Why Human Rejection?

Rejection sucks. Everyone knows it.

And now AI is building an entire industry around making sure you never have to feel it again. In Episode 7, Adam Dodge and Dr. Saed D. Hill unpack what happens when technology starts editing out one of the most fundamental human experiences, and why that might not be the upgrade we're hoping for.

What You'll Hear

Why Rejection Hurts So Much Rejection isn't just emotionally bruising; it's neurologically painful. Dr. Hill explains how rejection activates the same neural pathways as physical pain, and how gender norms pile on: for men, rejection signals inadequacy; for women, a failure of desirability they were told wasn't possible. A pain most people are never taught to process.

The Rejection Economy 90% of Gen Z daters want to find love, but fear of rejection stands in the way, and over half have stopped pursuing a potential match because of it. AI companies have noticed. Companions market themselves as "judgment-free, rejection-proof" spaces; dating assistants buffer a person from their own risk. If AI gets rejected on your behalf, was it really you who got hurt?

App Spotlight: The Concerning Ones Two apps get examined. Cheat Eye uses facial recognition to scan dating apps for a partner's active profile, turning anxiety about micro-rejection into surveillance tech. Closure lets users generate an AI clone of their ex for a "conversation" that never happened. Dr. Hill's verdict: caution and a trusted professional, please.

Why Rejection Is Actually Necessary Here's the part nobody wants to hear: you need rejection. Dr. Hill makes the developmental case: rejection builds frustration tolerance, resilience, and a solid sense of self. Strip it away and people lose the ability to sit with pain, externalize blame, and in some cases escalate toward rejection violence. Shame thrives in isolation; community is the antidote.

Ghosting, Clear Coding, and What ChatGPT Gets Right (and Wrong) 84% of Gen Z have been ghosted. Two-thirds have done it, most often to avoid confrontation. Adam and Dr. Hill examine why ghosting erodes connection long-term, explore "clear coding" (stating intentions upfront in your dating profile), and fact-check ChatGPT's live rejection advice, finding solid guidance alongside subtle pickup-artist logic worth flagging.

Actionable Guidance

For Everyone: Rejection is about fit, not worth. Practice separating "they weren't interested" from "there's something wrong with me." Use AI to draft a kind rejection, clarify intentions, or optimize a dating profile for honesty over algorithm performance.

For Parents and Educators: Have the rejection conversation before AI gives kids an opt-out button. No need to mention technology. Focus on resilience, frustration tolerance, and moving through pain rather than around it.

For Clinicians: Watch for clients using AI companions or closure tools as rejection-avoidance strategies. Validate the impulse before redirecting. If engaging with AI breakup tools, consider co-processing rather than dismissing the tech outright.

Research Referenced

• Hinge 2024 Gen Z D.A.T.E. Report: 90% of Gen Z want to find love but fear of rejection stands in the way; 56% stopped pursuing a potential match because of it
• Thriving Center of Psychology Ghosting Survey: 84% of Gen Z and Millennials have been ghosted; 65% admit ghosting someone; 56% cite avoiding confrontation as the top reason
• University of Michigan / PNAS: Social Rejection and Physical Pain: Rejection activates the same brain regions as physical pain
• Tinder 2026 Dating Trends Report: "Clear coding" is a rising trend among younger daters

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Transcript

Adam Dodge 0:05

Hello and welcome to the Why Humans podcast, where we discuss AI and the human reasons people turn to it. My name is Adam Dodge. I am one of your hosts today, and I am the founder of EndTAB.

Saed D. Hill 0:18

And I'm Dr. Saed D. Hill, and I'm a counseling psychologist and independent consultant in the field of men and masculinities.

