Jenny Lawson Thinks It’s Okay If You’re Not For Everyone

I often battle with being too sensitive to rejection, to the point where sometimes Facebook will suggest that I be friends with someone and I’ll think, “I thought we were already friends” and I’ll go to friend them but then stop because what if we were friends and they intentionally unfriended me years ago and I never even noticed and now they’ll know that I’m just now noticing and they’ll think I’m stalking them by refriending them against their will and so instead I’ll write them a message asking “This is a dumb question but are we fighting?” but I won’t send it because that’s weird and instead I’ll just worry about it for years until they get the same Facebook suggestion and friend me with the message of “Huh. I thought we were already friends here.” ☺

Like it’s the easiest fucking thing in the world to do.

But when I feel bad about being so sensitive, I think about an article I read in The Guardian about how Hans Christian Andersen once got a negative review on his writing and was found face down, crying on the front yard. And it wasn’t even his front yard. It was the front lawn of his idol, Charles Dickens, where he had overstayed his visit by so long that Dickens later wrote on the mirror of the guest room, “Hans Andersen slept in this room for five weeks—which seemed to the family AGES.”

My point is that Charles Dickens is kind of a dick but if you haven’t ended up sobbing face-first into the dirt outside Charles Dickens’s house, then you’re doing better than Hans Christian Andersen, and that guy is a fucking national treasure who gave us The Little Mermaid.

Instead, try to channel the spirit of Shirley Jackson (who was also sometimes a dick but one of my favorite writers of all time) when she sent this letter to a disgruntled reader:

Dear Mrs. White,

If you don’t like my peaches, don’t shake my tree.

Sincerely,
Shirley Jackson

In other words, you’re not for everyone. And that’s wonderful.

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