by Carol Allen
I have a personal question I want to ask you.
When you answer, really be honest with yourself:
How much time have you wasted pining away for a guy who wasn’t really into you, or didn’t want to commit?
Thinking back, would you say that you’ve wasted weeks, months, or even (gulp) YEARS hoping a man would change or realize you were, in fact, the perfect woman for him?
You’re probably loath to admit the ways in which you’ve lost your mind (and valuable time you can never get back) over love. (heavy sigh) Haven’t we all?
For instance…
You pretended to be totally OK with a casual fling or “friends with benefits” dynamic with a man you had serious feelings for, in the hopes that he’d “come around” to wanting more with you.
You waited for him to “get over” his last relationship and be present with you, thinking he just needed time and for you to “love him through it” but he never seemed to want you as much as he missed her.
You believed that it wasn’t that he was the wrong choice, it was bad timing. So you kept waiting and waiting for the things to improve, thinking they eventually would, and feeling more and more invested the more you waited.
You said yes to a man’s crumbs or even put up with humiliation and neglect because you wanted to appear as agreeable as possible and win him over in the end.
You thought you would scare him away if you asked him for what you really wanted. So you avoided asking for anything, and ignored what your heart was trying to tell you.
If any of these sound waaaaay too familiar, keep reading. Because in this article, I’m going to reveal why certain women are especially prone to falling for unavailable men.
And then I’m going to give you a strategy for how you can learn to recognize the unmistakable pattern that’s an early warning signal that you’re in danger of falling for someone who won’t ever be truly yours.
And finally, you’ll learn what to do to get out of this heartbreaking pattern and only make yourself available to men who want to commit to you and are capable of giving you what you need.
But first…
Why Do You Keep Falling For Unavailable Men?
If you’re a soulfully sensitive woman, you LOVE being IN LOVE.
When you meet a guy and the conversation flows and the physical chemistry is red hot, you can barely contain yourself. It’s as if the world has opened up to you and everything is brighter and more beautiful.
And when this happens you can’t help but feel a strong and powerful connection, and you believe he feels it, too.
You hunger to be close to him. You miss hearing his voice when away from him. You’re filled with glee whenever he texts you or asks if you want to get together.
And when he tells you that he misses you or wants you, it’s like your heart is going to jump out of your chest, it’s soooo exciting.
You’re romantic, open, and heart-centered in a profound way that enables you to have deep feelings for people quickly—and when it comes to love, these feelings can develop before you know if a guy is a good guy, worthy of your beautiful emotions and romantic hopes and dreams.
Just as you can have intense positive responses to him, your happiness and fulfillment can go South just as intensely and quickly, too…
When he doesn’t call, or turns a cold shoulder, or suddenly treats you like a platonic pal instead of his beloved, you’re left utterly devastated. (Womp…womp.)
I know. It really, really hurts when the man you have serious feelings for doesn’t want a relationship with you—especially if he came on strong at first.
And if this has happened to you more than once, you may be wondering why this keeps happening.
There could be two reasons, and they have something to do with your sensitive nature:
1. You feel your emotions more intensely than most.
You don’t just feel good around him, you feel A-MAZ-ING when you’re with him.
The intensity of your emotions leads you to jump to conclusions. You mistake intensity for intimacy, and think you and he aren’t just compatible—you were made for each other!
The danger here is that you’re perceiving things through the haze of these magnified emotions, and so may be making way more of the relationship than he is before you know him well enough to know if he’s even worthy of you.
So you set yourself up to get way more attached way earlier than someone who doesn’t feel things as intensely.
He may still be figuring out if he wants to have a long-term relationship with you.
But you’ll be bursting at the seams, anxiety and fantasies building…causing you to be unable to handle his ambivalence and need for time. It’s just too agonizing to sit and wait only to possibly get your heart squished by a man—again.
You interpret his hesitation as coolness or being “unavailable.” When in reality, he’s just not as emotionally invested as you…yet. And the irony is that when men feel a woman having stronger feelings for him than he has for her before he’s ready, he feels PRESSURE. And this makes him want to pull away, making him become even more unavailable than before…ugh.
2. You tend to romanticize the mundane.
You perceive his regular kindness and attention as highly romantic. He brought you soup when you were coming down with a cold…he’s your prince!
He went out of his way to get you a thoughtful gift for your birthday. He must love you so much!
He must really, truly care about you or he wouldn’t have done those things, right? But maybe he’s just a nice guy who treats everyone well. So you may believe he’s more attached to you than he actually is, and you may decide what his intentions are when he hasn’t even shared them with you yet.
So months later when he’s waffling about commitment, you can’t understand it. What about all those nice gestures and thoughtful acts? Were they hollow? Is he emotionally unavailable? Maybe, or maybe you’ve just had the relationship pegged all wrong by reading more into it than he ever wanted you to.
Here’s the thing, though. You don’t want to wait six months or six years to learn that the man you’re in love with can’t love you back in the same way. You want to know way earlier, so you don’t waste precious time and risk your sensitive heart…
And I’ve found a great way to do that.