Adam Dodge 0:24

No Sloan today. It's just Saed and I. And we're going to be talking about rejection and how AI is disrupting, changing our relationship to rejection, removing rejection from the equation and dating scenarios and relationships and what that means. Is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? One thing I feel like most people would agree on is rejection kind of sucks. I don't think people are like, I love being rejected. It's awesome. I can't wait to get rejected again. And funny enough, I don't think people get a lot of guidance on how to manage being rejected or how to reject someone. I certainly didn't get that conversation growing up about how to handle rejection and how to have a healthy relationship to rejection and understand it and process it and move forward. And as I'm listening to myself talk, I'm like, why aren't we doing this more psyched? Why are we having more conversations about rejection? But if AI can make rejection suck less, for lack of a more eloquent way to describe it, or just not exist through AI companions or specialized apps or wingmen, then why shouldn't we let it? Like maybe that's a good thing. This is what we're going to be exploring today. But before we get there, Saed, what why does rejection, why is it so unpleasant? Why is it almost a dirty word for a lot of people? What is AI even solving for?

Saed D. Hill 1:52

Yeah, I feel like it just feels painful in general, right? Like it just feels painful. And I think like part of it has to do with this fundamental it when we're rejected, it sort of like activates this idea of it. This means we are unworthy or unlovable. We aren't desired. It's always like this thing that it has to be about us in some way, right? In particular, when I talk to a lot of men, we think of it a little around gender lines where men might say, Well, if I'm rejected by people in my life, that means like I'm less adequate as a man, right? Because men are supposed to, you know, that's a sign of success is to not be rejected. And when you're rejected, that means you're less than powerful and that sort of thing. And so that might really harp on this desirability of what it means to be men and be masculine, right? But I also know plenty of like women and other folks who are also taught, like, hey, if you're rejected, that is also something about you as a woman or your femininity and that sort of thing. Because, hey, like all we hear is men, like in particular for women who date men, it's like, well, men want women all the time and they want sex with women all the time and these sorts of things. And some of my most intense therapeutic relationships were with women navigating what it feels like to be rejected by men when they're constantly told, like, no, men are going to desire you or should desire you in some way. And so then it becomes part of our identities, what gives us worth and what gives us value. So I think there is like that place is it like really messes with our self-concept in some way. Now, I will say though, that there is like also more of a neural sort of reason for this too. Like, I'm not like a neurologist and I'm not a neuropsychic kind of person, but my understanding is that like rejection also activates this part of our brain, this sort of like neural pathway in our brain that's also associated with like physical pain. Rejection also like lights up this part of our brain that is also associated with actual physical pain. And so there is this, although there is this like social sort of way of thinking about it, it can also just really mimic an actual painful experience for us.

Adam Dodge 3:59

For me, the the layman's perspective is yeah, I'm not getting something I want, and I'm being and that is not a great feeling. And if I'm getting rejected, then there's something wrong with me, right? And in since, and I love that you really gave sort of a balanced gender approach to this. Like this is not just like a guy thing, this is not just like a thing for women or or other folks, it's universal. And uh that tracks with the stats that we're seeing. Hinge, both Hinge and Tinder do big surveys every year. And the most recent one from Hinge found that 95% of Gen Z daters admit they worry about rejection, and over half say that that fear has stopped them from even pursuing a potential match. So the fear of rejection is preventing them from dating, right? And for all these reasons, uh AI companies and apps see this as a business opportunity. There's something to solve for here. There is a pain point experienced by 95% of daters. And how can we address this? And that can be promising and concerning, but let's start with the concerning part. AI companions is a is a great example of this. They constantly talk about how these are judgment-free spaces, right? These are spaces where you'll never be judged, where you'll be understood, where you can be vulnerable. And to me, what that means is what the underlying value proposition there is that this is a rejection-free space. You will never experience rejection here. I will always respond to you. So there won't even be this sort of light rejection of you not responding to my texts or anything like that in a timely way. And anything you talk about, you can be as vulnerable as you want. And it's not true vulnerability, which we'll talk about in a second, but and we'll always accept you. You will always be accepted here. And when I think about that, and I think, and I juxtapose that with the stats about most, pretty much everybody fearing rejection and half of people not even pursuing relationships, that sounds pretty great, right? It really plays into that fear.

