I didn’t realize how much I had to say on the subject of REJECTION! This post finally outlines the challenges that had the most damaging effect on me. I first met Jack around eight years ago. It was some time after I met him that a situation began to develop around him and I. I had never had a challenge of that scale, not one that affected me in such a personal way.
Beckie, the creator of Beckie’s Mental Mess, hosts a series entitled “WORKING ON US”. The theme for this week’s “WORKING ON US” is “REJECTION AND OVERCOMING REJECTION”.
Yesterday I published my introduction to a multiple part response that I am submitting to Beckie. This post is going to examine in more detail the challenges I faced which developed into my one and only taste of despair. They all center around that word: REJECTION.
In the last post I mentioned some of the stress I was under at work. Perhaps, this made me so tired, I was less effective at dealing with a situation I had never before encountered.
MY LOVELIFE
From my late teens, I was courted by a wonderful young man named Jammy. (His real name was James, everyone called him Jamey…but as a child he pronounced that as “Jammy”. So Jammy stuck.)
When I was in my mid-twenties, I ended the courtship. It was not a REJECTION, I just realized how different we had become. We talked about it, we agreed. It was a hard decision, but to stay together would have led to more unhappiness than ending the courtship. We made sure that we reassured each other. Years later we ended up living round the corner from each other (by which time Jammy was married). He was still a great caring friend to me.
I had lots of male friends (hey, I had been working on construction sites for years). I went on dates, but I knew there was noone I wanted to have a romance with. I received two marriage proposals, both of which I REJECTED. But I explained my reasons kindly. One of those men took it well, the other didn’t. He left the country! He decided to move to the Arctic Circle. I wrote a post about Pete actually:
Anyway…Jack was already an international volunteer, but he was assigned to be based in London six months after I was. He caused quite a stir. A celebrity who was going to be boarding with the rest of us in basic accommodation. He is amazingly charismatic. Volunteers are already a friendly, energetic bunch, but Jack managed to bring even more life and spirit to every project he was involved in. I was aware of his presence, but I was yet to meet him. then came the day he sat opposite me when I was out with friends for brunch. I realized he was looking at me.
After that we were on friendly terms. We were at a lot of social events together. We both loved karaoke. It all started with a bit of teasing. I just tried to dampen down what people were saying. I REJECTED the tittle tattle as nonsense. My closest friends (who had been spending a lot of time with Jack) claimed he liked me. I know I know…it sounds like school doesn’t it! But this was how it started. Before I knew it…it went viral. I think that’s what is is called. Suddenly I was walking along a road and strangers were approaching me to take photos and ask me if I was shagging Jack. In the end I wrote down hundreds of comments made to me and questions I was asked.
There were a few things that Jack may not have realized were adding to my stress. He kept turning up at the infirmary where I worked, to cheer up our patients. He would come waltzing in with those smouldering eyes and that gorgeous smile of his. He would sing to our patients and take selfies with everyone. And they loved him! So he kept coming back.
But our team claimed he was really coming to see me. He used to bring young lads with him (he is a very good influence on a lot of youngsters). These teenage lads would be looking over at me and whispering and laughing. Jack made it obvious the conversation they were having was about me. I REJECTED the silly comments. I liked Jack a lot. but I didn’t want to get my hopes up. I didn’t believe that he would ever like me.
News was spreading in ways I never understood. I received calls and e-mails from friends in other countries asking if I was dating Jack. A few people said they had heard we were engaged to be married. Jack and I were friendly at this point, but nothing was going on. Then he moved into the flat I was living in. The rumours multiplied. Look, I have a great sense of humour. I could see the funny side of some of them, even though they were not really appropriate. I spoke to the young man who was telling everyone that Jack had been drilling a hole in his bedroom wall so he could watch me undressing.
There was other teasing that came from our close friends and colleagues. Jack was sometimes a bit untidy. Ella refused to clear up after him. But I cleared up after anyone I had lived with. I love cleaning. Well…jokes developed along the lines that I was making myself the next Mrs Jack Barnes.
