Well long read if you want to understand how I fear rejection. I don't seek approval from most people (e.g. random strangers or people I don't know enough to care about). Instead, the fear of rejection stems from the few friends you have. Like, I have literally been in a school without friends simply because I didn't know how to fit in (I moved across countries, different culture completely out of touch). And it's scarring, if you don't make friends in the first week you become like bad debt, no one wants to know you, not even new people as they will get tarred with you. And the one friend I had left because of the tarring / bullying. The fear of rejection is more the fear of loneliness. You are literally alone, you don't have anyone to comfort you; it feels like a weight in your stomach and sometimes it gets hard to breath ,and it feels like you're heart has sharp pains like its actually breaking apart into peices it also feels like you have something lodged in the back of you're throat and it seems like its forcing you to feel like your going to cry and you realise no one will realise how much pain you're in, and no one will care which makes it worse, and you can't help but feel this overwhelming tide of sorrow. And so you fear loneliness and you fear that you'll be alone. It creates this inbuilt sense of paranoia that never leaves; you wonder why people are friendly, you question their motive; you constantly are afraid of anyone you know leaving and you're willing to do anything to stay friends; you become hyper sensitive to certain situations. When a friend all of a sudden doesn't want to hang out, is less receptive, not as cheery you instantly without pause start to think "Oh no, did I do something to upset them?". Then you start asking if they are okay so that if it was you, you can try to fix it and not lose another friend. And so you fear rejection as it is the cruelest most hollow and empty pain you can feel, imagine being trapped in your own body. ~ Loneliness the clearest of crystal insight into your own soul, its the fear of one's own self that haunts the lonely. ~