The Brutal Mystery Of Why The Men You’re Attracted To, Don’t Feel The Same
Have you ever wondered why the men you’re attracted to, just don’t seem to feel the same way? What’s the deal with that?
One of the most frustrating and puzzling relationship issues is determining why the guys you want don’t seem to want you.
Here is how it usually goes. You get involved with a guy that you really like who just doesn’t seem to be as interested. He’s into it, he’s attracted, he likes hanging out with you, but he’s not quite there. You, on the other hand, have gone all in and the fact that he isn’t at the same point leaves you with a constant feeling of unease just beneath the surface.
If you have been in several situations like this, you might start to wonder if it’s you, if you’re doing something wrong. But then how can that be when all these other guys, the ones you don’t want, are desperate to date you? Why is it that the commitment and the proclamations of love and devotion only seem to come from the guys you don’t want and not the ones you do?
Well, these are the most likely reasons why.
1. You Want Him…
One of the biggest reasons the guys you want don’t want you comes down to the simple fact that you want them. Or rather, want them a little too much and for reasons that are not what you think.
When we want something, it represents something to us and we internalize the having of that thing as meaning something about us. If we can get the guy, then we’re validated, we’re worthy of love, we have succeeded. If we can’t get him to want us, then there is something wrong with us; we are flawed and unlovable.
It’s not just a relationship thing. We do this with money, with jobs, with status, with Instagram likes. Measuring your worth on external factors is a recipe for feeling chronically unfulfilled.
Wanting puts you into agenda mode. You meet a guy who has a set of qualities that you want in a man and you make it your mission to have him. From that point on you measure your interactions with him in terms of whether they’re getting you closer to, or further from, your ultimate goal. When you have an agenda, you are interacting with the thoughts in your mind and this prevents you from building a genuine connection, because how can you connect when you’re not really there?
2. You stress over how he feels.
When you want a guy and aren’t sure if he wants you back, your mind can’t help but stress over how he feels. You tally up the signs he likes you go over every interaction, you overthink every single text looking for clues. This obsessive line of thinking transmits a desperate, needy vibe that people can intuitively pick up on.
When you go on a quest to figure out how he feels, your fears and insecurities will inevitably get activated and this will come across and a guy (and people in general) can always pick up on an energy or a vibe.
It doesn’t matter what you do, it’s the intention behind it.
If you are acting a certain way in order to make him feel a certain way about you, he will intuitively sense that you aren’t genuine, that you are trying to get something from him, and his guard will instinctively go up because that’s how all people naturally respond when we sense someone has ulterior motives.
It’s much like a car salesman who comes up to you and is all nice and jovial and seemingly interested in you as a person. You don’t buy it because you know that, while he might be very nice and might like you very much, he is really just trying to sell you something and that is driving all his behaviors.
3. Too much pressure!
It doesn’t matter if you come out and ask him where things are going or if he has feelings for you, if you mentally want something from a guy (in this case, a commitment), he will know and will feel pressured.
Even if you’re just waiting by the phone for his text, he will feel it. It’s just an energy that gets sent out, and believe me I’m not a super new-age person, but it’s true. We can usually sense when someone wants something from us. This is why the guys you aren’t so into are usually so into you; because there’s no pressure. You’re just feeling it out and testing the waters and he feels a sense of freedom in the relationship. He essentially has the freedom to choose you, whereas with the guys you really want, you are on a quest to be chosen.
Here is a very important thing to realize about how men fall in love. Men usually fall for a woman based on how they feel when they’re around her.
Women, on the other hand, usually have a mental checklist. If a guy checks off enough boxes, she’ll see him as a potential romantic partner and will begin to invest and get excited about the possibilities.
Sure, most men have a certain “type,” but they rarely go out seeking a specific set of qualities. What makes a man commit is how he feels in your presence. When he feels pressured in any way, then it leaves little room for him to feel anything else and it causes him to lose whatever interest he had in you.
4. You aren’t connecting with him in a meaningful way.
As I said, when you have an agenda, you are engaging with the thoughts in your head, and not with the person in front of you. A lot of times, we convince ourselves that we like a guy just because he matches up with our dating checklist, not because we have gotten to know who he truly is at his core.
No man wants to feel like he’s filling a slot that any other dude could easily occupy. Maybe you like that he’s good-looking, employed, funny, tall, nice, etc., but there are millions of other guys like that out there.
A guy wants to feel chosen because of how great he is, because of who he is at his core, not because he meets some minimum requirement of characteristics. (And women feel the same way!)
A lot of the time, the guys you want don’t want you because you don’t make an effort to truly connect with him as a person. You see him as a means to an end, an opportunity to have a boyfriend and settle down, a chance to feel good about yourself and worthy, without really taking the time to get to know him.
When you connect with a man, he feels safe. And as I explained, a man bonds with a woman when he feels good in her presence and feeling safe always feels good.
5. You choose the guys who can’t give you what you want.
Lastly, a reason why the guys you want don’t want you is that you’re going after guys who aren’t in a position to be capable of having any sort of relationship.
These are the guys who are selfish or in a bad place or confused about what they want or are nowhere near ready for a relationship. I can relate to this one the most because it was my pattern for far too long.
Going for guys like this can be a form of self-sabotage. It can happen when deep down you feel unworthy, you feel not good enough. And these feelings are usually rooted in childhood pain and trauma.
So deep down you have these beliefs about yourself, and then you go out into the world and try to date and try to find a partner but you only seem drawn to the ones who don’t want you. And this is because the subconscious mind is always looking to prove itself right. If you believe you are unworthy, you will be drawn to partners who make you feel that way.
When a guy does show genuine interest, you may be put off because this doesn’t align with how you see yourself. You don’t truly like yourself and you, again this is subconscious, believe anyone who does like or love you must be fatally flawed.
If you were nodding along with this last section in pained recognition, I feel you on a deep level. Because this was me. And I won’t say it was an easy road, but with the right therapist, the right self-help books, and the motivation to really change, I was able to overcome this. My relationships up until that point were always lopsided. Either it was me obsessed with a guy who wasn’t feeling it, or a guy hopelessly in love with me and me trying to scrape up any romantic feelings I could find in my hollow heart.
It was a hopeless pattern and until I really faced the darkness within me and made the resolute decision to heal, I thought I would spend my life stuck in that sad loop of chasing emotionally unavailable and damaged me. But I didn’t. Once I broke free I saw my behavior for what it was and those types of guys lost all appeal to me. I realized I was valuable and worthy and I had no time for anyone who didn’t see it too.
I knew I had truly healed when I started dating my husband and the fact that he really liked me didn’t turn me off at all, it actually made me like him even more.