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Guys- how do I stop?
How do I stop going after emotionally unavailable men? They're huge babies, have commitment issues, cowards, do not know how to be themselves or hold a conversation.
I have a terrible habit and I keep hurting myself. Also, I attract creeps- why is that? I attract guys who I am never interested in.
Help! hahaha
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It has been almost a year since you first posted this question. Are things any different? Have they improved? Or, is this a lasting pattern ?
If so,I would strongly recommend that you seek a licensed, professional counselor in order to explore things further, get to the bottom of it and resolve what keeps you stuck.
Help is indeed available. In your situation, you might explore both individual and group therapy, upon your therapist's recommendation.
Therapy is available on a sliding fee scale basis in most communities, and costs are always negotiable with private practitioners, as well. Check out what your insurance may cover, if you have any.
Do know that the single most important element in achieving your goals would be the positive relationship you could establish with your therapist. Pick one of the same gender as the parent with whom you felt closest. And let your first impressions be your guide. You are their employer, after all.
Good luck and good wishes, ~Dr. Stephanie
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Quite often this pattern of behaviour stems from a low self-esteem. Which may or may not be acknowledged. The person 'chooses' (perhaps not conciously, as we mentioned) relationships that are virtually certain to crash and burn, often as a way of re-affirming that low self-esteem issue. A sort of 'proof' that they don't really deserve a good, sound relationship. The guys with potential are dismissed (again, often subconciously) for the same reason. And pursue more self-destructive relationships, making a 'vicious circle'. I am not professing this is the one and only reason, but it is a very common one. Perhaps take a look at yourself? Get a handle on your level of self-esteem. There are many authentic and accredited websites where you can do this, usually with a kind of checklist of other behavioural traits. Just like the way a doctor will use questions to initially assess depression, anxiety and so on. If you think you have, try to rebuild it. Many people have this issue at times in their life and rebuild theirs. And it is not a condition requiring meds and/or therapy. It is more of a mindset, not a psychiatric disorder. The key is to get back to the place where you feel you deserve a satisfying and successful relationship. Where you are valued and respected in full. And I am sure you do deserve all this, and more. Low self-esteem will hold a person back in many ways. Not just relationships. Often without them realising why or how.
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When I hear the term 'emontionally unavailable' I hear 'commitment issues' as in bad thoughts about marriage, afraid of marriage or long term dating, and/or ibes who only want to womanize and play around or they have mental issues with the mind so that they are incapable of loving or caring or growing up.
So I am wondering if you are wanting a man to be with til the end of your days, a husband who adores only you, not other women. If this is the case, then something has to be wrong if you haven't met abt decebt guys yet. I am not there so I can't say what is the problem so I can only sahre my story. After a divorce, I went dating on line. I probably had around 200 or more men write to me. I responded with a no thanks to those who didn't follow directions written in my profile and did not meet the criteria on my list of 'must haves'. So these likely would be the kinds of men you have been meeting. I did respond with texting on line and didn't give out phone # and meet in person until they sounded promising. I also used the net to screen out anything I saw as a problem waiting for me to discover. One such thing was guys whose first words were about how hot or sexy I looked and how I must be like in bed. In my mind, that told me those men were experiencing lust and their motivation was not to find a woman to love and cherish but just as a sexual object. Now I;m no prude and wanted a very sexual man but not to the point he wanted only that with me and not being best of friends either. I understood both aspects made a healthy relationship so if a guy wasn't willing to be the greatest and closest best friend as well as most compatible lover, then he wasn't for me. Could I have been wrong about all of them? No, maybe one, but I figured better to stay safe than sorry later. Another thing I did was pay close attention to how they wrote their profile. If a man spoke in the negative, in his writings, I wrote him off because I wanted a kind, encouraging man whose thoughts were gentle and uplifting and supportive after a first marriage with a verbal abuser. If without giving it thought, all the words coming out of a person are criticizing or negative, they don't make a great partner either. As you can see, I was doing my homework here to find Mr. Right.
