5 Mistakes to Avoid to Stop Obsessing About the Wrong People

The universe likes making us repeat the same mistakes until we learn our lesson.

After each breakup, I tell myself I’ve had enough of emotionally unavailable men. Yet I run after another one a few months down the line. There is just something about them: something reflecting my own unavailability, insecurities, and insufficient healing.

Turns out, that something is rejection.

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I did not find my most recent ex that impressive or attractive when I first met him.

“Don’t fall for the spark” they say, “immediate chemistry doesn’t guarantee a good relationship”.

So we saw each other again. Maybe more connection could take place in time.

Mistake 1. Confusing Dopamine Highs with Attraction

It wasn’t until date 3 that I started feeling more connected to him.

The conversation was still not flowing: we didn’t share that much in our backgrounds, we thought it would take time.

But his date ideas were great. Live music venues; exciting environments; and lots of alcohol. After 2 pints the conversation started flowing like magic.

We were right, I thought, you see connection takes time!

But it was the alcohol speaking. Nice jazz bars. Exciting games. Our dopamine levels were so elevated we thought we connected to each other. But it could have been anyone else.

We were not connecting to each other, we were connecting to the date.

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Mistake 2. Focusing on Them Rather Than on How You Feel

This whole relationship felt very strange.

I always had a great time during the date, but it was ground 0 again the next time we met. I never felt that little warm sensation in my chest when first seeing him on every date. It always took a lot of time for us to get used to each other’s presence.

Maybe it would still take more time, I thought.

Sometimes, before each date, I would wonder whether we were a good match. We were surely having fun, but my gut told me something was missing.

I wanted to keep having fun, so I ignored my gut.

But in time things did not progress as you would expect: he never got closer or more affectionate. It felt like two strangers meeting up for fun even after months of dating weekly.

That’s when I started focusing on his words, actions, and attitude rather than my feelings about him. I got frustrated and confused.

Instead of putting more effort into making him feel comfortable, I should have taken a step back to assess if he was the person for me.

I would have spared myself so much pain.

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3. Falling For the Potential

He was not perfect, no one is.

But some character qualities that I admire in people (like persistence and proactiveness) were missing. He claimed he had many goals aligned with mine, but never did anything differently to achieve them. He had many insecurities that kept him stuck.

But he wants to improve! We listen to the same podcasts and want the same things in life!

I kept telling myself how he could have been a different person. Someone that I would look up to. Someone that could have been a great partner.

He never was any of that. That scared little kid in him kept him where he is in life for the past 8 years without any progress. Then he brought his frustrations into my life until I started feeling unsettled and insecure too.

When you wish for a relationship to work out, you try to justify idealizing them in every way.

Start noticing when you negotiate with yourself. They are exactly the way they are showing you now. Not what you hope them to be.

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Mistake 4. Wanting Validation from Them

After a certain point, I wanted him to praise me. A compliment. A word of acknowledgment about how amazing I am.

Often, emotionally unavailable people can’t express these things. They probably don’t even understand what they feel about themselves. Worse if they have insecurities. They would start feeling not good enough themselves, instead of appreciating how good you are.

“But I want them to see how much of a nice person I am!”

This is what I told myself too. It was almost like a challenge: you don’t see my value? I’ll show you.

Please do yourself this favor: don’t ever expect this kind of validation from anyone but yourself.

Whenever you crave this from anyone, you start obsessing with every word they say. You start wanting to impress them with everything you do.

And in dating, we don’t want this. We know we are worthy. We don’t need to impress anyone.

Think about someone we dislike very much or our childhood bully. Would you like them to see our worth? No — you won’t even care. You know they are not a good presence in your life. Would you do everything possible to impress them? Of course not!

The same goes for the wrong people. Whoever doesn’t see our value is not the right person, and is not worth having in our life. The right person will be able to see our worth from the very beginning.

Repeat after me:

“I don’t want anyone who doesn’t value me.”

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5. Acting from a Place of Lack

After a while, I got attached. Sex, alcohol, and whatever pleasure our dates brought were culpable. Maybe also our hormones, who knows?

The pity here is that once we get so used to having someone in our life we forget how our life was before them.

Returning to the dating scene sounds like a terrible idea when you already have someone who knows you and gives you affection (from time to time). Things are not perfect but it’s better than being alone right?

I wish I could have seen things without the hormonal filter a few months ago.

After 3 months I started feeling anxious and miserable. I didn’t know what was going on so I restarted therapy, which also wasn’t helping until we broke up.

I was so afraid of being alone again that I made myself miserable. I craved his intermittent affection so much that I got addicted to this dynamic. The more he avoided me, the more I craved him.

And all this for a guy I didn’t even like that much at the beginning!

I went through a full-on withdrawal after our breakup. I was missing the feelings, not him.

Once the withdrawal was over, it felt like waking up from a nightmare.

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There are parts of us that need healing whenever we obsess over someone who is not available to us.

What we really crave is love and acceptance from ourselves when we chase after someone else’s attention. Believing that our happiness depends on how much they give us is a very dangerous place to be. This could even be fertile soil for emotional abuse.

I hope you can avoid the same mistakes I made recently in dating.

But more than that, I hope you find the parts of yourself that get triggered by the wrong people and heal them.

Love, Jessica

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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