I had some strange thoughts the other night when contemplating past experiences and my interpretations of them....

What does it mean to be rejected? Is it when a stranger sneers at you for what you look like? Or is it when a friend brushes you off? Worse, is it when your lover is not interested in you? How many times can a person be rejected before the pain they feel inside causes damage to their physical and mental health? How long after that until they die?

Is rejection just an interpretation of what the other person is doing? Rejection as a word means something, as all words do. It serves a purpose in communication and that purpose can be interpreted and reinterpreted depending on how it is spoken, written and what other words go along with it, but in the end it still has a purpose beyond interpretation. It is to identify a moment where one person does not engage with another person’s need. So when I use the term rejection that is what I shall mean.

Would it be fair to suggest that perhaps a person is rejected for failing to make their needs known? This may be true or not but it does not change the fact that a person’s needs are not being engaged, expressed or not. This brings us to the idea of requests. Does a rejection require a request or it does not count as a rejection if no request was made? Is the pain of rejection not then happening? If the person is experiencing a need and wishes someone to help fulfill it, the request explicit or not, it may still feel like a rejection to the person with the need. But when we say this we are not referring to guilt or blame for the failure of the need to be fulfilled by another. We are simply stating the fact that the need has gone unfulfilled when a person wished another to engage in its fulfillment and typically pain follows.

How do we define a need? Is it something that must be fulfilled to reduce the pain a person is experiencing? That is perhaps as good a definition as any. So here we have a need and when it is not being engaged by another person, be the request implicit or explicit, it is a rejection. Then for the person with the need it would be more effective to make a request of another to fulfill their need before giving up on a possible rejection completely. This however is just a statement of probability of effectiveness when communicating.

So if a person makes a formal request of another to aid them in the fulfillment of a need, for example to be touched or hugged, and the subject of the request refuses, then that could be termed a complete rejection. Pain typically follows and anguish, lowered self worth etc. But fulfilling the request may make the subject of the request unhappy by not meet one of their needs, i.e. for personal space, etc. Worse a request made of someone might make them feel miserable, as rejecting the party’s request may cause its own cycle of pain for failing to fulfill a need of supporting others in the community, etc.

So we end up with a dangerous conundrum. Should a person who has a need that they desire to be fulfilled in part with another actively request or implicitly request? Should they bother requesting at all given the potential pain that may be experienced by both sides?

If a person has a need that can only be fulfilled with the assistance of another, then making a formal request of another is a more effective way of seeing that need fulfilled. If a party has a need that is so strong it may lead to self harm or ‘giving up’ if not fulfilled is it then reasonable for others to deny the request?

First we must examine the question of veracity. What is the capacity for a person to determine the veracity of another’s self endangerment or indeed endangerment of the whole of society? It is difficult to believe that a stranger without any more information than the request would have great capacity to determine the veracity of another’s request. Those that know the individual well have a greater capacity to determine veracity.  This leads to a far more important question- does veracity matter? Should it matter whether someone is telling the truth for another to act upon fulfilling their need? If the requester was lying or stating their request incorrectly and the requested party seeks to aid the other then the need will continue to go unfulfilled, but the need will go unfulfilled if there is no action to meet the request so what is lost- potentially the lack of fulfillment of the needs of the person being requested. But why are we asking for veracity? Why is it important to us and does it indeed fulfill a need to have veracity?

Veracity is the truth of the statement. So that if someone makes a request and we interpret it to be untrue we are less likely to engage than if we believe it is truth. But is that determination of truth an interpretation and then is veracity as a concept a solely a means of judging others? Surely truth in itself must be of some value, such as the truth of measurements when constructing a bridge. But if someone makes a request of us claiming to have an unfulfilled need and we do not believe that to be true is it then valid to ignore or reject the person’s request or would it be more efficient to attempt to identity the needs of the requesting individual more accurately?

The question of truth and veracity will always be difficult because at least at times it can be used purely as judgement and at other times used to identify required facts. So then would it not be more efficient in communication to instead of rejecting a statement or request that instead we attempt to delve into the needs of the person with empathic communication, or some form of communication that will help the individual better vocalize their needs?

The second question is whether it is reasonable for another to fulfill a need of a person? Looked at from a completely fact based line of thought there is the potential loss of one’s own needs on both sides, on one side a person’s direct security, desire to have other needs fulfilled etc will be limited, on the other side the person with the needs in question may harm the community or themselves, depriving others of the experience and potential community of that person. When one person is hurt so is the whole community, is this a reasonable statement?

We come to the idea of balance of needs. What is balance of needs? For an individual it is balancing one’s energy to fulfilling their needs in order of importance and leaving whatever needs unfulfilled they do not have time or energy to address. For a society balance of needs is much like it is for the individual where the goal is to fulfill the needs of the members of society so that everyone is on balance happier or at least in a minimum of pain.

In a world of perfect information, for efficiencies sake there would be people whose needs are on balance satisfied by aiding someone who is coming to a point of self harm or harming others. In such a world the balance of needs of everyone would be met. In a world of imperfect information however, we are trapped with the balance of needs going unfulfilled. And in a society where the number of social connections is quite limited the ‘needs scale’ as it were will be likely significantly unbalanced. This is only further exacerbated by a society where expressing needs is frowned upon and inflicting judgement upon others is praised.

So what conclusions may be drawn from this so far? Rejection can happen with or without a request. Making a request may cause more pain and thereby increasing future communication inefficiency. In a society of limited information and communication capacity the balance of needs are likely to continue to go unfulfilled leading to more than people inflicting both self harm and harm upon others.

The methods of improving seem to be obvious. Improve the communication capacity of the population. This will not eliminate the harm done in society but will reduce it by more effectively addressing the balance of needs.

Rejection will continue to happen and cause pain and perhaps worse. Needs will continued to go unfulfilled and communication will continue to be a factor in both. So what is the point of any of this?