I'd see lists with "Don't want fat women, If you can't keep to a budget... Im not interested, and so on, just things that could be said better like want someone height and weight proportionate, and thrifty . I always had a first meet at a coffee shop and I paid my own way. I remember walking up to one guy and asked if he was Greg. He didn't speak, just nodded his head. I asked if he had saved any seats yet and he shook his head no. I realized then I had to ask open ended questions, nothing that could be answered yes or no. So I talked and asked him things to which he just shrugged his shoulders. I probably got ten words max out of him in an hour and gave up and never saw him again. I needed someone who could communicate well with me. I met one guy who was doing okay until it was time to end our meet up and in a whiney voice he pleaded with me to pick him and said it over and over. Please pick me! That killed it for me. Its not that I made a bad choice or that you or other females do, its a matter of knowing when to quit hanging around one guy. The moment I saw something I didn't like, I never got with them again. I also learned people try to put their best foot forward to impress and if there is nothing much good about them, they will not be themselves when they meet you. They will put on a different persona, a false identity you could fall for, but not for long. If you are looking for the person to be consistantly who they portray themselves to be at first, then they eventually will revert back to themselves, after a couple of dates or after a month or so. It takes too much personal energy to keep up a false identity so it is guaranteed that every liar will be slipping up. Such was the case of a man who promised he didn't smoke, one of my criteria as I was allergic to it. He met me twice at public places and all went well, nice and cute looking. 3RD DATE was invited to watch a movie and have popcorn at his place. I drove there, and then we got in his car to go to DVD rental store back when they still existed, to choose a movie. The car reeked of stale cigarette smoke. I asked him why and he apologized and told me his son smoked and borrowed the car often. I had no reason to not believe him. Then later in his house, he patted his clothes, pulled out a cigarette and realized a second too late what he had done out of habit. I told him it would not work out for us and left. He thought I was weak and would just put up with it. Or that if I came on multiple dates instead of just the first, it must mean that I had fallen for him. I did not allow myself to hope until plenty of time had gone by, time spent in his presence, not just months of knowing the person but only 3 or 4 dates, that is not enough time to have circumstances that will show what the person is like on a good day and a bad day, like if ill or having a headache or they got a flat tire. My ex couldn't handle things like that coming up and would get so upset that he had to dump all his feelings and blame on me. Had another guy I thought was still promising. But I saw a behavior in him directed at someone else so even though not towards me, I knew from experience it wouldnt be long before he was intentionally verbally abusing me like my ex. I was invited on 4th date to his home for dinner. He was into vegan meals and would cook one for me. The moment I stepped into his pristine home he said, "Please excuse the mess, my "racial slur used' maid hasn't been doing a good job and I need to get rid of her. Alarms went off in my head. This one thing told me he was possibly a perfectionist where nothing is ever good enough, something I already knew from first marriage, he is racist which means he has hate in his heart, he talks behind peoples backs, and may be anal retentive in how he operates. I wanted nothing of that but being alone at his place, acted as if I hadn't caught all that, ate dinner, went home and never called. He did so I told him that after all those dates, I still didnt feel the chemistry. I had also learned to not point out the actual faults due to my ex, who would blow up and I didn't need an angry stalker.
As to your wondering why you keep attracting creeps, the answer is simple, you are a female and there are many sex hungry men out there who are not in relationships because there is something wr ong with them so other women have left them. So is the case for my ex. Hes had half a dozen women as girlfriends for a stretch of time, the longest, a year before all these women decided to leave him, probably reallizing now why i had left. Remember I had plenty of guys write to me who just were not right at all. I wrote things about myself, hobbies, ect and instructed guys to refer to something I said in my profile if they wrote to me. This screened out the ones who didn't because they only reacted to my photo (none of which were sexy or glamorous) or they only skimmed or didn't really pay attention to what I had written. These were guys who were not interested in the me beyond my skin, who I was inside, or they would have paid closer attention to what I had written. Lots of this can be done without the internet, just meeting guys out there, anywhere or at singles events. I did sign up, went to one singles event,a meet and greet at a restaurant reserved for our group. Saw faces of guys from online whom I already knoew were not for me. Then one guy walks up to stand beside me and gives his name. First question is something religious and even though I am a spiritual person, I do no longer believe some of what some churches preach as the truth. I answered honestly, not wanting to lead a person to think I was exactly like him when I wasn't. His reaxtion to my answer, "Get away from me, you heathen and dont ever walk up to me again." I felt that like a slap in the face but alsotried not to snicher as he walked off because I had not approached him, he had approached me. I had a list I'd made which I refered to, as to the type of man I wanted. I had my criteria and would not lower my standards on any one of them because this list was of things that if not present in the man, made it a deal breaker. This idea was something I got in prayer time with God. So even though I went through 2+ years of meeting lots of guys and the majority