Speaker 1 6:15

A lot of what I hear is about non-judgmental stuff. It's like to be rejected means to be judged. And so for a lot of people, so when we get into this space with AI and AI is not rejecting us, there's this experience of not feeling judged by because of who we are or what we represent or what we bring to the table. And so I do think that that's certainly a positive that people experience about it that they report is like, I well, I'm not being judged, right? At the same time, and we'll get into this about like things like ghosting and stuff like that, and people just leaving people on red and not responding to messages, which is another way of being rejected. Rarely, I guess nowadays with a lot of people, is rejection so overt. It might just be like what quiet quitting a texting relationship or quiet quitting just a relationship in general, right? So there's also this idea of like, well, AI is always responsive, right? So that therefore it's not rejecting me because it's always giving me instant responses. There is no sexual rejection. We talked about the gender component. A lot of women I talk to who date men talk about the rejection of a man from a sexual standpoint is like crushing, right? Like, because I was taught men are always supposed to want this or that. And so if I'm being rejected sexually, that's an issue. Well, AI's not going to reject you sexually in that way. And so if that's happening, I guess the underlying part about this, too, that we're not necessarily talking about is how people, when they feel rejected, often feel abandoned. And so, hey, AI doesn't abandon me. It's always here for me too. And by the way, Adam, I can also customize it to give me whatever kind of response I want. So if I want a particular kind of affirmation, I can make it do that too. And that makes me feel good, right? So, yeah, there's all these things that people will report about the positives of it without thinking about how rejection and intimacy, for example, kind of goes hand in hand in some ways, or like why rejection is part of a human experience and is kind of important to our development.

Speaker 8:15

Yeah. And we're going to talk about why rejection is developmentally important in a second and why we don't want to strip it from our real all our interactions. But gosh, you just keep making a really good argument for why people would be drawn to a rejection-free experience because it relates to intimacy and vulnerability and acceptance and all these different things that if we're not getting guidance on from a young age, from parents or trusted adults or relationship educators, then we're just gonna go with our gut, which is this feels terrible. And hell yeah, I want to use AI to not experience that. We have an opportunity to wrestle this narrative away from AI companies and put it in the hands of people that we want talking to youth, for example, and adults. I will say just another way that AI is eliminating rejection from the process is outsourcing, right? Where people are, and we talked about this in the flirting episode that we did, the Wingman episode, where it can feel a bit safer, I think, if you are having AI write your opening lines, your small talk, or out completely outsourcing dating to it that like an agent where it's doing all the swiping and and interacting for you. And then if you get rejected, it's not really you being rejected. It puts this space in between the rejection and the person.

Speaker 1 9:44

And I've certainly heard this from people too who've used AI to write things for them. This idea of like, well, I mean, that message was AI. It wasn't really me necessarily. So I guess it's okay. And it just softens the blow for people. So I think you're spot on about that analysis too. I mean, it's not me, it's it's the tech. It was the tech.

Speaker 10:02

Yeah. And and then if it works and you actually get somebody interested, then it's it's a no-risk proposition. Like if I get rejected, it it softens the blow. And the upside is it gets me, it moves me forward in trying to date somebody in a way that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to do. So it's a really attractive option. But again, there are consequences to rooting out rejection from our experiences. Before we talk about that, I just want to mention. So I've we talked generally about how AI is disrupting this space through AI companionship and these sort of judgment-free, rejection-free relationships, or how like outsourcing and things like that. But I just want to name a couple. I just want to throw these at you, Saeed, because I I think that they are a consequence of rejection, this sort of rejection economy that AI is seeking to take advantage of. So one is an app called Cheat Eye. Cheat-Eye is a relationship surveillance app that if you feel like your partner is pulling away or being distant or maybe rejecting you and breaking up with you, CheatEye offers a solution, which is to use facial recognition to scan dating apps like Tinder to see if your partner has an active profile. And what it which to me is the same thing as pre-internet having like hiring a private investigator to follow your partner around to see if they're meeting up with somebody else. But that feels less, it feels, I think, less icky and boundary-breaking to use an app like this.