Our close friends were teasing that I was washing his dishes and picking up his clothes and throwing away his moldy food etc because I was in love with him. He retaliated by telling everyone I had OCD and was obsessed with cleaning. He didn’t realize that my new manager and his new assistant took those rumours literally and decided I was a control freak, which is why they thought I wouldn’t cooperate with the changes they were making. Actually I did cooperate. But I asked them to listen to the girls on our team who were crying because they couldn’t cope with the new rota and the harshness from them.
People became more bold about what they said directly to Jack and I. They were “friends”. They would say things with a grin, so it had to be a joke right. They would say things like, “What you two need is just to have a really good snog (or a shag) and then you won’t feel awkward with each other anymore.” Or they would suggest that we surprise each other by walking into each other’s bedroom and pouncing. Or they would say, “You look happy this morning, have you two been shagging again?” None of this was happening. Jack and me were not speaking to each other. We were scared to look at each other.
But what I really really objected to was being called a slapper, a dirty slut, the slag next door, Jack’s latest whore…I found that very objectionable. I hated seeing photographs of myself at parties where Jack was near me. I had no online presence, but people showed me photos they had come across. People were getting hold of my phone number and I received messages from mystery numbers full of obscene language and lewd comments referring to what I was apparently doing to Jack in the flat we shared.
The result? Jack and I became awkward in the flat. We stopped talking. We were awkward outside of the flat. We were at the same social events and were scared to go near each other. But these rumours would not die down. More and more photos of us were online. There were some frankly cruel comments from people I had never met calling me ugly, fat, miserable.
It’s hard to convey the sheer amount of incidents of online cruelty that were accumulating. They started to affect me. I became convinced that Jack disliked me. He wasn’t speaking to me. People were saying online I was this ugly fat wannabe who was harassing Jack and throwing myself at him. Then something kind of strange happened. It all centers around one week in our flat. In fact the events of that week inspired a whole series of posts (which are badly written I know, I was just so emotional when I was writing those posts). If you have a few hours spare, you can read the entire saga that developed:
That’s not the end of it though. As I mentioned in those posts, after I moved out of the flat, the rumours were that after our passionate affair, we had argued, I had tried to attack Jack with a knife and we now hated each other. It all became more and more ridiculous. Our close friends knew there was a rift between us. I kept on turning up to the homes of friends who had invited me for dinner and there was Jack. Our friends wanted us to be friends. But it was so awkward.
I was struggling. I don’t think anyone understood how my confidence had crumbled. I had left the flat I loved and flatmates I loved. I had moved in with flatmates who had hardly interest in me. One of them seemed to think I was after her husband. That was not a nice situation to be living in. Moving out of the flat had not stopped the rumours. It had just changed them. I regularly heard that Jack hated me from others.
I just threw myself into work and took on extra assignments. In my spare time I started doing more and more sport, That is supposed to be good for you, endorphins and everything. I lost a quite a lot of weight. I was avoiding the main dining room were meals were served. So I was hiding in the changing rooms or somewhere outside eating a rice-cake and hummus day after day. I am five foot eight and was looking extremely lean at this point.
Friends who picked up on my stress levels told me I was working too hard and should go out and have fun. People give what they think is well-meaning advice don’t they!
I was still being invited to lots of parties and social gatherings, but not by those I admired and respected any longer. I was being invited by a more wild kind of crowd. I remember going to a club with some people I hardly knew and dancing for hours. I was full of adrenaline, my emotions turbulent. My friends said I was getting a reputation for being a party girl. Rumours online about me twerking (whatever that is!) and flirting with men were upsetting my friends, and apparently, the rumours about me were getting back to Jack.
Work was still challenging. There was so much negativity. Everyone was complaining about our new manager and his assistant. There was not a nice atmosphere. I just concentrated on our patients and gave my most tender care. I also helped a neighbour who had experienced a severe stroke at the age of thirty. Her sight, cognitive abilities and physical mobility were very limited. She and I developed our own little language – literally. She was the highlight of my week. The time I spent with her was so special to me.
Jack a presenter at a charity entertainment evening. I don’t know what he was thinking. He made several jokes that were about me. I was right there in the audience that night. He didn’t name me of course. More calls, texts, e-mails. I remember two men chasing me down the road shouting out at me indicating they knew the jokes were about me.