turning out to be what you've found or worse, I did not give up. I realized timing was everything and if God had someone for me, that person had to be currently looking as well. Or they might not be looking until a month or two from now. Eventually I found my second husband this way. In fact, he tells me he had kind of given up, was taking a long break from women because the ones he had met were not the women they thought they were. the words used to describe them were what he was looking for but they were nothing like it. So for almost a year, he had temporarily closed his account. It was due to a dream with God telling him to look again and when he saw my profile again, he thought I was 'full of shit' (his words exactly) and that I would turn out to be like those other women. So he was about to pass on to the next when he felt God urging him to write me. Funny thing is that he and I both felt like the words written to us were pulling at us. We both felt an energy in just the words written. We met and saw each other every other day and that was enough to see him being consistent. He also had a teen daughter who liked me and was of same age as my youngest. So after a couple of months, I moved in with him and now had opportunity to witness even more, how he kept house, was he organized, how did he eat, what was he like emotionally when tired, sick, frustrated because I had in the past been the recieving end of a husbands negative emotions. YOu can't learn everything by just going on dates, to a movie or talking over dinner out or anything else nice and planned. You want to be around to catch the guy when all is not that great. And I saw for myself how patient and kind he was, uplifting, unending compliments and uplifting comments, and when upset, he never has raised his voice to me in anger. We both are losing some hearing now so we only raise our voices to be heard if asked to repeat what we said for the umpteenth time and neither of us are ticked off because we know its due to hearing problems, not trying to irritate each other. I was told by many men that I had too high of standards. I just accepted that at the timed. In thinking about it, I realize that I had standards where other woman if they had any did not share them at the very beginning before any problems. Or they never had any standards in mind, just wanted a guy who would be their Prince Charming but things like that don't magically happen. You have to do the work, as I did. I also saw myself as HR dept interviewing for the position of boyfriend/husband but also was open and clear on who I am, describing my good parts as well as my idiosyncrasies so if a guy didn't like what he saw or heard at the beginning, he was free to walk away and I would not throw a fit or get angry. I made sure I told guys what I just wrote so they wouldnt hang around pretending to like me for fear of my crying or being distressed if after initial interest on their part, they now had none. these things will happen and I welcomed these dissapointments because they brought me closer as I saw it to finding the right one. After all, theres that saying we have to kiss a lot of frogs before we find Prince Charming or I call it, Mr. Right. Be picky about the right things though. There is love and there is unconditional love. If I had married him when he only had a little extra weight but wanted to leave him the moment he gained more, that would be conditional love. Having a conditional love is setting some standards too high, or the wrong things high. If a woman wants a man who can financially take care of her, who is wealthy, looks like a movie star, is very gallant, and had to have all of that, chances are she'll be looking forever. A person may not look like a model but still be pleasant enough on the eyes and its more likely that the right person may not work at a fortune 500 company or own it, and look the part of a computer nerd, rather than be the type ogled by women, but often these men, knowing they don't have those things to catch a woman, learn how to treat a female right and make the best partners. So even though my husband fits more in the 'poor' bracket and average looks but over weight, I get to witness how many women ooh and ahh over him and thinks he's the cats meow because of how nice he is to women, not just me. They can sense he is one of the types worth having as a mate, but I am the one who is blessed with him wanting only me. If there is anything else you really want, give me more info, perhaps I can help.
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I will be brutally honest with you that it's your attitude that is killing your relationships and preventing you from experiencing a good one. You are closing yourself off from people and being judgmental. Often people who have difficulty conversing are painfully shy and not confident around you at first.
You might be putting out body language or a vibe that intimidates them even if unaware of it. As far as cowards go who are you to judge character or if they are? Yes, there are people who have commitment issues but it usually comes to being extremely hurt by past experiences. Giving yourself over completely to someone else is the ultimate release and trust.
There are also people who can indeed be creepy. It's not you that is attracting them or a magnet for. You just need to trust your gut and walk away if something makes you feel icky or stands out as a real red flag.
You mention guys you don't think you would be interested in like you. That's actually not such a bad thing. Perhaps they aren't who you envision when it comes to look, style etc but quite honestly they make the best partners and are loyal. Don't turn your back on them. Also, don't overlook people under your nose who may make a good partner or could be interested. You really have to drop the attitude and embrace and be open to anyone who treats you right.
You also need to stop seeing guys as cowards, huge babies etc because they could also see you in a negative light too. That hurts. If you approach everything and everyone with positivity and give off that vibe you'll end up attracting the right person. Don't be afraid to give someone who may be different a shot either.
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