The Real Reasons You Keep Falling For All The Wrong Guys

You probably feel like you fall for the wrong guys over and over again. It’s as if you’re in a vacuum and there’s no escaping these toxic dudes because they’re everywhere you turn. Turns out, you can only break the cycle if you figure out why it’s happening in the first time.

  1. You’re unsure of your worth. If you don’t know just how worthy you are of being loved, respected, and treated like a queen then you’ll continue to fall for the wrong guys. It’s only when you’re able to clearly see who are and what you deserve that you’ll make the necessary changes to avoid all the wrong dudes going forward.
  2. You’ve yet to learn your lesson. With the end of every relationship, especially bad ones, we’re supposed to learn a lesson—or several. However, some people don’t. As the quote that’s often wrongly attributed to Einstein says, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Never learning your lesson is basically insanity.
  3. You’re addicted to the drama. Listen, some of us love the drama that comes with wrong guys, bad boys, and human forms of the devil. I get it! I’ve been there! But once you recognize that it’s the drama that feeds you, then maybe you’ll steer clear of the wrong guys—or, even better, admit you’re addicted to the drama and quit complaining about how you end up with wrong guys.
  4. You think you can change him. Super fun fact about people, men especially: You can’t change them. Like no way in hell. If you happen to start falling for someone you know is totally wrong for you and think you can change them so they’re suddenly right for you, you will be seriously disappointed… and still end up with someone wrong for you because that dude isn’t changing. Ever.
  5. You’re clueless about what you want. If you’re not sure what you want, either in life or in relationships, then you definitely can’t accurately choose a partner that’s right for you. You have to have an idea of what your future looks like, who want in it, and how you want that person to be. If you don’t have those things, then you’ll continue to choose the wrong guys.
  6. You ignore the red flags. Every “wrong” guy comes with a buttload of red flags, but for many of us, whether it’s because he’s hot, charming, funny, smart, or all of the above, we’re willing to overlook the red flags. The problem is we shouldn’t overlook them at all. We shouldn’t even just make a mental note of them. We should see them, realize what they are, and slowly back out of the situation. Similar to thinking you can change someone, if you see a red flag and ignore it, it’s like you’re assuming or hoping it will just go away. It won’t.
  7. You have a savior complex. You can’t save every messed up guy out there—and as humans, there are a lot of them. If you have some sort of Florence Nightingale thing swimming around your veins, with an urge to pick up the scrappiest of the scraps in the hopes of saving them either from themselves or their circumstances, then you’re doing it wrong. You don’t look around the room for the most wounded bird and swoop in to the save the day because you’re going to lose.
  8. You don’t have the best male role models. Apparently, as we get older, we tend to date people who are more and more like our parents. That means if you’re a straight woman, you’re going to date a man who’s like your dad. The problem is that if your dad wasn’t around or wasn’t a positive male figure in your life, you’re going to struggle to find the right guy in a sea of wrong guys. Because of your past and how you were raised, you just might be drawn to the wrong guys because they’re a subconscious reminder of your dad or because you’re looking for things that you shouldn’t be looking for because no one taught you otherwise.
  9. You fear being alone. One of the major reasons you fall for the wrong guy? Easy: You fear being alone. When we fear ending up alone, growing old alone, or even being alone in the present, we automatically overlook instances that we normally wouldn’t and forgive things that we shouldn’t. It is, for the sake of argument, settling. No one ever got anywhere (at least not happily) by settling.
Amanda Chatel is a sexual health, mental health, and wellness journalist with more than a decade of experience. Her work has been featured in Shape, Glamour, SELF, Harper's Bazaar, The Atlantic, Forbes, Elle, Mic, Men's Health and Bustle, where she was a lifestyle writer for seven years. In 2019, The League included Amanda in their "15 Inspirational Feminists Every Single Person Should Follow on Twitter" list.

Amanda has a bachelor's degree in English and master's degree in Creative Writing from the University of New Hampshire. She divides her time between NYC, Paris, and Barcelona.

You can follow her on Instagram @la_chatel or on Twitter @angrychatel.
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