This is only a story. It, in no way, happened to your humble narrator…

This guy goes to a party Saturday night. Within minutes he's getting chatted up by some woman. They had met previously once before and there was definite sparkage, but this time, there was fireworks-level sparkage. And the girl is into it. She's glomming onto him. She's getting him drinks and following him around. In fact, she's working it so much that he's feeling a little guilty that he hasn't spent any time talking to the friends he came to see and who he hasn't talked to in several weeks. So he steals away for bits at a time, hanging out with friends who he really wants to see and talk to, allthewhile thinking "oh boy!" Occasionally, he goes back to the woman to get glommed onto some more- a feat which isn't that difficult to do since she occasionally hops into his conversation minutes later and joins in.

Then, somehow, late into a night that's going to get much later, the guy goes to the bathroom or starts talking to a friend and notices that his shadow is gone. She's not only not following him, she's now ignoring him. And when he goes talk to her, she engages in conversation back, looking elsewhere the whole and does the "excuse me, I have to get a drink" or "excuse me, I have to go talk to…." and bails on him. Towards the end of the night, she's glommed onto some other guy.

The guy is a little confused, wondering how somehow he managed to screw it up. Was it a joke he made? A pop-cultural reference that made her think he was a dolt? Did he forget to wash his hands? In other words, he wanted to know what the what was. And while he wasn't terribly bummed about the whole thing, he did have to admit to being peeved only because he was now unwittingly a rejectee when he didn't even put himself into a position into being a rejectee.

There is, after all, a difference between being rejected after trying for it and being rejected after it's just thrown into your lap.