The bereaved husband of a wonderful woman we cared for until she died came to visit us. He had been in Africa for months, so naturally when he saw me he gave me a huge bear hug. Guess who witnessed that? Well, in addition to Jack, around twenty people saw it actually. We had dinner together with some other carers. We also sat next to each other at the funeral of a very special volunteer who was well over one hundred when she died. Some of my friends suggested that I would be perfect for him. But gossipers said he and I were already “involved”. Rumours were that I had stopped chasing Jack and was now after my dear friend. It broke me.
I remember after some incredibly impertinent questions from someone I looked up to in front of others who I admired accusing me of trying to climb the ladder by catching an interesting husband…I just broke into tears. Amazingly Suzie and Marta just happened to arrive at the right time. They were horrified at what I was experiencing in connection with a man who was like a brother to us after we had supported him through the biggest trial of his life. I wrote about this dear friend of ours and his amazing wife in this post:
The running club I went to – it was very popular. Some weeks fifty people turned up. But when it was raining, there would only be handful of us. I remember Jack driving past me when I was running in the rain. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but there was a man running alongside me, a regular at the club. Shortly afterwards, rumours began that I was having a relationship with this married man. His wife worked with me. She was understandably very upset.
There is more. But this post is already so long!!
The truth is, I didn’t have a relationship with any man after I ended the courtship with Jammy. Because of Jack, nobody I was friendly with could show interest in me without a lot of gossip and possibly losing Jack’s friendship. Who would want to be REJECTED by Jack – one of the most popular volunteers across the country? Maybe nobody was interested in me. Afterall, social media had labelled me an ugly fat slut. Why would anyone want to date me? I was lonely. My friends had evaporated. My close friends all loved Jack. I couldn’t tell my family what was going on. I was talking to them regularly, but I told them everything was great. I wanted them to think I was happy in this wonderful life I had sacrificed everything to attain.
I felt REJECTED. By Jack, by my friends, by my manager and his assistant, by a faceless mass of strangers who thought they could say anything they wanted about me. What hurt was that the people I had looked up to, admired and imitated…they seemed to be shunning me because of what they were hearing about me. They were very pally with Jack. But I was facing REJECTION from those who I desperately wanted to accept me.
Well…I will carry on with the rest of the saga tomorrow. But by now, I hope you have an idea of the challenges I was dealing with. I know it might sound silly…but the accumulative effect of all of the above had built up. It’s sometimes hard to empathise when you read about someone else’s challenges. What is distressing to one person might be “no big deal” to someone else. I was overwhelmed and felt powerless to fight the force of that nasty slanderous gossip, which had started with teasing, but warped into something brutal.
What I had experienced had eroded the inside of me. I was no longer myself. My energy, my appetite, my sleep were all affected. Increasingly I wanted to be alone. I REJECTED many invitations. When I did spend time with my friends, I was still smiling and laughing, but inside I was cracking up.
There were too many times I prayed that my Creator would allow me to go to sleep and not wake up the next day. But I kept on waking up to the same situation. It didn’t relent.
After over two years of stress…something happened that changed my situation dramatically. I will let you know what changed (well, you might already know) and how I tried to overcome the feelings of REJECTION that had been sucking the joy out of me.
I am alright now, (I think) but for a long time the situation with my ex-flatmate Jack kept my nerves on a knife-edge. I know there are some people who make a career out of being the subject of idle gossip for others, but that has never been something I wanted for myself.
Although my physical injuries were healing up nicely, I was deeply self-conscious in so many ways. I was very nervous around men. I was very aware of my head! I felt secure with a hat on, or a bandana or scarf in the summer. I found London overwhelming. I felt very lost at times. I found bright lights gave me severe headaches. I always wore sunglasses out of doors. The first six months, I was hiding myself with hats, headscarves and sunglasses
But it has taken a long time to be able to battle the anxiety that other people, people I admire and respect, think terrible things of me. That realization has made me pretty dismal at times.
As far as many of them are concerned, I was acting strangely, sneaking in and out of my own home at unusual hours, becoming cagey and defensive and emotional…and then I disappeared for a year. I returned to London wearing hats and sunglasses (with style!) and not answering questions openly.
