How many times have you asked yourself why your wonderful friend is dating a total a-hole? How many times have you yourself dated serious losers? Probably more than you can count on one hand (or both, to be honest). So why is this is so common among amazing women?
- We’re insecure and underestimate our own greatness. Why is it so much easier to see the positive qualities in other people than it is to see them in ourselves? We might wonder why our beautiful, quirky, interesting friend settles for dating guys that are less than deserving of her, but how often do we ask that same question about ourselves? We often date guys that suck because we don’t necessarily believe we deserve better.
- We make a habit of it. Once we start dating losers, it can be difficult to break that cycle, no matter how wonderful you are. Guys who know that we’re way out of their league will often say things to keep our self-esteem low and make us believe that we deserve to date people as terrible as them, even when that couldn’t be farther from the truth. It’s a vicious circle and we let it happen.
- We don’t know how to demand what we deserve. Because we sometimes struggle with a lack of confidence, it can be hard to approach guys that will actually meet our standards. We’re so used to accepting whatever scraps we’re thrown that demanding more just doesn’t come naturally. The more confident we are, the easier it’ll be to get out of this rut.
- We feel like we don’t deserve happiness for some reason. This could be because of a negative experience in our past, a mistake we’ve made, or a decision we regret. Whatever the case, we punish ourselves and think we deserve to be unhappy or that we should count ourselves lucky for not being totally miserable. It’s time to forgive ourselves and realize we’re good people who deserve good things.
- Our trust issues lead us to guys we know will let us down because we hate surprises. Because we’ve been screwed over one too many times by guys, sometimes we gravitate towards toxic ones that we know will only disappoint us again because we’d rather know what we’re dealing with than get our hopes up with a potentially good guy. Again, this is often a self-fulfilling prophecy and hard to escape.
- We think we need to change ourselves if we want to meet “The One.” One of our biggest insecurities is our appearance, and we feel like we need to lose weight, change our hair, fix our nose or whatever else to be the “perfect” woman if we want to land a decent guy. What we often fail to remember is that the right guy will love us just as we are and changing ourselves is unnecessary and reductive.
- We’re stuck in a life rut so we date guys on our level. Sure, it may seem like we’re doing well for ourselves in our careers or that we’re reaching all kinds of goals from an outside perspective, but if we know we’re actually NOT killing it, we’re more likely to date terrible guys in order to avoid confronting all the stuff we’re brushing under the rug. Instead of working on ourselves and bettering ourselves, we date guys who won’t make us feel guilty for ignoring those crucial things.
- We’re missing something else in life and using guys as a band-aid. Sometimes, a new guy (no matter how terrible he is) is the perfect distraction or a temporary band-aid when something else is missing in our lives. Maybe our careers aren’t quite going according to plan or we’re unhappy with something else going on in life, but whatever it is, that emptiness could be the reason we settle for a loser even when we deserve an incredible guy. Hopefully one day soon we’ll see the light.
