This Is When I Found Out I Had a Type

People say they don’t have a type but they do. We all do, we just might not see the type. Sometimes it’s not visible. Sometimes there isn’t a physicality to pinpoint. Sometimes our “type” shows up in the behavioral aspects.

But many of us fail to acknowledge that because we live in a physical world that focuses on the physics of virtually everything. This is why so many of us have continued attracting the same “type”. Remaining in familiar cycles. It’s easier when it’s right in front of your face.

It’s much easier when you can see it. But for those of us who have colorful dating palettes that usually consist of the same behavioral archetype, we often overlook the obvious because we were trained to.

When you’re conditioned to believe what you see on the surface, you don’t pay as close attention to what’s underneath a person. None of the men I’ve dated look alike. Though I will admit most (not all) of them were 6’1 with the large majority of them having some type of West Indian heritage.

But these weren’t attributes I was gunning for. My exes look physically different and came in an array of different complexions. Sure, some similarities overlapped but in a line-up, it would ring clear these are different people. With only one thing in common,

They all made me feel the same.

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And That Was When I Realized I Had a Type

I was one of those people who swore they didn’t have a type

I’d only said it because none of them looked the same. I didn’t see it. So I didn’t believe it. But they all had one very important thing in common, they were narcissists. That was my type.

overt
covert
and malignant

They all had the same traumas, the same explosive relationships with their mothers, and each one of them proceeded to treat me in different variations of the same. It took experiencing many of the same traumas over and over again to realize this.

From rape to gaslighting, infidelities, and triangulations. And finally witnessing the terrifying moments they each unmasked themselves when they were sure no one was looking. Some of them even shared certain tones when they spoke.

Two of my exes pronounced “I love you so much” the exact same way that for some reason made my fucking skin crawl. I’m getting disgusted recalling it. I know now it’s because they were the most sadistic of the group, who definitely didn’t mean those words. Another pairing of my exes sounded exactly the same.

The one thing they all had in common? They were all emotionally unavailable and too busy for quality time. It took looking back to realize they had many of the same mannerisms as my father. They loved me the way my father did.

Abusively.

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We Fall In Love With Our Parents

My father was a medicine man

A Shaman. And he often blew me off for his patients. He’s shown up late to school shows, usually right after I performed. He was a no-show numerous times on days he swore he’d come to pick me up. Little by little, this is how attention became a wound for me.

Too often I counted the hours waiting to get out of school and see him standing there in front of his Cadillac when the school doors opened. Too often no one was there. People make time for who they want to make time for. And that, for my father, usually wasn’t me.

When he did have time for me he was still working so much of our time was spent traveling to sick people’s homes, watching horror movies that sent me into anxiety attacks at night if I didn’t make myself go to sleep, and him sleeping all day while I starved. Literally.

My father was a narcissist who no longer saw me as valuable once my mother left him. I was idealized by him until about five years old when their relationship fell apart. Once he found her replacement, me and my mom were devalued but because she had already left him the brunt of the abuse went to me.

However, he gave his long-time girlfriend all of his time, attention, and affection. Almost in spite. We were often triangulated. Sometimes he’d show up to my school shows late, with her. Despite only him and my mom being invited. When it came to his girlfriend he had all the time in the world.

and even cut our one-on-one time down significantly — so she could tag along. Even though he knew he only had me for the weekend. Even when he was present, I was up alone. All of these relationships were no different, once I gave them this part of my backstory. Now, they knew exactly which trauma to use against me.

Photo by Claudia Wolff on Unsplash

I Learned The “Hard” Way

We want the love we were never given as children

While chasing the abusive parent(s) we had, in another form. We do this to win their love vicariously through lovers just like them. That wound gets deeper every time an outcome ends up the same.

I’ve been told that —

Our love languages are derived from what we were deprived of as children.

I can definitely relate and it enrages me now to recognize just how many bad intentions were fulfilled because of my childhood wound and unmet needs. Looking back also taught me that our hidden preferences are always being unveiled to us. I learned this by going through many traumas.

This is how many of us tend to learn.

Some people call this learning “the hard way” and some swear we prefer it that way. No one prefers the hard way, some of us just require a different experience. Remember “the hard way” is just an alternative learning experience. It’s just another way to learn.

We can compare it to those of us who focused on romantic love and intimate relationships for the first half of our lives and miss out on many other aspects, only to look for ways to make up for it later. Where others focused on their careers or academics. We’ve all had different variations of paths to follow.

Time and time again, I chose a man over the chance to be single and open to so many experiences. My father died when I was 17 and already in the middle of a long-term relationship. Once it ended I kept filling the void my father’s death left behind through serial dating.

Of course, I didn’t see this pattern right away but around a year into my last one, I knew it was something I was gonna have to deal with. I knew it would have to end because being aloe was a real-life experience I was supposed to have. Whether I wanted to or not. And here I am, right now, having it. Here’s what I learned about the type I kept attracting.

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I Wasn’t Choosing My Type

I was being hunted

Another aspect of commonality that unveiled my type — is how the relationships began. And it was right in front of my face all along. I was what society now calls a “pick me”. I was picked. The only difference is I wasn’t trying to be. So, I’d rather say I was being hunted.

I call it hunting because that’s what it really is, especially because I usually wasn’t trying to be picked. In fact, aside from one particular relationship, I was actually minding my business. They weren’t on my radar. They approached me, persistently.

All of them seemed to come in when I was newly single and at that stage where you’re starting to glow again. They all caught me at the right time. In fact, this was how 99% of my past relationships started. I wasn’t into my exes initially. It wasn’t personal, my soul just didn’t stir for them.

Still, in every single case, they pulled out all the stops to pursue me. I was new to the game so I called it love — it’s called love-bombing and narcissists do it all the time. I didn’t understand that these were abusers who weren’t taking “no” for an answer (and would definitely make me pay for it later).

I got so comfortable I shared with them my traumas and before I knew it I was reliving them. I was staying because I was waiting for things to get better because I was more hopeful than I was wise enough to know they never would. I know that now.

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I Attracted Narcissists Because My Father Was One

I settled for emotionally unavailable men

Men who would not choose me, because too often my father didn’t. That conditioned me to strive for it from him and as a result, I didn’t choose myself either. To recognize this pattern, and see my type, I had to stop being my type.

In order to settle for these men, I had to abandon myself, which I did. I tied myself down to them. I wasn’t giving myself the time of day either, nor was I giving it to the ones who actually did love me. Instead, I built my worlds around these men. Over and over again.

So much so that when things ended I was shattered with no identity. By then I’d lost my freedom, valuable time with the ones who really matter, and friends. I hit rock bottom and accepted that I had to be the one to change, not my exes. Narcissists never change.

But I couldn’t change enough to start making the decisions I knew were best for me until I realized something very powerful (and very painful) about who I’ve been as a person. I found comfort in being miserable because I was used to it. I made it work for me.

And once I accepted this, I was able to finally start accepting my exes for who they were and the traumas they had and the reality of how those traumas were impacting my life, needlessly. I started becoming a different type of person. It just took a little realization and some time alone.

With time and space my life quickly improved, my mental state recovered, and my emotional health thrived in their absence. That was the one phenomenon that let me know something was wrong with all of my relationships. It’s taken fifteen years to recognize and fix this pattern, and to realize that

I did, in fact, have a type.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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