Speaker 1 11:36

In my experience, doing couples work, for example, I would kind of talk about what we might say are micro rejections. So this idea of like microaggressions, right? A lot of us who might be listening to this might have heard that term, but micro-rejections, this idea that there's like small ways that in couples work and just day-to-day interactions with people that they might be rejecting us. But like in a couples dynamic, it's like the phrase, you know what, not tonight, right? Like that's kind of a micro rejection for someone, or I need space. We've heard that. People have used that, people have heard that I need some space. Even like things that feel a little bit more mundane, like I just disagree, or I don't want to talk about that. Like those are all sort of these rejections. And I think what happens is again, if we interpret them as a rejection, also depending on our past histories with relationships and upbringing and on and context and all sorts of stuff, ouch, right? Like we're feeling, I've had a lot of couples just like I asked one person in a couple years ago that I worked with, what does it feel like whenever your wife says, like, I just disagree? And he just says, I can't really describe it. And I was like, Well, does it feel like something? And he said, It just feels like pain, it feels like ouch. And I think like what we see is that the more that these sort of little micro rejections build up without this ability to talk about it, because if you talk about it and you communicate about it, it opens you up for even further rejection, potentially, right? Like worse feeling experiences. You're trying to avoid that. And it's almost better to keep that in your head to sort of like, well, it could be this or that or this or that, or then, hey, go to this, you know, technology. It's like, I just need to find this out externally by some other process or third party or something, because the consequences are the experience of shame and pain and those sorts of things. It's just gonna feel so much worse if I just go directly to someone and say, like, hey, like, how are you feeling about our relationship? You say no a lot. What's that about? And then it being confirmed about us. It allows us to also blame. I find found out in this technology about what you were doing, and then it becomes about that. It becomes about the anger as opposed to the pain underneath that anger.

Speaker 13:43

What a great sales pitch for why people turn to AI companionship in relationships, right? If you're experiencing a buildup of microaggressions and they are painful to you, why wouldn't we turn to an AI girlfriend, AI boyfriend, AI side relationship to experience a rejection-free, micro rejection-free space, right? Like it's just every time I listen to you talk, I can see the marketing copy writing itself for AI apps about what they're gonna solve for in your life and why this is better, why this is the promised land. One more app I want to talk about outside Cheat Eye is Clojure Tech, basically. So, how AI apps are trying to solve for rejection after a relationship ends. And this goes beyond romance. It can be friendship and things like that. But basically, what they offer like there's one app called Clojure, and it offers to create a digital twin of the person that broke up with you, the person that rejected you. You upload text and whatever information you have about this person, and it creates an AI version of them that you can basically do with what you want, but the idea is well, now you can get closure from this person. They didn't give you closure. Well, create a non-consensual copy of them and get the closure you need.

Speaker 1 15:11

I mean, I think first of all, I think it it is about leading with, from my standpoint, empathy with that to kind of say, like, I don't know, when I hear that, I don't necessarily like judge that, or I don't necessarily think to myself, like, oh, this person is like pathetic or something. Like, I'm not thinking that. I'm actually thinking, like, this is actually really sad. And if someone feels the need to go do that, I kind of want to explore with them. Like, I might probably will first validate it, like, hey, I can understand you wanting to do that. And it seems like closure in this way is really important to you. And maybe this is also the way to get closure because again, people might ghost and people might just leave, and you don't always get a chance to have that sort of corrective experience with somebody in that way to like talk about that rejection and try to like handle a breakup and that sort of thing. Sometimes that's denied to people. And I think part of what I might ask is what is this technology providing to you? And getting into all these things. And I imagine some of the things I just said are some of the reasons people might be using this tech. But I also would kind of say there are plenty of other ways to kind of like process this sort of rejection that doesn't involve this. And let's talk about what those things could be, and even how my therapeutic relationship to a client or my friendship to a friend or something can also be a part of their breakup process, if that makes sense. Like, hey, like I'm also giving you an opportunity to talk this through and process and get your feelings out with someone else and with a human that can like validate you and talk about this in a different way, than just going to the AI and trying to mimic this with someone who doesn't exist. It's not it's not truly them. I mean, when you're using this sort of technology to have like whatever this perf is for you, I mean, you miss out on the idea that like the rejection or the breakups and all this other stuff, it is it can feel just kind of messy. And people other people have agency and other people can say no, and you can say no, and you can have agency. Like other people have limits and do's and don'ts and boundaries, and you as well you do too. And so, even in this breakup conversation, I wonder AI is also not gonna withdraw out of that conversation. A lot of breakup conversations end. I would be deeply concerned about the potential of doing this on your own, and then always having access to quote unquote your ex for however long you want it. And it's not gonna get bored with having the same breakup conversation with you over and over. It's not gonna choose someone else, by the way, which is sometimes the way that rejections and breakups go. Like, I found someone else, like they're not gonna do that. Like, again, that might sound amazing, but when you become really accustomed to this sort of frictionless AI dynamic, even within breakups, what is that doing to set you up for the next human interactions you're having or a possible human relationship? I feel like the gap between the two realities is so can feel so brutal in practice. And I think that it would be a huge concern of mine.

