Is there any pain that stays with us longer than that of not being wanted, of being rejected? This rejection may come from our family, our friends, colleagues or even the greater society.

An older man was recounting his teenage years. He said, “Back when I was a boy, we played spin-the-bottle. We played it this way, we spun the bottle and if it landed on you, the girls were supposed to kiss you, or if they chose to, they could give you, instead of a kiss, a quarter.” He said, by the time I was 18 I had accumulated enough quarters to pay my way through college.

Well, a quarter’s all right, but it’s poor compensation for a girl not wanting to kiss you. It’s hard to be rejected, to be unwanted.

There was a heartbreaking story in the Associated Press a couple of years back. It was about the…