Rejection from a fool is cruel, sang Morrissey. But it’s an increasingly large part of modern life. Jobseekers can expect hundreds of rejected applications. Dating apps put your personal attractiveness up for the whole world to machine gun to pulp. In the workplace, for those who make it past all the rejection letters, any idea an intelligent employee might have will be quickly flattened by management.

But is constant rejection really a normal part of life that our minds should readily endure? Or is it yet another toxic byproduct of modern living we’ve been gaslighted into accepting?

The rigid class systems of the past were certainly nothing to be nostalgic about. But they did have some advantages. We mostly weren’t expected to become much more than we were born into, which at least saved us from constant disappointments. Social mobility was low, but it still is, and people of the past didn’t have to waste their energy on constant striving.

Dating was simpler, or non-existent. Many cultures used (as many still do) arranged marriages, saving people from the stress and disappointments of figuring out your place in the attractiveness hierarchy and the inevitable rejections. It was also common to marry neighbours, relatives and work colleagues.

But civilisation is a tiny part of human history. Hunter gatherers no doubt faced many disappointments, as nature is a difficult environment to master. But setbacks in nature are of a different kind than interpersonal rejections, and while potentially more severe, they are much easier to mentally bear. The closer bonds and greater openness of small groups meant everyone pretty much knew what others were thinking, so rejection would have been much rarer.

The relentless disappointments that (mostly young) people now go through are not something the human brain evolved to endure. It’s little wonder mental health problems have skyrocketed.

There’s this horrible dilemma today where you’re expected to be always striving and pushing boundaries, but simultaneously sickeningly obsequious to others. You need to be confident and forceful and, to some extent, dismissive of others’ feelings, as well as oblivious to rejections, to get anywhere. In one of his books, Donald Trump tells us his greatest asset is simple persistence. He doesn’t take no for an answer and just wears people down. And people like this do get ahead.

Yet we’re also expected to be mindful of others’ boundaries and made to feel deep shame when transgressing them.

Balancing on this tightrope is particularly hard for neurodivergent people. It can take considerable mental energy just to engage with others, let alone suffer the trauma of endless rejections, which tend to be dished out to neurodivergent people in greater quantities. To make things worse neurodivergent people are believed to suffer from increased sensitivity to rejection.

I’m not convinced the strategy of inuring yourself through multiple rejections, as advised in the article, is such a great idea. A few rejections could just be bad luck. Many rejections constitute a pattern. We may become inured to rejections but the psychological impact is unlikely to be positive.