How to avoid the same old pattern

[Insidelaurashead]

I am mid 30s and female, and my last proper relationship was with a narcissistic drug addict who is a crap father to his children (I'm not their mum, they're from his previous relationships) I was sucked in to a relationship with him after we had been friends for years, he had always been a lovely, kind, reliable friend and mutual friends thought he was great too. As the relationship ended I saw what he was really like and I'm now good friends with his daughters mum after asking after her once we'd split (he'd told me the little girl hated me and I wanted to check she was OK, she did not hate me!)

Anyway fast forward 3 years and I've not been near a man, I've not wanted to. I've had counselling, I've read a lot about how to spot the red flags, I read this board, I talk to friends, I've worked on myself (new hair, getting fitter, new hobbies, booking more travel, reading more) and I feel like I'm in a good place.

Three weeks ago I met a man, via a mutual friend. We've been talking a lot, voice noting constantly and I was enjoying speaking to him. He only lives round the corner and it got a bit flirty and he suggested a casual sort of friends with benefits type thing, which fits well with what I would want at this point in my life, and we arranged to meet last night. He also asked me to lend him £35 for his electric meter and, feeling he was genuine, I did. (I will say, this is around the amount I donate to charity on an average month, he doesn't know this but I 'leant' it seeing it as this months charity, helping a person I knew over a stranger)

Anyway he was coming at 7pm last night. At 6 changed the time to 9 due to some drama or other. At 9:25 told me he had just got home and was going to shower then come round and would set off in half an hour. I didn't reply to that. At 11:30 (after my supermarket shop had been delivered, which is why I stayed up!) I went to bed. I've not heard from him today and haven't contacted him.

I did contact our mutual friend to fill her in, so she's aware and can protect herself if necessary. She wasn't aware him and I were talking (fine, not her responsibility to be aware!) and she leant him £35 last week 'for a taxi'.

I've blocked him, obviously, on social media and WhatsApp. He'd previously asked for my bank details to pay me back and I gave those so if by some amazing chance he's legit he's able to pay me back, but I know he won't. I am more cross at myself for not seeing he was a scumbag from the start. I AM grateful that he didn't come round, we started some form of friendship/sex thing and then he did this months later after I'd invested more time and emotional energy.

If you've been through this sort of thing, once or twice or more, how the hell do you stop yourself falling for it again?

I think that I had a string of crap relationships because I had low self esteem and thought that I could change myself by virtue of a relationship.

I invariably sought out troubled souls whom I thought I could fix and they would then be eternally grateful to me.

Now I have a life which I am happy with which came about through getting into good habits: practicing gratitude, focusing on myself, achieving worklife balance, being a good friend/family member, having interesting hobbies.

When I sorted myself out all of my relationships became better.

Thanks for that response @TobyEsterhase a lot of that really resonates with me. I will say that I picked up that this didn't feel right a lot quicker, I put things into place from the beginning in an attempt to protect myself (like for example a lot of talk about how skint I was, whereas my ex knew I was in a semi decent financial position) so I think I have made progress, it's just frustrating that I've been taken in at all

You walked past a couple of red flags - asking you for money, changing plans last minute, not showing up. Are you in touch with yourself enough to recognise how these things made you feel? Did you feel any hint of annoyance or disappointment when he did these things? I think to get really good at spotting what’s right/wrong for you, you need to be really in tune with yourself. You might be ignoring your feelings and justifying them to yourself - ‘oh it’s not that bad, maybe he’s genuine’ etc?

@Heroicallyl0st you nailed it. I did recognise them as red flags but then thought 'oh but he does things like ask about me, listens to the answer, asks further questions to clarify, I'm allowed to have an opinion...' Green flags in a way, that my ex didn't do, that I allowed to excuse the red flags. My thought process was well, he seems nice, some people are just chaotic...

Definitely further learning for me