Do you remember in the last post I left you on this cliff-hanger? Well, that kiss was not the confession, the stupid thing I have been building up to telling you about. However, it was also a stupid thing to do, and it had consequences!
Do you also remember Brian’s suggestion that I take a bit more control of the situation I was finding challenging? (The gossip and the false rumours about my flatmate Jack and I.) Brian had recommended that I “fight fire with fire“.
Brian had posted a selfie with me alongside him, onto his Instagram account. He had taken the photo very shortly after I had unburdened myself to him and then…in my moment of madness…kissed him.
I think I had already guessed what had happened. And I knew already I had to be ready to take on board responsibility for agreeing to let Brian post that photo. I used the travelling time to work out what I was going to say to my friends, and more importantly, what I was going to say to Jack.
Ella was not home either, nor Dean. In fact the flat was quite empty. I jumped in the shower and started to get ready. I was going out. I was quite excited actually. I was attending an award show. It would take me an hour to do something satisfactory with my hair. I hate styling my hair. But I love these events. You do have to make the effort! My dress was all picked out…have I ever mentioned how much I love parties? (Always a party to go to after a show.)
Do you know what it is like to watch someone you live with performing on stage with other popular entertainers? I loved seeing Jack on stage. He is a natural entertainer. I did enjoy seeing him.
After the awards had been given out and all the entertainment had ended, the party atmosphere kicked off even more. But that is when I saw Jack, and undoubtedly, he had seen me this time. All week he had been absolutely lovely to me, but not now. He was glaring at me. He looked angry.
But Jack seemed to always be near, I could tell out of the corner of my eye, and several times I turned to see scenes a bit like this one (no this is not Jack). Now that was not at all like Jack. He was not at all relaxed with women making a fuss of him. He was concerned about his reputation and he felt a sense of pride at being a role-model for young people to look up to. In addition, he has had a couple of bad experiences with scary female fans he had to take legal action against, so he normally played very safe with women. Not that night. Oh Jack!
I set off criss-crossing through the side streets towards our flat. Then I started to feel a few drops on my forehead. Within moments the rain was teaming down. I had a brolly. I don’t go anywhere without a brolly (truly English to the bone) and I had a little tiny fold up brolly which did rather a poor job of keeping me dry.
As I was approaching the security gates outside our flats, they started to open slowly and a car drove in ahead of me. Jack’s car! I held back. I didn’t want him to see me. But that meant I had the perfect view of the passenger side of the car as the door opened and…a young woman climbed out of Jack’s car. Oh my goodness!…how awkward!
“Jack, you were brilliant tonight. I mean you always are, but I thought you were brilliant. I felt so proud of you.”
Perhaps I should begin with Jamal, as I have already mentioned him in another post. What did Jamal have to say about Jack and me? Very early on Jamal started teasing Jack about me. Then Jamal started teasing me about Jack. Every time he appeared he would call me over to him, and then lead me to Jack. Jamal was forever taunting me in a mild way about having a crush on Jack, I don’t know what he was saying to Jack but I can only imagine it was ten times worse.
Then Jack moved into the flat I was sharing already with Ella and Dean. Can you imagine Jamal’s reaction? There were always lots of young men pouring into our flat to hang out with Jack. He cared for them. Some of them were from broken up backgrounds and he tried to steer them away from drugs and crime and encouraged them to get involved with working for charities.
Jamal was a super lad in himself. He was extremely gregarious and popular with people of all ages. He looked smart, he was always wearing a tailored suit or a cashmere sweater and a pair of his trendy spectacles. He was smooth, he was slick. He had constant laughter in his voice. Jamal was clever and capable and confident. He really looked up to Jack. Jack encouraged Jamal and gave him great advice.
Damian was one – I can’t bear to think of what Damian said and did. He thought the world of Jack. But I had known Damian long before either he or I met Jack. Damian and I had been friends since we were fourteen. He was the King of sarcasm. Damian was cruel to both Jack and me…and he would not stop. I kept on receiving messages from him. I saw Damian almost every day and he always had something to say. He was merciless. Hugh Sanders was another. Hugh was relentless. These silly men spread rumours like an infectious rash.
