Breaking the pattern

I recently had an epiphany… I have a bad pattern that needs breaking! It involves a number of factors that have an impact of my relationships with men. The main one is that I go for mostly emotionally unavailable men. Whether it’s men who won’t commit, still want to play the field, think they deserve better, are emotionally damaged or are in a long distance relationship, they seem to be my type and seem to love me back (for a limited time of course).

And I have just taken the first step to break this pattern. I said NO! And I am so proud of myself for doing it! Because it’s not something I would normally do… normally, I would talk myself into doing what I knew was wrong – I am the queen of justification!

 

The story goes something like this… I go for dinner with the girls. A guy across the restaurant keeps catching my eye and there’s a connection, you know, one of those weird, unexplainable connections. The guy leaves. On our way out a little later, the waitress pulls me aside, says the guy has asked her to get my name and number because he’s sure he knows me from somewhere. So I give it to her. How exciting and flattering!

The next day, the guy phones and we arrange to do lunch/coffee the next week (he actually does know me from high school). I’m excited! This is how great stories begin! I tell a friend about this all and a couple hours later she calls me. Her bff knows this guy and tells her he’s married. To be honest, I wasn’t surprised to hear this, what with my awesome track record of late! So naturally, I’m quite pissed off about all this… besides the body builder, I don’t actually remember when last an available man hit on me!

A few hours later, this guy calls me again, to tell me he’s married - so he has a conscience. He goes on to say he’d still like to meet up and catch up (even though we didn’t actually know each other at school – he was a couple years behind me) because he also felt a connection and wants to get to know me. He’s adamant that there aren’t any ulterior motives and that it’s innocent, which I actually could believe because he’s apparently a genuinely nice guy. So I tell him I need to think about him and I’ll let him know.

I’m glad I decided to take time to think on it because my natural instinct is to say: “Sure, it can’t hurt to go for an innocent coffee and catch up.” In theory it would just be an innocent catch up, but that’s just opening myself up to a lot of extra drama that I really don’t want because in the real world, there are so many ways that this could go wrong.

By the time I got to my car (5 minutes after his call) I had decided I would say NO. I’d been given an obvious opportunity to break my pattern and I was going to make the most of it! Later, I ran the whole story and my decision past my trainer who unknowingly doubles as my sounding board and therapist and he agreed with me. And if a guy agrees with you, it must be right! It also helps that he’s seen all the shit (and by shit I mean bad choices in men) I’ve been through over the last 10 months.

I called this guy earlier today to tell him no and I stuck to my guns! I told him it was a bad idea and had all the potential to end badly. We chatted a bit more about general stuff and that was that. It was nice to chat to someone new and who grew up similar to you, in the same neighbourhood and all that, but in this situation, the bad far outweighs the good and that’s what I need to stay away from. And I have!  

They say like attracts like and I think that this may be true to an extent. I confess that I am a commitment-phobe. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to be someone’s first and only choice, their other half, the love of their life, but I just don’t know how to be that without freaking out. With that in mind, I could be defined as emotionally unavailable myself, it’s quite obvious that I should subconsciously attract similar people.

How to fix it... I suppose the first step to changing this is actually acknowledging that this is what’s happening. Done! The next step would be to identify it when it does happen. I actually need to pay attention to what’s going on and need to analyse the situations and little more. Done! Then, I need to consciously break that pattern and say no to it when I see it happening. Done! Granted, I have only done this once so far, but it’s a start! And I am proud of myself for standing up and saying no and going against my (bad) instincts.  

Now that I am aware of what’s actually going on, I have something to work with and work towards. I know what I want, what I deserve and I am the only person standing in my way. I just need to get my shit together and let my natural awesomeness shine! Preferably in the direction of emotionally available, hot, straight single men…