No matter how much you are trained or prepared for something. When the dang thing finally hits, you are always shaken by it. Always. How much you are affected by it, depends on how much you've prepared for it.

Take for example, as someone who works with the media, I’ve built up a hide that could easily rival an elephant's. Constantly calling and pitching stories to the press and getting rejected is almost second nature. From wining and dining the press, we are occasionally reduced to just whining. The whining part is true as you’ll say or do almost anything to get your story printed. Getting your pitch rejected is also another sad but true fact – face it, your story is not as exciting as international economic developments, the idiot who posted that MRT accident on YouTube or some washed-up pop star’s life. It’s especially disheartening for industry newbies. Sometimes, I think that whining and rejection ought to be taught as part of the curriculum when doing one’s degree in communications. Cannot take rejection? Join a PR agency to learn 101 of taking rejection!

But regardless of whether it happens at work or on a personal context, rejection, no matter how gently put, is still rejection. It is a tough pill for anyone to swallow. Sure, we’ll brush it off if it’s meant in jest. At work - it’s a business decision but on a personal level when you’ve put in effort to get a hold of something and it eludes you with a less-than-compelling reason. You be entitled to get pissed off.

I feel that rejection is much harder to deal with on a personal level. Say, if someone’s declared their feelings for you and you don’t feel the same way, you are compelled to let them down gently. The questions you face then are: how gentle? Or WTF do I do now?! This is usually followed by bouts of fainting and nausea. Or feeling like a deer caught in the headlights. Woa! The next thought after recovery would then be: what sort of excuse do I use? Excuse, you say? Let’s face it – no matter how prettily you put it and even if you warp it on cotton candy – the other party will still feel like it’s a half-assed excuse. My advice? Before giving anyone the heave-ho, give it some thought and try to be as honest as you can with the person. If the reason is simply too personal, just say so. You may have to share a little detail but in the end, it’ll help you both, somewhat. It’ll still hurt but at least you didn’t spin some yarn… A word of caution though: Going down the “it’s not you, it’s me” road can and may get you killed. So proceed with caution.

For those who’ve been on the receiving end, sadly, we sometimes have to face up to the fact that not everyone feels the same way as we do. But hey, you made the attempt, right? That’s great cos how many people would do that? So, no matter how embarrassed or disappointed or even sad you are – just know this too, will pass. Rest assured in the knowledge that you have tried and that you will recover from this in the end.

What really gets my goat is being strung along. I’ve seen friends wait for hours or days – waiting for some idiot to call, waiting for their response, waiting for them to make up their mind…just plain waiting. And when they don’t call, the waiting party cannot eat, they’re constantly checking their phone and looking distracted – it’s fucked up. To the idiots who’ve made empty promises, if you didn’t intend to take anything further, just tell them – it’s rude to just make the poor person wait. Even if some previous ex has hurt you, not everyone else that comes after is the same. No one should be your whipping post. You needn’t seek revenge on every other person that comes after. And that lonely, bitter person that you see in the mirror – why, that’s you, of course.

It’s things like these that remind me why I am single. Why wait for someone who’s just not into you? Why let empty promises irritate you or hope for something more? At the end of the day, I’d rather continue to wander down my path because then I have more control over my life and where I want it to head. Well, most of the time.

The little bright speak of the week though, belongs to Jason Mraz, who wrote: "As I get older, the more I truly enjoy being single. The more I'm single, the more I blog about it" which is exactly what I’m doing now.