I can't help but remember my last break up. I've been having a summer fling with a hot guy, and we'd had some fun. I met him while training for a triathlon, and we started swimming and biking together, some of which was a little outside his comfort zone. He took me to some clubs that were a little outside my comfort zone.

That was nice, in terms of opening up to new experiences for both of us, but we didn't have all that much in common. He wanted to party all the time, while I only wanted to do that every other weekend at most. I'm more of a museum and coffee house kind of guy.

I was in my 50s, and he was in his early 30s. He liked to to drink to excess, I didn't.

Sex was ... awkward most of the time. We both enjoyed it sometimes, but obviously we weren't all that compatible in bed.

Then he broke up with me by flaking on me — canceling plans at the last minute or just not showing up. At first, it was just now and then; later it became usual.

So why did I find myself so hurt, crying on the shoulder of a lesbian friend one evening?

She was confused. "Dude's a jerk. You deserve somebody so much nicer. And anyway, you guys don't even click, so why are you crying into your beer?"

She had a point. I wasn't in love with him by any means, and I probably was never going to be. He wasn't necessarily a complete jerk as she characterized him, but he was absolutely not good boyfriend material... for me.

Yet there I sat, smarting and heartsick over rejection.

And that's what it really boiled down to, I guess. It was the perceived rejection that hurt. I think you've put your finger on it.

If I hadn't taken the "rejection" personally, if I'd just moved on enjoying the parts of my life I really did enjoy, I wouldn't have had to cry into my beer.