If we’re wired to see ambiguous social cues as rejection—a smile as mocking rather than friendly, a lapse in conversation as boredom rather than a pause—our brains will find what we’re looking for. The innocuous becomes rejecting. And what does our lizard brain do with a threat? Fight or flight. Hiding in the bathroom stall is flight. But if we think our acceptance is being thwarted, we might get angry. Then it’s fight all the way.
