How can you not become so emotionally invested in men?

[Single018]

I went on a great first date a couple of weeks ago. I have seen him again three times - but it’s been him coming over to mine. It hasn’t been established as “casual”.. but it seemed to be going that way…

I feel like he’s pulling away / ghosting me now and it’s making me a bit upset and anxious despite it not being a long time at all. We’ve slept together a lot though in a relatively short space of time and I easily become emotionally attached.

I don’t think it would be a good idea anyway for us to continue having something casual but I just feel a bit 💩 now and wondered if anyone has any advice 😔

Have you arranged to have counselling? It really doesn't sound like you can't turn this around without support and expert knowledge. (BACP, Counselling Directory or Psychology Today are all ways of finding someone or Google local therapists.

It would be worth it to change this dynamic and not be on this constant cycle of massive highs (when you have sex with a new guy) and tremendous lows (when they reject you). It's not that there's anything wrong with you, it's that you don't value yourself so you are unconsciously attracting users.

Believing in investing in yourself would be a huge turnaround for you and could change your life in loads of ways. Good luck.

It's best to work on your confidence and self esteem, men take advantage of women who don't. Men take much longer to become emotionally available, if he gets it all too soon they easily become bored (when they are not looking for anything serious). Most the times they give us the signs they are not serious but we choose to ignore it. They love the chase! Don't message him, first, don't make yourself available all the time, don't answer at the first ring etc. You should take a step back from him first, if he tries to pursue you then proceed with caution and if he doesn't.. we'll he wasn't worth the time anyway and that tells you he was not serious about you and better the ghosting occur much earlier than later when you develop even stronger feelings. I'd also not recommend having sex too early, a lot of men think with their dicks and unintentionally has them lose respect for a woman unfortunately. If he's being given a lot of sex by you, that's all he's going to want even if that wasn't his intention when first meeting you.

If some people received that text they'd respond with either verbal abuse (but written if it's a text back) or some kind of more polite, but still negative, opinion of him. So if he doesn't want to risk receiving these type of messages, the best thing for him is to not send the text that may generate them and to instead detete and block, effectively ghosting the other person. He has the right to do what is best for him. He doesn't owe you anything.

If he was a less selfish and more decent person he'd take your feelings into account but then, if he was that person, he'd also have checked with you before sleeping with you that you were fine with a casual thing because that's all he wanted. If he cared about others he wouldn't want to risk hurting them.

Selfish people care more about themselves and getting their own needs and wants met than about the other person and their needs and wants. Selfish people aren't going to be upfront and totally honest, they may even lie, because that's what gets the best outcome for them and they don't particularly care about how it affects the other person. People don't owe you decency, they have the right to be selfish. You have the right to choose not to have them in your life.

You need to stop judging people by your own standards and making the assumption they're like you. Other people aren't you. They have their own values and standards and part of dating is getting to know what these are, so you can decide if you want to be involved with the person.

If you want to have sex for the sake of having sex and can consider every time nothing more than a bit of fun for a short time, attaching no more meaning to it than that even if it happens repeatedly with the same person, then great. But if you can't, if you think someone having sex with you means anything other than they wanted to have sex and you agreed, then you risk getting hurt because you're getting emotionally attached and attributing meaning to the situation that isn't there in reality only in your imagination.

If this is you, then you can't enjoy casual sex, even though you may enjoy the sex, because you don't enjoy the emotional turmoil you experience alongside it. By taking part in casual sex you're literally giving yourself emotional torture. Why would you do that to yourself? Stop. Be kind to yourself and don't put yourself through this.

So what? Move on....
Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Also have some more respect for yourself and then men may return the favour. Don't give it up as soon as a man shows a bit of interest, make him work for it.

You want more than he does, you've realised this so instead of letting him make you feel shite by slowly pulling away or keeping you on the back burner why don't you take control? Message him and tell him you had fun but you don't think this is right for you so you're calling it a day.