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Are You Attracted To Someone Who's Unavailable? How To Tell + Why It Happens
Dating in the 21st century is anything but simple, when countless dating apps, chronic ghosters, and situationships abound.
According to relationship expert and licensed therapist Ken Page, LCSW, there's one major red flag he sees come up time and time again these days when his clients are dating someone new.
It's when someone is consumed with getting a person to fall for them—despite the fact that this person shows little to no real romantic interest in them. In fact, the person may be more or less emotionally unavailable, and yet still you chase them.
The psychology of chasing unavailable people.
Dating someone new can be exciting—and borderline intoxicating—thanks to all the feel-good hormones1 that are released when we're crushing hard. But sometimes, that excitement can keep us from seeing the big picture, and we fall into what Page calls an "attraction of deprivation."
According to Page, an attraction of deprivation often happens when a love interest is "almost available and almost interested and almost in love—but they never fully get there." He adds that this leads to an "incredibly addictive and compulsive kind of attraction," and one that we're all programmed to be sensitive to.
When you're dealing with an attraction of deprivation, the very nature of a person's emotional unavailability is what's actually fueling your desire. Dating then becomes about winning them over and getting their approval, as opposed to focusing on how they're really making you feel.
You can see how this dynamic can lead to sacrificing your own needs and sense of self. "You can lose yourself trying to get somebody to fall in love with you," Page explains. "It deteriorates our self-esteem in the most profound ways, because it reinforces the message, again and again, that we're not enough by just being who we are."
Signs you're attracted to someone's unavailability.
In short, Page says, if you feel like you have to work extra hard to get someone's interest or approval, "that is a serious warning sign this could very well be an attraction of deprivation."
When you're interested in someone new, Page suggests honestly asking yourself the following questions:
- Is this someone who doesn't seem like they're falling in love with you?
- Is this person inconsistent?
- Is this someone who is not available?
- Is this person shying away from connection?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, and you're becoming more and more preoccupied with trying to turn those yeses into no's, you've likely got an attraction of deprivation on your hands. The good news is, you don't have to keep putting up with it.
What to do about it.
As Page explains, "The degree to which you hyper focus on whether someone likes you is the degree to which you will self-abandon—so the task is actually to shift your focus to noticing what the 'weather' is like inside of you when you're with another person."
Checking your internal weather, so to speak, just means paying attention to how you really feel about someone, as opposed to jumping the gun to approval-seeking without even considering whether you actually like them.
After all, Page notes, someone could check all of your boxes on paper, when in actuality, you feel cold, anxious, or disheartened around them. "Dignifying your feelings about somebody is one of the most powerful ways to 'crack the spine' of your fear of rejection," he says, adding that when you can focus on your own intuition and feelings, you can overcome your fear of rejection and truly focus on yourself.
The takeaway.
Being rejected is hard, but trying to make a circle fit into a square is harder.
It can feel exhilarating to get those little breadcrumbs of validation from the object of your affection, but we shouldn't need to work overtime for a partner's approval. A healthy relationship shouldn't leave you questioning your own value or needing to prove your worth.
As Page puts it, "The goal is not to try to get a person to fall in love with you. The goal is to extricate yourself from the sticky web of trying to endlessly prove yourself."
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