Gay Rejection Sensitivity and What You Need to Know About It

If I told you there was one psychological phenomenon that explains virtually everything you hate about gay dating, you might think I was exaggerating.

And yet there is:

It’s called gay rejection sensitivity — or gay-related rejection sensitivity — and we really need to talk about it.

Here’s what you should know:

Gay Rejection Sensitivity Makes Us Feel Rejection More Strongly

Gay rejection sensitivity is the idea that LGBTQ+ people often feel rejection especially strongly.

It’s the idea that when you face the kind of regular rejection, big and small, that queer people still experience in society, you become sensitized to it.

That means that when you get rejected, you don’t just feel the rejection of that moment, you’re also experiencing a version of all the times you’ve ever felt rejected or dismissed.

This means that as queer men, rejection can really f*cking sting. And as a result, we find all kinds of ways of adapting to avoid it.

How Gay Rejection Sensitivity Affects Our Day-to-Day Lives

Here’s how gay rejection sensitivity can show up in our day-to-day behavior:

We avoid hitting on someone we find attractive in case they reject us.

We take the long route home to avoid walking past a group of straight men who might make us feel uncomfortable.

We drop a connection at the first sign he might not be interested because it feels safer to reject ourselves than have someone else do it to us directly.

We’re also constantly scanning our environment for signs of homophobia or rejection — something called hyper-vigilance — which is emotionally exhausting.

We’re extra uncomfortable rejecting others directly, in case they take it badly and it makes us feel bad.

We struggle to stand up for ourselves and set boundaries in our relationships, because doing so can lead to someone rejecting us.

In short, though most societies today are more accepting than they were 20 or 40 years ago, in a sense it doesn’t matter:

All the homophobia we have experienced — or even just perceived — stays with us. It creates a kind of trauma that affects many aspects of how we navigate life today.

And inevitably, this gay rejection sensitivity costs us:

It costs us the relationships that never start because we’re terrified to say “hi” to a stranger.

It costs us the relationships that end because we can’t handle much conflict without wanting to run away.

It costs us work opportunities because we’re afraid to go for them in case we get rejected.

It costs us happiness and peace because we’re afraid to set strong boundaries and say no to things that would make us uncomfortable.

How to Overcome Gay Rejection Sensitivity

But it’s not all bad news — there are ways you can mitigate the effects of rejection sensitivity:

1) Get better at noticing it and questioning it — rejection sensitivity means we can perceive rejection when it’s not there, or overestimate how painful it would be if we did get rejected.

By analyzing a situation more objectively, we can question whether the rejection was really as personal as it feels (usually it isn’t) and whether we’d truly be OK if we were rejected (usually we would).

2) Build a strong support network — having a few supportive and more-or-less unconditional relationships in our lives can make rejection from others seem far less significant.

So building strong connections with close friends, family or a professional coach or therapist can really help mitigate the effects of rejection when it inevitably occurs.

3) Get used to taking risks, even small ones — start feeling the fear and doing it anyway.

Experiencing rejection, processing the feelings it brings up, and realizing it wasn’t as bad as you expected is key to overcoming an oversized fear of rejection.

This doesn’t mean pushing yourself out of your comfort zone at every opportunity. Even “microdosing” rejection — say, just by smiling at someone you think is attractive to see if he responds — can help you get used to taking bigger risks.

4) Remember that rejection is just part of life — in dating, in friendships, at work, and rejection doesn’t have to define us.

We can’t be for everyone, just like everyone else won’t be for us.

Remembering that everyone goes through rejection — and that taking risks is a necessary part of living a fulfilling life — can help you make peace with rejection when it happens.

Plus, rejection is usually just the universe’s way of redirecting you towards something else.

Rejection Is an Inevitable Part of Life

So in summary:

If you’re LGBTQ+, there’s a good chance you feel rejection more deeply than you would if you were straight.

We can mitigate the effects of this through positive self-talk, a strong sense of community, and carefully exposing ourselves to risk.

Rejection is an inevitable part of life, and learning to face it, even when it stings, is essential to living a fuller life.

Anaïs Nin said, “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

Sylvia Plath said, “I love my rejection slips. They show me I try.”

And I think about those words a lot.