The point of rejection therapy is to make a request in a pushy enough way for something that the other person doesn't want to do that they end up assertively saying no.
It's not "friendly offer therapy" or "polite decline therapy".
Both activities have a useful end, and would let someone assertively say no.
My point is that you don't have to push other people into strange territory to get rejected.
If it's not your honest intention to date them, that's still a shitty thing to do.
Would you want someone doing this to you?
At that point, you're not doing "rejection therapy", you're just asking people out.
> Why would you be nervous to be rejected by someone you wouldn't actually want to date and thus weren't invested in the answer?
The premise behind rejection therapy is that some people do feel intense anxiety about being rejected even in cases where the stakes are low like this, and deliberately seeking rejection is essentially exposure therapy to get over that.