Getting over my fear of rejection

Hey Brunonia!I hope everyone had a great Spring Weekend!!Within the past week, I've forced myself (a heterosexual cisgender female, if you were wondering) to make the first move with three guys: my coworker, a guy I've had a crush on all year but whom I hardly know, and someone I know from a student organization that I'm really active in. Why? Many reasons: I wanted to make out with all of them, I certainly wasn't about to wait around for any of them to make a move on me (fuck gender roles, especially ones associated with making the first move), it was Spring Weekend, you quite literally only live once, and, most importantly, I'm trying to get over my massive fear of rejection.All in all, I am very glad I put myself out there, even to the guy who viciously dashed my advances (you'll hear more on that later). Sorry, this post is about to get very anecdotal—it has a larger point, I swear.After months of flirting that seemed to be heading nowhere (or at least not beyond the walls of a certain dining hall), when my coworker, Jake*, was in the bathroom early last week, I had two minutes to decide if I wanted to write my number on his bookmark or not. My heart was beating out of my chest, but I did it anyway. I felt like someone in a Disney Channel show. It was GREAT and hilarious and all of my friends were extremely impressed at how bold I had been. He texted me that night, we hung out a few days later, and it was extremely nice to spend time with him outside of work. Nothing mind-blowingly exciting, but I'm glad we both got that sexual tension out of our systems!The next guy on my list was Thomas*: a good friend of a few of my best friends, but somewhat of a stranger to me. Let me just say before I go on that this guy is intimidatingly good-looking (at least to me). Therefore, I'm very proud of myself for just walking up to him on Friday night at Colosseum and dancing with him. Something that, yes, led to multiple DFMOs between us over the course of the night. Though this accomplishment is dampened by the fact that it happened at Colosseum, I put myself out there and all went well!This last one is a bit sad on my end, but I still have no regrets. On Sunday night, perhaps flying a bit too high confidence-wise from my recent successes with men, I ran into Andrew*, the guy from a club I'm in, and impulsively texted him a few minutes later, "Hey Andrew! I find you very attractive and I always have so much fun talking with you. Would you want to hang out sometime later this week?" It's been quite a few days now and he hasn't responded, so let's just say I suspect I won't ever be getting a text back...Yes, I am extremely embarrassed and I'm not looking forward to our next club meeting, but honestly, HONESTLY, fuck it. I learned that he is the kind of person who thinks it is okay to ignore the absolute shit out of someone and do I really want to be fornicating with someone like that? Nope, I do not. Now that I know that he is kind of a shitty dude, I won't focus any more of my thoughts on him and I can scope out other options!!Biggest lessons learned:—In order to pull a supremely aggressive move, like writing your number on your coworker's bookmark, you have to decide that the regret you'd certainly feel by not making a move is worse to you than the embarrassment you might feel if you make one and it doesn't go well. If you'd rather be embarrassed than regretful, do it.—Whatever the method (on paper, on the dance floor, sending a text, etc.), you still feel amazing about yourself right after you make a move, so it's always worth a shot just for that alone, in my opinion!—I do not take well to being ignored. In fact, I HATE it. If you are like me and you are being ignored by someone you like, you must resist the urge to send that person another text. They'll ignore that, too, and that'll only make you paranoid. As hard as it is (I wanted to tell Andrew off SO BADLY), you have to be the bigger person! Delete the person's contact if you have to.Go make the first move and conquer your fear of rejection!Love,Demi* Name change for anonymity.Image via.