Unbeknownst to me, I was repelling men with my immature attempts to win them over for way too long. Thankfully, I’ve learned from my mistakes and have managed to stop scaring all the good ones away. Here’s what I was doing wrong so hopefully you can avoid making the same mistakes.
- I was mean as hell to them. Though it seemed like movies and teen novels always depicted boys as falling for the snobby, hard-to-get girls, that turned out not to be the case in real life. No matter how much I insulted and snubbed a guy, it never transformed me into someone whose heart he wanted to win over.
- I was always content with being “one of the guys.” Since being mean didn’t work, I decided to do a 180 and be one of their pals instead. I’d talk to them about all the same pastimes they were into, sports, Star Wars, cars, comics, even girls. It was much better than treating them rudely, but all it did was make me just another guy to them. They never looked at me as a possible romantic interest.
- I was way too “cool” and laid-back. At this point, I was starting to get involved with men romantically and thought that just being cool would earn their love. I never expressed my needs or disagreed with them in any way. The result was that I repelled worthy men that wanted to give me what I wanted and attracted men that wanted a doormat instead of a woman.
- I always said that I didn’t want a relationship (even though I really did). Operating under the erroneous belief that men never wanted to commit, I beat them to the punch by telling them I didn’t want a relationship right off the bat. Though I never received any arguments, I was baffled when they never committed to me but would make their next romance their girlfriend.
- I slept with guys way too soon. Along with being cool and casual, I’d completely surrender my body to guys before I even got the chance to know them and decide if they were worth it. We had no exclusive dating arrangement settled and I definitely didn’t love them (and maybe I never would have). Unfortunately, this always led to surrendering my heart and soul to the wrong guy for the wrong reasons.
- I was an incessant and shameless flirt. It seemed that this is what men wanted, at least in my head. Though flirting garnered a lot of superficial attention initially, doing it too much and with other guys made good men suspicious of how I behaved when I wasn’t in their presence. Apparently, men that wanted a serious relationship didn’t take flirty women seriously.
- I went along with guys who refused to make things official. At this point, I tried to find a connection because I really wanted a boyfriend. However, still controlled by the belief that men didn’t want pressure to commit, I believed I was doing the both of us a favor by being OK with him not thinking of me as his girlfriend. I thought that by appearing unattached, the guy I was dating would eventually come around and lock things down. He never did.
- I overshared personal details and feelings early on. With our girlfriends, it’s rarely a mistake to share explicit details about ourselves, even with someone we just met—we just get it and don’t take it personally. In fact, we like bonding with other women this way. Unfortunately, that same behavior doesn’t go over so well with men. Not only do they typically not handle emotions the same way, but oversharing was also the mental equivalent of giving my body away too soon. Not having emotional boundaries prematurely sent the message that I didn’t need to know him better or have exclusivity to wear my heart on my sleeve.
- I acted like I was put off by the idea of marriage and a family. At the time, I was telling the truth. Back then I believed I would never desire a husband and children and was honest about it with any guy I met. I thought any man that wasn’t ready himself would appreciate it. The problem is that most guys actually do believe that they’ll want marriage and kids eventually. My confession immediately shut down any chance of a decent guy seeing me as a potential long-term partner. I was always confused when the women that came after me were always the serious girlfriends instead of me.