First of all, Bernard. Benny, we all called him, or Granddad, because he always took that tone when offering advice. Benny was the opposite in temperament to Jack. Benny was mild and quiet and modest. Although Jack could get on Benny’s nerves, he did love Jack. Benny had also been a great friend to me since I had moved to London. Benny took me out for dinner a lot, took me to the theatre and invited me to parties. We were frequently at the Royal Albert Hall which we both adored. Benny decided he would have a word with me about Jack, during that week after the conversation between Jack and I had taken place. Benny told me that Jack was wonderful but that he was like a kid in the playground. Benny warned me that Jack was going to hurt me, because he had not grown up yet.
Then there was a famous director who Jack had worked with and admired a lot. Sylvan threw amazing parties and was delighted to jump up on stage and sing or play any instrument that was handy.
Frankly, I was fed up of hearing what everyone else had to say. I wanted to speak with Jack again directly. I wanted to find out if there was any possibility he was contributing to the rumours I was hearing and ask him to make sure he strenuously denied anything was happening. And I wanted to do it in a way that made it clear to Jack that I was not against something happening, but that he and I needed to build some kind of friendship first before there was any possibility of that happening. Much as I was fond of Jack…I did not trust him, how could I trust my feelings with him?
A young man who had recently moved to London named Brian saw me on the bus on Saturday morning when I was heading into town. I had worked with Brian on a project in Devon years before and remembered him. Brian was pleased to find someone who knew who he was. Brian had been out for drinks with the same group as Jack and Hugh. Brian hardly knew a soul in London, so it made sense for him to be tagging along with new workmates when he was invited to go out for a drink.
I asked Brian if he had had any plans for that day. 
I lent forward and kissed the poor bloke! Brian laughed and thanked me. I immediately apologised. Brian then said to me everything was cool. He looked thoughtful, and then he came out with an idea…an idea which I 
I could not be sure I knew entirely what Brian meant by that, so I looked at him with a serious gaze and confessed, “I do think I actually love Jack, but I am just really mad at him at the moment.”
I don’t think I have introduced Ella to you yet. Ella and her husband Dean were living in the same flat as Jack and I and two other flatmates.
I tried hard not to let rumours or comments from friends affect my behaviour towards my flatmate (we are calling him Jack Barnes, in case you missed that). When I did briefly see him at home in our flat, he was only lovely to me, asking me how my day had been, what were my plans for the weekend, offering me a drink, complimenting me on my dress or hair in his rather clumsy fashion.
Over the next few days, I heard more rumours and saw more photos and comments that others showed me on their social media sites. I also received many enquiries everyday, every single day, from friends and workmates, some kindly expressed, as to whether there was any any truth in the rumours they were hearing. I could understand some of my friends and workmates asking. It was the sheer number of enquiries that made the situation intense, in addition to people I hardly knew, or had never spoken to before, bounding up and asking me if I was going out with Jack.
On the Friday evening, six days after Jack and I had talked openly over a cup of tea, Ella and I were in the flat alone. The boys were all out. Whilst sipping mojitos, we chatted about everything that had been happening. Ella declared how glad she was now that Jack and I were friends because what was happening between us was affecting the whole flat.
I was not expecting that. Tears started to trickle immediately down my face. Ella was clearly not comfortable with my tears.
“Yes, but it’s bad. I mean you are really not going to like this. Hugh Sanders – you know what Hugh is like – claimed to have won the bet. He took the money which everyone had put in a jar or tin and they were keeping in one of the kitchens. I don’t know how much there was exactly, but well over £100. He is using it to buy drinks for any of the guys who wanted to go out tonight.”
“Enough time for scores of photos to appear of the two of you together Mel. I know you are just trying to be nice to each other, but the two of you are in all these photos full of smiles towards each other. Of course everyone is getting excited.”
“Hugh is mad with jealousy. He has been winding Jack up for weeks. Hugh has fancied you for a couple of years, but knows you are not interested in him. He hates seeing you and Jack happy together.”
