Rejection is romantic

notable rejections & unrequited love

The other night I took part in the first of Emma Firth’s Rejection is Romantic events at the South Parade Gallery. She invited me along with writers Ella Frears, Cecile Pin, Rhik Samadder and

Roisin Lanigan

to read work on the theme of rejection.

In introducing the night Emma talked about how rejection can be an under appreciated experience and how she hoped we might - in sharing ours - collectively de-sting them, and feel less alone. Ella read from her most recent book Goodlord, a very funny extract about rejection at an orgy, Cecile read from her beautiful novel Wandering Souls, where rejection was found in negotiating familial and cultural relationships.

Roísín read her novel - coming in Spring - I Want to Go Home But I’m Already There, sharing the type of rejection that comes from feeling alienated within relationships and environments that should make us feel our safest. Rhik read what was either a short story or an essay or autofiction which was the perfect mix of funny and sad about asking ChatGPT’s view on rejection generally, which prompted an existential crisis about a specific romantic one thanks to ChatGPT’s unwillingness to let him off the hook.

It was a really fun night and I know Emma’s hoping to plan more so look out for new dates (and maybe follow Emma on Instagram). I was tempted to read from Arrangements in Blue, which in some senses is a book about complete avoidance of rejection, but I decided instead to read an old poem of mine about what I think of as the most romantic of rejections: unrequited love. I’d also been thinking about my own relationship to rejection more generally, and how easily I can feel bruised. So on the day I quickly wrote a list of some notable rejections from my own life, and I thought I’d share it here (along with my poem ‘An Abecedary of Unrequited Love’ which is in my collection Isn’t Forever) without tinkering with it further. I’d advise writing one of these lists yourself because it made me laugh at my own absurd hurt feelings.

Rejection Power Rankings Pre-Hierarchical Arrangement

Manchester university English literature undergraduate degree programme

My older sister’s best friend’s ex-boyfriend

The clothing shop Morgan de Toi in 1997

Iconic CBBCs show Byker Grove for not being waifish enough

Publications inclusive of but not limited to: Poetry Review, Poetry London, The White Review, Granta, Poetry, PN Review, the TLS, London Review of Books, The Guardian

A very tall normy work colleague I made a drunken pass at after he flirted with me incessantly and described himself as ‘fiscally conservative’ (completely humiliating)

The new residents of a flat I’d lived in two years prior when I needed somewhere to live and came to view my old room

When I’d been away for 10 days and came home to only two items of post, one from Dominos and one from my broadband provider

Every cashier who won’t acknowledge me during the transaction

The woman who chose to sit next to the man in front of me on the bus when he and I had the only two spare seats

A jar of pickles I couldn’t open

A roll of Sellotape I couldn’t find the end of

Cryptic crosswords

Restaurants that insist on seating me at the bar rather than a table when I’m dining alone

When Bluetooth speakers refuse to connect to my phone

Several astonishingly beautiful street cats

Occasionally my own cats

People who prefer autumn to summer (seems somehow personal?)

The possibility we don’t have to settle for a choice between two political evils

Skincare routines

Prestige literary residencies

Straight single men my own age

Not the colour of hyacinths but the scent

An Abecedary of Unrequited Love

unrequited love for auto-connecting to your wifi

unrequited love for being looked at with faux-disapproval

for cornichons, derelict swimming pools, extreme pallor

unrequited love for first name / last name symmetry

unrequited love for girls curling their eyelashes on the top deck

his strange weather, imaginary boyfriends, junk food's made a comeback

unrequited love for kirby grips, Lee Miller's selfies, my own metanarrative

unrequited love for no fixed ideal

for optic measures

for paint tester pots

for queenliness

unrequited love for ring-pull cans - sexually aggressive

mixtape song choices - teen talk

unexpected cover versions

Valley Girls

unrequited love for waving at wrist-height to someone

standing next to you / 'wear your clothes, pretend

I was you, and lose control' / 'wear your pink

glove all the time' / water slides / when someone

on a bicycle bumps into a friend on a bicycle

and they try to hug without getting off their bicycles

unrequited love for xylophones

unrequited love for your salvage-yard eyes

unrequited love for Zelda Fitzgerald, who died

in a fire while awaiting electroshock therapy.

Nine women, including Zelda, died that day.