I think it depends on the topic. I can take literary rejections or, with a little de-stressing, snobby classmates and coworkers. Romantic or emotional rejections are much harder and I always seem to be drawn to people who don't express their feelings, don't know what they feel about me, are severely shy, etc, and it winds up crushing me.
I can stand being told that my writing isn't what someone is looking for, that it's flawed, or even not receiving a response at all which is an implied rejection. It stings, but it also rolls off my shoulders and I don't take breaks due to them. I can't stand people I care about who I think care about me, too, going hot and cold, withdrawing, and ignoring me even when I turn my charm up to maximum and am screaming inside for them to pay attention to me and be warmed by me as I'm warmed by them. The pressure to either know I'm not wanted so that I can show myself out or be shown with certainty that I'm welcome. The fear that I might be throwing honest tokens of affection at the feet of someone who sees them as nothing more than idle entertainment, or worse as something awkward they wish would stop but don't know how to deflect.
The knowledge that by getting impatient and pushing to talk about what we really feel for each other, I risk ruining the natural flow of things and making things uncomfortable where they might not have been before. Sitting in the cold and the emotional fog, not knowing what's going on inside their heart or mind except that there are cogs turning inside them and me--I just don't know what they're working for, let alone if it's in unison. Looking down the crossroads leading to my future and feeling locked into choosing between giving up pre-emptively and deluding myself into believing something that isn't true.
I wish being made fun of or ignored as a writer was the worst thing I ever felt. As long as my internal world is at peace, I feel like I can survive anything and that I'm valuable as a person regardless of what any team of editors thinks about my months of hard work or even about me as a person. But if I invite people in just because I'm a fool and forget why I didn't before because it feels so natural to be caring, they inevitably shake it up and leave me feeling small, helpless, lost, ineffective, and unlovable.
