Do people subconsciously keep themselves single?

[PonderingsRoss]

Sorry, this is a bit garbled.

I've been thinking about this lately. I'm 31 and haven't been in a real relationship since I was 20, with a man who was abusive and controlling.

Since I left him I've had a great life, and now have a job I love, loads of great friends, and an excellent social life, and yet I have never come close to a serious relationship again. It didn't bother me at all when I was younger, but for the last year or so I've thought I would quite like to be with someone. Not desperately, but I think it would be quite nice.

In pondering why I've never come close I've realised that the only men I've had flirtations or flings with have all been men who, for various reasons, I knew could and would never lead to a long term exclusive relationship. There is one man now who is lovely, my age, kind, great company, trustworthy and definitely is interested in me and in a proper relationship. I just don't fancy him at all.

I've genuinely started wondering if there's a subconscious barrier I'm putting up to available men? Is this something that happens? I don't think I'm bad looking or bad company, and yet I've been single for a decade whereas I've got friends who split up from relationships, even serious ones where they're engaged and living together, and within a few months they're with someone else.

What am I doing wrong?

I had this issue with myself. I was in an abusive relationship from 16, and ended up a single parent at 18, was on and off for a couple more years after that. Just got on with life at the time, had nothing more than a few month long flings. I was online dating, etc.

I then started counselling, and brought up to my counselor that I felt there was something wrong with me, that the only people I was interested in weren't interested in me, and vice versa, that maybe I'd set impossibly high standards and would either be single forever or settle. My counselor told me 'Ifirmly believe there is nothing wrong with you, and that you won't be single forever. When you decide you are actually ready to meet someone, you will meet someone'. I was with my DP within a year, and we've been together 4.5 years now- and I certainly didn't settle.

Looking back now, I believe that my brain was trying to tell me that I hadn't healed, and I needed to sort out the issues my ex had left me with before it would let me trust anyone again. As soon as I'd done that, I was open to it.

"afraid of being hurt" or bored to death with what usual passes for trying to find a 'relassshionshp'?

Like men, and fancy them, but not all that into "domestic shit"?

Unconventional and waiting for a man who is your equal - might not happen if you're not middle-class and conventional?

Just some thoughts, OP.

@PonderingsRoss - I think therapy will help you shed light on this - though it's much more likely that the pattern was established well before your abusive relationship, and in your childhood and the family you grew up in. Yes, research "avoidant" attachment, and also "insecure attachment styles". But it will be in therapy and the therapeutic relationship itself that you'll get to work this through.

A good book to start: "They F* You UP" by Oliver James, who is a psychotherapist.

Possibly, Fistful. But maybe she's fine as she is too, she says she's had a "great life" the last 10 years, even if she's wondering why no relationship. Obviously she could explore this in therapy, but it doesn't mean she's wrong or at fault in some way for not going down the conventional "couple" root. She could just be different and happy being single.

Your post is well timed, Ponderings. I'm mid 40s and this is the thread I started this morning.

I almost never meet men who are interested in me - someone previously suggested to me that it was because I come across as 'not needing a man' and so, maybe, men avoid me. Certainly, no one fancies me or asks me out and didn't really once I hit mid 20s really.

I have a ridiculous crush at the moment on a married man. It's stupid. I know he is fond of me platonically but, not only does he not fancy me, he's married! And I'm friends with his wife. I wouldn't ever want him to know or suspect but it sometimes feels like I direct my affections/emotions towards unavailable men so that I have an outlet for them in the absence of a relationship and I already know nothing will come of it because they are married whereas if they were single, there would be a sense of rejection when I realised it wasn't going to go anywhere.

I'm also quite happy being single most of the time but I do sometimes wish I had someone to go home with at the end of a night out, or someone to find in the crowd. That sort of thing.

As a man, I think I experience similar. I have been single, properly single, for 6 years. In that time I've met loads of women, and I work in a female-dominated industry. But it feels like 99% are in relationships, and these are the women I get on with the best - laughing, joking, intellectual conversations... Of those women I meet who are single, I struggle to think of anything to talk about and/or I just don't fancy them. Nor have I ever felt a signal that they'd be open to me. Maybe I am self-sabotaging as well?

I do. I definitely hold Men at a distance, I always have really because of confidence issues, but it’s worse now.

I struggle with even having conversations now to the point where I feel invisible and unworthy of even being thought of as relationship material.

I only ever find myself attracted to unavailable men and I think this is deliberate on some level. They’re not available so I don’t actually have to worry about the possibility of getting in to a relationship.

Interesting, Fistful, but I had a happy, unremarkable childhood with parents in a secure marriage who are still together now, and my sister is settled down alright too.

"afraid of being hurt" or bored to death with what usual passes for trying to find a relationship Probably the former and definitely the latter.

Like men, and fancy them, but not all that into "domestic shit"? Yes, absolutely.

Unconventional and waiting for a man who is your equal - might not happen if you're not middle-class and conventional? I'm not sure I'm unconventional, but I'm not middle class. Maybe you've got it with this post.

maybe I'd set impossibly high standards Yes, I've wondered this too. My friends tell me I'm far too fussy, but honestly I just don't want to be with someone for the sake of it. I've got visions in my head of the kind of man I'd like, but he probably doesn't exist.

@PonderingsRoss - That may well be true; but I have also learned (as a therapist-in-training and a long-term recipient of therapy) that we as individuals are the least able to be accurate witnesses to our own processes.