There are men (fair knights) who always get what they want.
If suddenly, Mr. Knight doesn’t get - say, a girl (the fair maiden) - he’s confused - what IS this, he wonders but he doesn’t KNOW. We will assume that getting this thing (girl in our example) is important to him.
Though his perceptual systems are still searching for answers he gets a sinking feeling because his limbic system reacts faster. It tells him something’s wrong - and it might be a predator (the dragon) so he starts sweating, he wasn’t prepared for a dragon - for chaos!
Why didn’t I get what I wanted, he will ask himself.
Maybe I’m not attractive? (That would be a horror of the 1st order)
Maybe this girl is trying to hurt me.. attack me? (the predator) - that may be a thought, but it’s unlikely and an unhealthy one.
Rejecting that he must ask himself questions: Did he come on too strong? Was he acting like a dick? Did he make too many assumptions? Am I well dressed? Did I shower today? (he smells his breath, checks himself in a mirror) He goes back over the encounter in his mind. Was he really trying his best?
If he decides, at this point, to go on, he must face his unrealized world in order to slay the dragon of chaos blocking him. The issue may be something outside of his normal, conceptual structure.
In that case, the problem is literally, the snake in the garden (his walled conceptual garden - his view of the world and his place in it).
Now this IS something - a snake in the garden - again he can give up - quit with this girl, quit trying period, quit dating, bathing, eating - that’s how the dragon can kill.
Failure is a message from the implicit world. The good news is - it’s a message from the real world and it may be a gift - the best thing that ever happened to him. A slap that says: wake up, learn something, clue-in.
It can be a treasure, the gold that dragons hoard.