Nice guys have it rough. Take Jason Shen, for example. All he wanted to do was say hello and pass out candy on his morning walk to the Caltrain station in San Francisco.

"Uh, no," said one man, backing away.

Shen next held out his plastic jack-o-lantern for a groundskeeper riding on the back of a utility truck.

"Too early," she said, shaking her head.

In front of the Academy of Art University, a young woman in pigtails and knee socks took out her ear buds to hear his pitch, laughed at him and walked off.

"Ugh. That one really hurt, because she was cute," said Shen, 24.

Rejection stings, but it's exactly what Shen wants. He's on a self-imposed, self-improvement plan to get rejected by a different person every day for a month - a quest to get over his fear of rejection.

Cult phenomenon

It's all part of the 30-Day Rejection Therapy Challenge - a real-life game created in September by a Canadian Web designer with an anxiety disorder. And it has become a cult phenomenon as the idea spreads through Facebook, Twitter, the Hacker News blog and other social media.

"As I was playing the game, I realized people were a lot more willing to give me what I asked for than I realized," said creator Jason Comely, 40. "I realized my comfort zone was like a cage keeping me from exploring a lot of opportunities. I was more inclined to stay at home in front of my computer instead of going out and interacting with people because I was too afraid of being rejected."

Adherents in New York, Washington, San Francisco, Denmark and Hungary are documenting their denials on Facebook and Twitter. Followers can either buy a deck of cards on the rejectiontherapy.com website with suggested ways to get denied - Invite someone you've never socialized with out to dinner, ask someone their political affiliation - or players can come up with ideas on their own.

Members of the Rejection Therapy Facebook group console one another through disappointments, discuss how their egos are strengthening, and swap rejection strategies. Comely had no idea his personal self-help plan would generate a following.

Because players are self-selected, they probably already have some inner strength to overcome rejection, but those who have not yet explored the roots of their fears might see their anxiety increase by playing the game, said Berkeley psychotherapist Elayne Savage, a workplace coach and author of "Don't Take It Personally! The Art of Dealing with Rejection."

"The best part of Rejection Therapy is that it focuses on asking for what you want from somebody, and this is so hard to do," she said. "The biggest problem with the game is its one-size-fits-all approach. Each person has their own history of rejection that leaves a specific imprint."

More extroverted

When Comely became more extroverted, he was surprised to discover that people often granted his requests. An attractive woman gave him directions. Cashiers gave discounts. Another woman agreed to go with him on an underground tour of Toronto's tunnels. Emboldened, he brought flowers to the office of woman he'd met the night before at a club.

"She told me she had a boyfriend," he said. "I slinked out of the place."

As the rejection diarists have started sharing their stories from around the globe, radio stations and blogs are calling on Comely to discuss the nature versus nurture origins of self-confidence.

Veronica Davis, 31, who owns an environmental consulting business in Washington, read about Rejection Therapy on a Twitter business feed.

In her first week, she got rejected by a coat check guy who wouldn't let her put two coats on one hanger, and by a parking lot attendant who wouldn't let her slide when she forgot to get her ticket validated.

But she's finding it hard to rack up the rejections. A waiter let her order three rounds of free drinks for herself and her friends, a neighbor agreed to give her a lift to the grocery store, and a friend agreed to fold her laundry.

"Transitioning from being an employee to a business owner comes with some insecurities," she said. "I'm an extroverted person, but part of doing business is getting rejected, and I want to get past the fear of that."

The more she approached strangers for conversation, asked for and received small discounts at the pet store, the more confident she felt.

"I'm realizing that in your mind you play out this big scene about this awful thing that's going to happen, and at the end of the day, it's never that dramatic," she said.

Shen, who works in sales for a high-tech startup in Burlingame, started rejection therapy to become more outgoing.

"I think fear of rejection holds me back," he said. "I have this co-worker who talks to anybody and has a lot of friends. All these weird opportunities come to him because he's willing to put himself out there. I find that appealing."

Coaching others

Since playing Rejection Therapy, Shen has received so many responses to his blog ( www.jasonshen.com) that he's now offered to help coach others through their own 30-day rejection challenge.

During Shen's 30 days, he asked someone for a bite of their croissant and got it, and when he asked a man if he could sit inside his new Jaguar, the driver obliged.

"But when I asked if I could test drive it, he said no," Shen said.

Shen was able to borrow a friend's car to go to Los Angeles, got free towels at the gym even though there is no towel service, and put his arm around a girl.

"She leaned in," Shen reported on his blog.

From his rejections and acceptances, he learned that people don't say no because there's something fundamentally wrong with him; they say no because they don't want the offer.

"Once I learned not to take it personally, everything got so much easier," he said.

Eventually, someone took Shen's candy. Jesse Acosta, a model on his way to the Academy of Art University, reached into the jack-o-lantern and took a fistful of lollipops.

"I didn't think it was odd he was passing out candy to strangers; I just figured he had too much leftover Halloween candy," Acosta said.

Acosta planned to pass the suckers out to his friends. "I'll spread the goodwill, kind of like he is doing," Acosta said.

Shen says his life has become much more like his suave co-worker's since he started Rejection Therapy.

He recently shared dinner with a woman he's had a crush on for months.

After the date, she e-mailed to say how much she admired his rejection experiment. He wrote back, explaining how much he likes her.

"I wanted to take the risk, and I told her if she doesn't feel the same way, that's OK. Sure, that would be disappointing, but I've learned that really, everything will be OK."