Speaker 18:05

Well, that's a perfect segue into why editing out rejection from the human experience is problematic. And by the way, just to put a bow on that conversation, if you're gonna use one of these AI closure apps, it needs to have like a self-destruct button, right? Like this can only you get 48 hours and then it's gone, it's erased, and you can never use it again.

Speaker 1 18:29

That would be my talked about this three months ago, and we're still doing this, like you know, this is the longest breakup possible.

Speaker 18:36

That's right. Yeah, because it seems like what the overarching thing here is AI companies want to basically strip all the messiness from relationships, loneliness, rejection, judgment, things like that, right? They're stigmatizing these things and using them as a marketing tool to pull people into their tech. But rejection is developmentally necessary, it's developmentally important. And I'll be honest, when I was trying to think of it, like why is rejection a good thing? I struggled a bit to identify that because I'm not a mental health professional, and frankly, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about being rejected because it's maybe an unpleasant topic.

Speaker 1 19:17

So I think of it developmentally from a few different things. I think for one, it's really important for us to be able to start to differentiate ourselves from other people. And I think rejection is one of those ways where we can kind of learn to ourselves like, wow, like everything I want and need and like and do and are interested in is different than what other people, you know, what they like, what they want, what they need, what they're interested in. And I think our ability to have like a solid sense of self is often developed through rejection because like we're learning that other people's interests and stuff like that or what what works for them, just we it's not a match, right? It just doesn't match. And I think like that's sort of an important thing for us, just our own self sense of self. I also think this idea of like our ability to sort of tolerate frustration for frustration tolerance is a big part of this, where if we're never faced with sort of any kind of rejection from like, for example, AI, then we never learn to just like cope and deal with like when things feel not great. You know, and this doesn't even have to be about rejection, it's just about uh an experience of pain, period, especially if they come from similar neural pathways. It's like you know, if we can't tolerate frustration and pain and these sorts of things, um, we're gonna really crash out out here. It's gonna be really uh not a very pleasant experience for us day to day. Developing resilience, you know, is is a big huge part of this too. Um, resilience often people like kind of uh, I think in a way, romanticize the word resilience of like, look how resilient someone is. Isn't that amazing and inspirational? And like we talk about resilience with kids all the time, but like we don't always talk about well, what's our why do we need resilience? Well, what causes our need for resilience? Well, often it is things like rejection or trauma.

Speaker 21:08

Parents need to be having the rejection conversation with their kids, I think now more than ever. It was important before, but now with this technology giving them a path to opt out, we've got to be talking about this. And you don't even have to talk about AI when you have these conversations. It's really about how to manage rejection, how to manage trauma. Because, yeah, resiliency, gross, differentiation, frustration, tolerance, like these are really important things. And we know we're already at a deficit here. Something you and I have talked a lot about is rejection violence online, responding in this really powerfully angry way when, and this is really true for men and boys your bid for affection, flirting, interested, interest in some. Is not reciprocated. And instead of just moving on, it is insults and threats and harassment and anger. Do you see that? I mean, it already exists now. Do you see how this might exacerbate that as well?