My flatmate Jack – on his own, was undeniably “my cup of tea” and he had the potential to make me extremely happy. I knew I could very easily fall in love with him, if only I was allowed by the rest of the world to actually spend some time with him. On paper, he was everything I admired and felt attracted to.
Suzie and I got on as soon as we started working together. We both loved to laugh. Suzie is an amazing dancer. She has always been very popular because she is fun loving and loves parties. She loves shoes, she had a ridiculous amount of shoes which were stacked on top of each other in a pile that took up half of her wardrobe. Some of her shoes I liked, some of her shoes I thought were bizarre, but whenever she wore the shoes I thought were strangest, she received a bundle of compliments about them.
Suzie was married by the time I was living in the same flat as Jack. I had moved out of the flat we shared into another flat in the next road. Suzie and I used to spend so much time together before she was married, but I felt it best to give her some space when she was married. I did go round for dinner and loved that her husband cooked amazing jollof rice and plantain. I have loved plantain ever since I spent time in Ghana.
In addition you probably need to know that Suzie’s husband was a very close friend of Jack’s. They socialized together a lot. He also seemed to think I would be perfect for Jack, but he warned me, Jack is not very sensitive to women and can come across a bit ignorant. He told me of several women who had been more than offended by him. He told me Jack is like a teenager and has never really learnt to understand women.
Suzie’s husband was one of the first to cotton on to the fact that what had originated with innocent teasing was starting to get out of hand. He took the time to discuss it with me and realized I was becoming alarmed at the comments I was receiving from complete strangers. From then on, Suzie and him tried to be as supportive as possible in a situation that was going to advance beyond anyone’s expectations. At the end of the day they cared for both Jack and me, and they tried their best to resolve the situation.
Suzie and I ran home together one evening that following week. First of all, she wanted to know if I was alright. I told her how happy I was with Jack. Suzie seemed surprised.
Much as I loved Suzie, and loved spending time with her, the truth is I no longer trusted her with my feelings about Jack. I suspected she would share whatever I said with her husband and it would then go back to Jack. I truly wanted it to be Jack and I alone who discussed any possible prospects for a future relationship. So I tried to throw cold water all over the idea that anything could ever develop. I said I really did want to enjoy being friends and flatmates. That was all that mattered to me.
So, here we go:
It affected me deeply. It was hard to suppress my smiles. I loved every moment of his company when he was like this. I was brimming over with delight. I can’t remember ever feeling so intensely happy with any other man in my life. So I did something I have done thousands of times over the years to all sorts of different people. I sat down and wrote a thank you card to him. I wrote that I had been touched by his humility and kindness and was so grateful that finally the air had cleared. I wrote that I too wanted us to be friends and enjoy living in the flat together.
The rumours began to arrive back with me. The words I heard ranged from cute to crude, from ridicule to outright rude, from drole to dreadful, from silly to slanderous, from vile to vicious. If I give you a tame example, you will wonder what I was upset about, but if I give you examples of the most degrading things said and published on social media, it will make my site unsuitable for readers of all ages to read – so use your imagination. As they stacked up, I became troubled. In essence, people thought my flatmate and I were now an official item, that we were now “going public” about an intimate relationship which we had been apparently been trying to keep a secret.
It was only to my best friend Marta, that I was brave enough to admit, “If he stays like this then I am going to fall in love with him“.
I was amazed at how many photographs must have been snapped up of he and I during the last two days while we were near home. Who was taking these photos? Could it have been one of our neighbours? Or several of our neighbours? Or just people passing and recognizing him and seeing an opportunity? It seems unlikely that it was just one person. But why take these pictures and then use them to make up stories that were untrue? Was it even legal to be publishing their baseless presumptions? I hated seeing what people had written about the photos that were being shared. So crass!
There was one photo that had been taken from a very unfortunate camera angle. I remember he had opened a car door for me and I had turned around and smiled graciously thanking him. But in the photo it looked as if his hand was on my behind and I was enjoying it. Believe me, he did not lay a finger on me, otherwise there really would have been a story to tell, along with a black eye. But it was just the angle the picture was taken. He had his right hand held out as he was inviting me to get into the car…and it really did look as if his hand was planted firmly on my derriere and I was giving him a smile of enjoyment. Ugh!
Caramel 