Well, I haven’t had a whole lot of experience with being rejected and when I was soundly dumped, it was very puzzling to me. Why? Probably because I was mistaken in thinking I was loveable, adorable, irresistible and basically undumpable. I made my way in the world with this mistaken concept until I hit the 8th grade. My best friend Linda was a year older and a year ahead of me in school. She went off to Bennet High School while I was still in Public School #66 in Buffalo. 66 was a big old brick school that took up a whole city block just around the corner and held grades K through 8—there were no middle schools back then. I would walk down Admiral Road and then North Drive to get there (1942 to 1950). It’s now a private academy!
My house was in the red circle on the right and the school was on the triangular block.
So Linda went off to Bennett with all our friends (the twins especially, Joanie Carp, the daughter of Mom’s George), and a few others, and I was left alone at 66. I had Judy, Roz, Binnie, and other kids from Temple in my grade at school, so they were friends, but not everyday pals. Now I needed them. What a surprise to find they did NOT need me. They ignored all my overtures, walked in a tight group to and from school, and I didn’t know what to do. I walked by myself. I knew they thought I was stuck up (our word back then for thinking we were hot shit) because I consorted with high school girls and boys. They talked and laughed and I knew it was about me. But I wanted back in so badly. It took a month of hard work on my part to inch my way into their good graces. Judy relented first, and she became my new best friend. I felt vaguely guilty about Linda, but soon gave that up. Judy and I had sleepovers, confided in each other, and Roz and I went to summer camp together. All was well. I was IN. The boys, Jerry, Melvin, Peter, and Joel soon were fine with it. Whew!
It wasn’t until my freshman year at Wellesley that I felt the sting of rejection again. I loved my roommate dearly—she was beautiful blond, Jewish, and madly in love with an older man in med school. She so pined for him that I soon gave up on having any serious conversations with her and turned to Gail down the hall. Gail intrigued me because she was seriously Catholic, believed in God, and loved to debate her beliefs with me. I remember being astonished to see her religious text books lined up neatly on her shelf—I couldn’t imagine bringing even a bible—my background was so very reformed Jewish. We talked into the night often and spent many hours together—our discussion moving to various other topic. We became fast friends. I went to visit her at home in NJ one Christmas and all was well. But on our return to college, suddenly, literally overnight, she had no time for me. I was locked out and she was always with either her roommate other girls or making excuses. I tried very hard to find out what on earth I had done, and for the rest of that year, I was thrown off balance by her sudden change of heart. What I couldn’t comprehend was her pretending nothing had changed and all was well. She was polite and smiling. The gaslighting continued through sophomore year and even after. Some 20 years later I contacted her to find out what had happened and she stuck to her story. Nothing. To this day, I am stumped and can even feel that old sting. I can’t remember another time in my (now rather long) life that I felt so completely rejected.