"I'll never know what made you run away, I only know there's nothing in this wide world, left for me to see." (The Brothers Four)
"Love of my life don't leave me, Bring it back bring it back,
Don't take it away from me, Because you don't know what it means to me" (Queen)
"What have I got to do to make you love me?" (Elton John)
Romantic Ideology describes the best case scenario of love that only very few people will ever experience-a passionate love that lasts forever. A more common experience in the romantic realm is that of separation, which is often interpreted as rejection. The essential role of love in our life, and our profound personal involvement in love, makes such separation very painful.
People look for a heavenly haven in love. The intensity of love and the perceived unity of the lovers create the illusion of feeling secure: the desire to live happily ever after in the safety of the beloved's arms underlies romantic love. However, love is not safe, but rather risky. Lovers are quite vulnerable to the risk of being separated from the object of their love. The dynamic and changing nature of love constantly threatens its existence. Lovers wish their love to last forever; however, they are aware how fragile and transitory love can be.
Adhering to Romantic Ideology, which assumes that love is eternal, eternal, not susceptible to waning, and invulnerable to any threat, complicates and intensifies the painful situation of the rejected person. In such a case, it is harder to interpret romantic rejection as a normal behavior which could happen to anyone. There is no evaluative (or ideological) framework in which the rejected lover can find consolation. On the contrary, the framework he or she believes in denies such an option, as the Carpenters ask about the reason why the sun goes on shining and the sea rushes to shore: "Don't they know it's the end of the world, because you don't love me anymore?"
The pain of romantic separation is exacerbated by the feeling of personal failure, because of the expectation that it should be otherwise (even when the current divorce rate is quite high). This may explain why people take romantic separation, and in particular romantic rejection, in such a harsh manner. It is evident that the separated or rejected lover can find another lover who may even be more suitable; nevertheless, some lovers cannot stand the separation or rejection and commit suicide or kill their beloved. Romantic rejection is painful not merely because of the event itself, but also because of the damage it inflicts upon our self-esteem, which is determined to some extent by the way people evaluate us. Public knowledge of our failures typically hurts our self-esteem.
It is interesting to mention that men often take romantic rejection in a more dramatic manner than women: men are three to four times more likely than women to commit suicide after a love affair has decayed.
When our responsibility for a certain event is reduced, emotional intensity decreases as well (see here). Accordingly, people are less distressed by rejection when it is due to external circumstances. Such circumstances reduce the relevancy of the event to the rejectee's self-esteem and hence reduce the event's strength.
Accordingly, the reasons people prefer to give for refusing dates are primarily impersonal, uncontrollable, and unstable, even though the true reasons may be quite different. The major reason for telling such "white lies" is concern about the rejectee's possible emotional reaction. People are less distressed by rejection when it is due to impersonal reasons ("I'm going out of town") than when it is due to their own characteristics ("You're a boring person"). A common excuse in this regard is "You are too good for me." People are also less upset by uncontrollable reasons (the rejector has to study that night) than controllable ones (the rejector does not want to go to a movie that night). Reducing controllability here reduces emotional intensity. In addition, reasons that are unstable and temporary (the rejector is ill) are less disheartening than more stable, permanent reasons (the rejector is engaged to be married). Unstable, temporary reasons diminish the reality of the rejection somewhat and hence emotional intensity is reduced (see here).
The phenomenon of refusing dates by offering reasons which reduce the hurt to the other person is so common by now that it is no longer so effective. In the television show Seinfeld, a woman who wants to stop dating George explains: "It's not you (who is to be blamed for this), it's me." This hurts George, mostly because he claims that no one else should be entitled to use this line, which he believes he invented and has often used. Indeed, in another episode, George, in an attempt to get rid of his current girlfriend, says: "You can do better than me. You could throw a dart out the window and hit someone better than me. I'm no good!"
Although we are willing to reduce pain for the person from whom we wish to separate, there are some limits to what we are prepared to do for other people. For example, a man may plan to offer several reasons in order to reduce the personal liability of the woman from whom he wants to separate, but in their next meeting she anticipates him and suggests the value of such a separation, while, of course, trying to reduce his personal liability. Such a situation is bound to hurt the man. It is true that there is now no danger that the woman will be hurt from the separation (and this was his primary purpose), but preventing the hurt was not achieved by a generous (though superficial) sacrifice on his behalf, but in a manner which could places him as the inferior-after all, he knows that the reasons given are merely an attempt to reduce his pain and are not genuine.
The wish to fuse with the beloved and to form a single unit is understandable in light of the greatest fear of lovers: separation. The solution for preventing the separation from the beloved is that of making the beloved an inseparable part of the lover (see here).
The above considerations can be encapsulated in the following statement that a lover might express: "Darling, if you want to reject my love, please do it in a considerate manner-if possible, one that will lead me to think that actually it is I who wish to reject you."