Speaker 1 22:15

Absolutely. Because I feel like when we sort of take away sort of rejection in this way, it takes away our ability to really process that it isn't about. I think taking away rejection sort of allows us space to always externalize the issue. So always say, like, well, it's this other person's fault, or be like really embed deep in with your grievances, right? Be able to blame things and blame people, right? And I think what is missed without like really processing rejection is like we miss that it rejection violence in particular starts with like pain and it doesn't begin with like hatred and wanting to be violent. And so I think when people are allowed space to really process pain underneath the anger that leads to the violence and things like that, then we see much less of that sort of violence, right? Like it doesn't allow us just to like sit with our grievances and do the blame game or just say, like, oh, they're just saying that it's about me, right? And I'm a horrible person and all this other stuff. It's like, well, if I'm rejected, it doesn't always have to even be like this sounds cliche that it's not you, it's me kind of thing, but that actually is true sometimes. Like sometimes it really is like, hey, like this is just not a fit. It doesn't mean you're not worthy or you're not worth it to other people and stuff. Like I think we often hear in rejection, like, it's about my worth when it's actually about fit or rejection is protection. And I think that can sound a little cliche for some people because it doesn't feel like protection in the moment, but sometimes it can really, it really is too. Like because if you're trying to be stuck in a relationship or a dynamic that's not a good fit, that's miserable for a lot of people, right?

Speaker 23:59

And so love that. I and it's by the way, it's normal. Everybody gets rejected. And if you never got rejected, like what would that world look like? Where it'd be a lot of it would just be absolutely bonkers, right? Everybody saying yes to everybody's romantic interest, everybody's saying yes to everything.

Speaker 1 24:17

Like it's not it would be kind of chaotic, wouldn't it?

Speaker 24:20

Yeah, yeah, it's not a world we want to live in, right? And so when you start to examine it, I think we can really see the positives. And I do want to say, like, AI is also taking some swings at, I think, some healthy use cases around dealing with rejection. There's apps that are like breakup AI buddies that promote journaling and emotional support and some guidance around how to handle breakups in a healthy way. They have no contact trackers about, hey, you're doing awesome, like you haven't reached out, these types of things. So we are seeing some positive use cases. And then also I decided, and I I Said has not seen or heard anything about what I did with ChatGPT, but I just think people are gonna turn to Chat GPT who are experiencing rejection. And I want, I wonder how it does as a support if you're experiencing rejection. And I asked it about rejection on dating apps, and one of the things it really said is hey, like dating apps is it's just a place where rejection is more frequent and visible than in offline dating because people are going off very little. It's a swipe culture. And so it really tried to normalize the sort of it, it's dating apps, it's it's not you, it's dating apps types of things and sort of helping to level set. And one of the things that it said was a lot of people assume rejection on apps means I'm not attractive enough, but it's often closer to my profile is an optimized for the algorithm and split second judgment, helps them sort of orient. So it's like, okay, ChatGPT, I'm picking up what you're putting down here. But what about? And so I responded and said, well, it's not just happening on dating apps, like it's happening in person too. And it gave me a lot of sort of feedback. But one thing I wanted to ask you about was because I wasn't sure how to feel about this. It said confidence can be affected by repeated rejection. When rejection stacks up, it can change how someone shows up body language, tone, hesitation, which can make interactions harder, even if the underlying qualities are good. Sometimes working on confidence and self-presentation helps reset that cycle.

Speaker 1 26:36

I feel like it's like out of some sort of like old school pickup artist playbook or something. Like, here's it, and it sounds very prescriptive. And I think like that's what I take away from it. Like, look, having more confidence probably is a protective factor or some sort of buffer against like rejection sometimes. Absolutely. I think people are attracted to people who appear more confident. That can be true. And also it may not matter because I know met plenty of confident people who are rejected quite a bit. Like I from a myriad of things. I think that sort of honestly, that sort of advice or guidance kind of reinforces to me this idea of framing dating in this sort of landscape as like another economic system where, you know, like terms like high value, what it means to be a high value man, Adam, like if you just have more confidence, you'd be much more high value. And if you are of more high value, you'll be swiped right on, or whatever. People will be more into you. It's about your market value. And low confidence means you're not as highly marketable. You don't have as much sexual capital. Chemistry is so contextual. Like I think that there's people I might just have great chemistry with, like in one context, but maybe like you put us in a different environment. It's not that great. Like it's just we're like it's all of these things, right? So this idea of it just takes away this idea of personal preference in how people think about things and makes it almost like you're on a ranking system, Adam. Like, if you have more confidence, you'll rise up the rankings. And I I just don't I reject that because that's not just how humans work.

