Why We Always Chase the Wrong Person [Video]

Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)

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we have this idea that if someone
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doesn’t want us
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then they must be valuable
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especially when we don’t think we’re
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good enough
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when someone likes us
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we’re suspicious of them we think
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there must be something wrong with you
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if you like me
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because i’m not great so
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you must not be great
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you know you can’t be worth anything if
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you like me let me go and find someone
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who’s worth something
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and who do i think is worth something
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the person who doesn’t notice me the
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person who doesn’t want me because i
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don’t think very highly of myself so if
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you don’t notice me
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you must be pretty cool
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you must be on to something then we
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start chasing that because
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it becomes that idea that if i could
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just get this person
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i would be
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enough that would prove that i could be
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enough this person’s validation becomes
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the key that unlocks my confidence which
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of course is completely the reverse of
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what’s true
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that this person if this person fell for
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you it wouldn’t unlock your confidence
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all it would do is unlock more
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insecurity more anxiety because now you
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get that person and you still don’t feel
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good enough and you’re spending every
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waking moment terrified you’re going to
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lose them
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and we get attracted to
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the bad boy the bad girl partly because
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of what we just said right if if we can
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get this person to fall in love with us
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then
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i’ll be somebody you know
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they don’t want me they’re hard to
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wrangle
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but if i could
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then i’d be good enough and some of this
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stuff comes from from childhood and you
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know there’s that idea that we’re trying
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to complete
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trying to get closure on some story from
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our childhood you know my i didn’t get
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it from my dad so if i can get it from
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this person then it will show that i was
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good enough for my dad that i could have
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had my dad’s love i’m completing a story
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that never got completed in my mind
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we’re still allowing some person in our
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past to play god over our current
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decisions and trying to give ourselves a
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sense of finality but of course that’s
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when we do that we forget that
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those people that we’re trying to still
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win the approval of
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they were very flawed human beings and
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that they’re not god they were just
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people
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they were just people in the same way
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that this person who’s not showing
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interest in you right now or this person
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who’s
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the bad boy picking you up putting you
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down
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you know whatever that
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that’s not an indication of value
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what it is is an indication of
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this person either just isn’t that into
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you or this person isn’t looking for
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something serious right now
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or this person is um not ready to love
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the way that a relationship a true
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relationship really demands love or this
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person is insecure and needs to have
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five people on the go at all times
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because
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they’re trying to fill a hole that they
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can’t fill we’re basing our value on
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a phase of life
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or
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or inadequacy or insecurity or ego that
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somebody else is in the irony
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is that we could have someone who really
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likes us today
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and is ready to treat us well
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and ready to give us a ton of love who
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was the bad boy five years ago
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but has evolved and matured and is now
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ready to really love
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but that person’s ready to give us a
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kind of unironic unsarcastic
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pure love and we go hmm something’s
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wrong with this
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let me go for this let me go for the bad
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boy
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so you start to look for someone who’s
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currently in a bad boy phase so
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what happens then is you end up cycling
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through people your whole life
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who are always in a certain phase of
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their life
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because you’re not ready
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for someone to treat you really well
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even if one you know you’re like oh but
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i really like someone with an edge well
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maybe that person was that person but
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they’ve grown up
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and so what it really is is not that you
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know how do i it’s that you’re always
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attracted to people who have not grown
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up
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you don’t see the people you don’t
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acknowledge the people that have grown
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up who are past that phase you’re not
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you’re not ready for something more than
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what you’re getting right now and as
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soon as you do see something that could
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resemble good treatment
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you don’t treat it as valuable because
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you don’t treat yourself
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as valuable you’re still trying to
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complete some story you have in your
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mind of what you’re supposed to get and
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how it’s supposed to make you feel
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[Music]
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you

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This post was previously published on YouTube.

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From The Good Men Project on Medium

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