50% of Dropouts are Undercover Rejects

It's impossible to distinguish a dropout from a reject. And nearly all rejects pose as dropouts.

Your friend who entertains you with crazy horror stories about his nightmare ex who he's finally decided to let go? There's a 50-50 chance he was dumped, and that he deserved it.

Your friend who quit her much-hated job? And feels wonderfully free to pursue new opportunities? Just as likely, she was fired (and deserved it).

You do not know. You cannot know. The truth is indeterminable, because such people mask the truth not just for your eyes, but for their own. Their deep cover stems from deep denial. They could likely pass a lie detector test.

I once recruited someone to help out with some Chowhound business issues. He'd been a player in the first dot.com bubble, but had dropped out to take on much smaller work, and was infinitely happier with this "downsizing". It seemed like a terrific opportunity to get help from the sort of figure who was normally too busy to pitch in with the likes of us.

At some point, a distant slightly scary possibility arose. The sort of prospect normal people shrug off, since, of course, no action in this world is without risk. But this affable, non-emotional, grounded, sensible person went into utter freakout mode, forcing us into some very painful, very expensive restructuring to rule out the contingency. He threatened, with uncharacteristic belligerence, to walk away if we didn't. Oddly, a year later, he could not remember any of this. It was like he'd had a small stroke.

Being less experienced back then, I called this same person to help with a subsequent project. And it happened again. That time I let him walk away after he issued his ultimatum, having recognized that he was no drop-out. He was damaged goods.

Be careful with dropouts. 50% are what they claim to be, but 50% are in deep denial regarding flaws and fissures that spurred a pattern of rejection. And you’ll only know after those flaws and fissures have become painfully obvious.