Speaker 28:06

Okay, totally agree. Now, of course, we're getting a lot of guidance from ChatGPT in this conversation. And it's this is what makes it tricky, right? You're getting some things that I think are we would roundly agree are problematic and might be also getting some good advice. And how do we make sense of this? So I'm gonna throw one more at you before we move on here. It says attraction is extremely subjective and situational. Two people can both be good people and still not be a match. Try to separate they weren't interested from there's something wrong with me, and that can make a big difference psychologically.

Speaker 1 28:44

Not bad. Or I don't think that's that bad. I was curious how you felt about it, like reading that. Like, I I don't think that that's necessarily that bad. And I think that there's some truth to that. And I think that that actually reminds me of the it's about fit, it's not about worth. Like that kind of gets to that that we talked about earlier. So I'm much more into that. There are some hits and some misses, and I think that that's important for us to realize with Chat GBT.

Speaker 29:09

I think when we think about modern rejection, we think about ghosting and how people are both being rejected but choosing to reject others. 84% of Gen Z report being ghosted, and two-thirds of them also admit to have ghosted somebody else. And the last thing I want to mention about this is 40% of them ghost because they don't know what to say.

Speaker 1 29:32

I've worked with plenty of people who have ghosted and have been ghosted. And I think universally, though, I actually have done a dialogue with students before across genders that talked about ghosting. And one of the things that came up was like universally people being like, I hate ghosting. It's so, it's so painful to experience it. And yet also universally people saying that they're doing it. And I think when I'm sitting with that, I'm kind of saying to myself, like, this is just another deficit in our ability to just communicate and be in community with each other because we're on one hand saying that we're doing something that's painful to another person and we're causing them pain. And on the other hand, saying, I also know what it feels like to experience that pain. And I think that that's an opportunity for a real dialogue and to really process that. And when we brought these groups together to kind of talk about it, it really opened people up to being much more vulnerable with each other to sort of talk about reasons why people do or don't ghost. And I feel like it really just helped give a lot of context and was quite healing for some people. And I also think I would debate whether ghosting actually is easier because I think it might feel easier in the short term. There might be some sort of short-term thing about that. Like it's just easier to deal with it this way. But I think it comes at a long-term expense because if we get enough experience doing that, then I think that starts to become the lens in which we look at our relationships and then it increases and increases. And what we're saying, as this increases and becomes more common, people are gonna feel a lot more pain out there at the same time and everything. And I think it comes at a long-term expense of our ability to like connect with so I I again I kind of debate whether it actually is easier in some way. It might feel somewhat easier, but I wonder how easy that is in practice. Now, this is not to say some people might ghost for like safety concerns or reasons and things like that. I mean, that's not what I'm saying, or block people randomly because of that. That still has impact, but I get from a safety concern or some other things why people might make those decisions, but that's not what's necessarily going on all the time, right? Like it's like this just feels hard. And it feels hard to cause someone pain or or help contribute to the a negative impact for somebody. But it's like that's part of it too. That's part of like consent dynamics, that's part of sexual health and learning about dating is rejecting and being rejected. That is just part of it.

Speaker 31:50

I think this is a great place to close out. And I love that we're closing out, not talking about AI, right? And really just talking about relationship literacy and how to have these conversations, how to be in community, how to be connected with others, to experience empathy and vulnerability on these issues. Because I think that's in a large way what AI takes away from us. And leaning into that, I think, is absolutely a path forward, or maybe the path forward is to be in community with each other instead of choosing to opt out. I love that, man. Thank you for being I feel like I just interviewed you the entire time. So I appreciate you just fielding my questions. I actually learned a lot. Uh we hope you did too. And thank you for subscribing or listening or dropping into this podcast. If you have thoughts about this conversation, we'd love to hear from you. If there are other conversations you'd love us to focus on, hit us up in the show notes. There's our contact in there, and we would love to talk about things that you're interested in as well. Until then, thanks everybody.