.

If you’re judging you because your interest wasn’t reciprocated, why are you judging you so harshly?

Ultimately you’re not in their head so it’s you playing judge, juror and prosecutor, which are roles that you don’t have to play. If you’re making them more valuable in your mind and life because they’re not interested, that’s like saying “People who aren’t interested in me are more worthy” and that’s just setting you up for a trap of only being interested in people where you practically have to break your doormat covered back in order to be with them. Let me say it again: they’re just not that special.

And it’s not to devalue interest but it’s just interest and we do have a habit of overvaluing our interest in people and building sandcastles in the sky and then feeling let down by our hopes and expectations. It’s understandable to feel disappointed but if you’re excessively disappointed, you were setting you up for a fall by gambling too much of your self-esteem on the outcome. Check out the video here.

Your thoughts?

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