That Pesky Pattern Of Longing, Elation, And Heartache
How can you tell if you’re getting involved with an emotionally unavailable man EARLY ON so you can make better choices and have healthier expectations about continuing to see him and what (or if) doing so will lead to?
You can’t change your sensitive nature, which means that it’s difficult to tone down your feelings or tell yourself that you don’t care—when in reality you care too much, too soon…
You can’t pretend to be that “cool girl” who takes it all in stride, and isn’t so affected by love…
It’s much easier to catch yourself before getting too close to someone who won’t return your affection fully. That way you can choose to pause and pay more attention to YOURSELF, what you really want, and what gives you joy and pleasure in life.
Basically, you need a signal that tells you to slow down and PAY CLOSER ATTENTION.
The way to do this is to listen to your feelings and decipher your inner wisdom and what it’s trying to tell you. Your feelings (not your infatuations) will let you know if you’re falling into an unhealthy pattern.
The unhealthy pattern goes like this…
You’re dating a guy and you notice that you’re feeling:
- unimportant
- neglected
- unsafe
- disconnected
- always hungry for more (of his time, presence. or affection)
So what do you do? You ping him, text him, casually “stop by,” or (ahem) nonchalantly email him a sassy little note.
He acknowledges you, returns the text/IM/email, but with something far less specific or warm than what you sent him.
But still—it’s something. Woohoo! You’re elated.
(But you conveniently “forget” that you’d stalked him on social media or were obsessively checking your phone to make sure you didn’t accidentally mute it. Or that you’ve had a knot in your stomach all day, anxiously waiting, waiting, waiting for something—anything—from him.)
And the good feelings? They don’t last, because before long you begin to feel that longing for more of his attention and energy because even though he responded you still feel he’s disconnected from you. You had to initiate contact, after all.
And he doesn’t seem to move things along—at least not as fast as you wish he would. You’re mostly left wondering when you’re going to see him next and what he’s really thinking inside that mysterious head of his, and even if weeks (or months) pass, you’re never quite sure of his feelings.
This is an unmistakable pattern. It tells you that you’re falling for an emotionally unavailable man, or at the very least one who is more casual about your relationship with him than you are…
What should you do when you see this pattern?
RUN.
I’m kidding. Sorta.
There is something you can do to unwind this pattern, either so he has time to catch up to you emotionally, or so you can figure out if this guy is ever going to be capable of giving you what you need.
How To Honor Yourself And Stop Giving Your Heart To Unavailable Men
If you’re soulfully sensitive, then it’s wise if you approach dating and relationships more mindfully in order to protect your heart.
That doesn’t mean you have to change who you are. Not at all.
You can honor your sensitive nature AND be wildly attractive to the right man if you know the right formula for what to do in the early stages of dating, especially if you recognize that pesky pattern I just shared.
That’s where I come in. I’ve spent over 2 decades(!) helping soulfully sensitive women like you protect your heart so you don’t get too carried away by your feelings, and stop compromising yourself for love.
I’ve partnered with Flourish to help women like you get out of the “negative narcissism“ loop--the belief that you’re so special (in a bad way), that you’re doomed to die alone (even though the vast majority of us DO marry!). And you can get more of my advice… for FREE… when you subscribe to our dating and relationship newsletter. I’ll help you go from thinking of dating as an activity about as pleasurable as mopping floors or doing your taxes into feeling EXCITED about the prospect of meeting men and trying out your new flirting skills.
You’ll get tips on how to take care of your heart when you’re dating (so you don’t become a victim of another jerk) and how to rejuvenate and replenish yourself between dates.
You’ll find out how to spot the red flags that indicate he’s NOT ready for a real relationship or isn’t the man you think he is.
Plus tons more advice, strategies, and insights for women with your specific, emotional disposition–one that has made you follow your FEELINGS of connection to a guy more than what the guy is showing or telling you (oops!). Learn how to stop doing that without giving up on love, or shutting your heart down.
So, join me by subscribing to Flourish’s free love and dating newsletter. You’ll get access to handpicked experts (like me!) giving you our best insights and strategies to find love and have the relationship of your dreams. You’ll learn:
- What ″amazing dates″ really mean–especially if you’ve had a date where the conversation flowed, you clicked on so many levels, and maybe you even slept together.
- What to say–and what not to say–to a man after those ″fragile″ first dates, as well as how to quickly and easily understand a man’s real intentions about you.
- How to tap into your love power center to create a relationship that lights you up, inspires you, and brings out the best of who you are
- 6 practical strategies to increase your confidence and motivation when you’ve lost faith and want to give up on love
- How to identify the false beliefs that have been sabotaging your ability to create love
- What men need to fall in love, and how to show him you are the women he’s been looking for his whole life
When you sign up to receive this jam–packed newsletter, you’ll see a radical change in the results you’re getting with men and dating, and you’ll learn how to protect your glorious, sensitive heart in the process.
Whether you’re soulfully sensitive or not, you can’t choose your initial, visceral, physical reactions to life. But you can choose the meaning you make of what happens.
We can choose the story we tell ourselves.
Here’s to always choosing a story that brings out your best and helps you choose the right man for you—one that makes you feel supported, adored, and safe.
Soulfully Yours,
