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It's no secret that rejection hurts, no matter who does the rejecting.\nThroughout the years, I've become a student of rejection. Long ago, someone told me that although rejection is painful initially, someday I'd look back on it and smile. Though skeptical, I saved every rejection letter, e-mail and instant messenger conversation just in case.\nLast week, I thought back on some of my finest rejection moments to see if the smiling thing was true.\nA year ago, I was 90 pounds heavier, what doctors call obese and children call fatass. Around that time, I went out with an attractive nonfat guy. I thought things were going well until I asked him out again. Very diplomatically, he said, "I think I may be too small for you."\nI took the hint, but today this makes me smile.\nA few weeks ago, a law firm rejected me with a letter saying cryptically, "We've decided to look in other \ndirections." \n"Damn," I thought. "If only I'd have been standing a little farther east."\nIn January 2001, a guy e-mailed me after a first date to say I was sweet and attractive but that I just wasn't outgoing enough. He liked a guy with an outgoing personality who talked a lot.\nToday, this makes me laugh. I'm so outgoing I make Paris Hilton look modest. This guy was clearly on drugs.\nAnother guy rejected me by saying flat-out, "You're not hot enough." Sadly, he was pretty ugly himself. Now he's dating a gorgeous guy, but the two of them are so mismatched looks-wise that people laugh at them behind their backs. Of course, I laugh, too.\nThe night before Pope John Paul II died, I was making out with a devout Catholic. After about an hour, he cut it short, explaining that he couldn't close his eyes without seeing the Holy Father's face. It was the old, "It's not you, it's the pope" routine. That was hilarious, if a little creepy.\nI once got rejected for a job in the middle of nowhere doing mundane work that no sane person would do. I gotta tell you, that hurt. It was like hitting on the fattest, drunkest, ugliest guy in the bar and having him belch in my face and say, "No thanks. I'd rather masturbate."\nI've been dating someone for about six months, and we're so happy together, like the Turtles sang. Because of that, I'm able to look back on rejections in my love life and smile. I know they've all been part of a process to bring me to where I am today.\nI still don't have a job, though, so that's not funny yet. Rejection letters keep pouring in literally everyday, but like the masochist I am, I don't mind. I like getting mail.\nAnd I'm starting to believe that some day in the not-too-distant future, boys I've dated and employers I've applied to will refer to me the same way -- as the one who got away.