In this video, Matthew AI introduces a discussion with Audrey, Ruby, and another speaker about why many people repeatedly choose emotionally unavailable partners and struggle to leave them. The conversation identifies several psychological drivers: a scarcity mindset that makes any chemistry feel valuable; self‑esteem economics where a partner’s lack of interest inflates their perceived worth and reinforces feelings of unworthiness; fear of vulnerability that keeps people in limbo; misallocation of the need for companionship at the expense of other values like integrity and personal nourishment; cultural narratives from movies that glorify the chase and the ‘high‑intensity’ push‑pull dynamic of unavailable partners. Ruby and Audrey also note that the rush of intermittent attention creates a euphoric high that can become addictive. The speakers argue that learning to feel fulfilled while single, rebalancing personal values, and confronting deep‑seated loops of self‑worth are essential steps to break the pattern. Throughout, Matthew AI promotes an upcoming six‑day in‑person retreat in Fort Lauderdale (Oct 9‑15) designed to help participants work through these underlying patterns and build confidence in love and life.
Questions this video answers
October 9–15 (six days).
Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
mhrtreat.com (also shown as mHretreat.com).
Chapters
And so when we meet someone who has certain qualities that make them likable, especially when those qualities include chemistry, we find ourselves very quickly attaching a lot of value to someone, regardless of the things that make them a bad candidate for a long term relationship. Before we get going with the video, a quick bit of news. We now have a date for the next in-person retreat of mine in Florida is going to be October from the 9th to the 15th. We're going to spend six days together working on the biggest challenges of your life. The things that hold you back, the things that make it hard for you to feel confident, the things that get in the way of you dating and finding love. What are the deeper patterns that have been there a long time that you feel are impossible to shift? Those are the things we're going to work on together. You can come and apply by going to mhrtrtreat.com youm'll see all of the information about the program. I really do hope to see you there in October so that we can spend six days together in person. Now on to the video.
I'll kick things off with one which was from somebody called Miss Ruby and she said that her pattern was choosing unavailable partners and then not being able to leave them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Choosing unavailable partners. Why do we choose unavailable partners? It's worth exploring some of the, the cocktail of reasons that we actually do that. Because, of course, the being unable to leave thing, it's, there are, there are things that make it harder for us to leave when, you know, we have a certain attachment style or We don't think we're worth more, but also just when you allow yourself to get closer to someone, naturally it's hard to leave. So it's worth exploring why we even get close to people like this in the first place and make it hard for ourselves to leave. So one of the reasons is scarcity. We have a scarcity mindset in our love lives. We are in a place where maybe we've been single for a long time, where nothing's worked out so far, where we are scared that we're not going to meet someone we like. And so when we meet someone who has certain qualities that make them likable, that especially when those qualities include chemistry, you know, we have chemistry with this person, we find ourselves very quickly attaching a lot of value to someone regardless of the things that make them a bad candidate for a long-term relationship, which might include they openly say they don't want a long-term relationship, might include them being someone who from the beginning seems there's something off about them or you catch them in a lie. It might be someone who doesn't text you for days or weeks on end. and then all of a sudden wants your time in a very kind of extreme and intense way. When we see these things, we ignore them when we feel something and we just, we're glad to be feeling something. Now, how often does that happen? We're just happy to be feeling something. We're just happy to have something.
And the thing is, I think that sounds, it's a beautiful thing to want companionship, but in a weird way, this comes back to a thing Audrey says a lot about chasing the wrong things. but you can sometimes just chase a singular thing too much, like companionship. And you've put in the furniture of the room of what's important to you, you've put companionship as the centerpiece, but you've forgot all these other things or you shrunk them like my integrity, my feeling of feeling nourished and loved, my feeling of being able to have the kind of team and partnership that I've dreamed of. And that all shrinks because you go, companionship though, I'm with someone. It gives me validation. It looks good on the outside because someone goes, oh, you're with that person. That's good. And I think it's like you've you've misallocated. You've got one thing that's taking up too much space, which is just, oh, I'm with someone. I don't feel lonely anymore. which is why we do so much work on making you feel amazing and nourished being single, because that is the key to being able to let go of those things. I think it's Guy Winch who says when you're trying to get over a breakup, you gotta emphasize all the things you're gaining by not being with that person and all the things you were losing by staying with them.
Well, this person, I think both of these things come from just fear. to me where, you know, choosing someone, an unavailable partner, it's like that's a way to just never really fully feel like you need to put yourself out there. It's like, well, they're not really available anyways, so it's not. It's not me if they're. If I get rejected. And the same thing with leaving. Well, it's like you're putting yourself in limbo there. Someone's kind of unavailable. I'm gonna kind of stay. I'm gonna kind of not go, and I'm just not going to be truly vulnerable with this person in front of me. Or I'm not going to be truly vulnerable, not with the person, but just with love life in general.
I've got a question. When people say emotionally unavailable, do they just mean someone who won't commit or is there something else people are referring to?
I think they mean someone who won't commit. I think it's not being ready and not able to give what is required in order to be in a relationship. You know, it's when for all this stuff, I think what's really interesting is that it's You know, I think we're forgetting one big crucial piece, which is self-esteem and the sort of economics of someone not wanting to be with you and what that makes you feel in terms of your worth versus their worth. And it's something we've talked about a million times before, but, yeah, I think that that's a huge part of why we kind of end up chasing people who don't want us, because by the default of them not wanting us, their stock rises, their value rises, and we just end up kind of, it reaffirms the fact that if we're not able to get that person, then we're not worthy. And people who kind of turn around to meet us and actually want to be with us, we almost go, well, if you want to be with me, there must be sort of like, you know, your value must not be as high as I think it is, because I don't think that I'm, worthy of love. It's a very deep reason, but I think it's actually probably one of the main reasons why we, because healthy people with healthy sense of self and healthy kind of, what's the word? Healthy self-worth, I suppose, find people who don't want them to be kind of like, oh, well, that's a dead end and that's not very attractive. I want to be with someone who actually wants to be with me. And I think when people really chase after people who don't want them. That tends to be that, you know, they're probably trying to close a loop that is, you know, predates that person and is very, very deep and very old.
It's like a mistaken perception of the value of love being in acquiring a prize instead of the value of it is what you both are gonna build together.
And maybe that's actually to do with also movies and stuff like that, where all of love stories are always about kind of overcoming this major obstacle or. you know, taming the beast or making sure that somebody like making somebody love you rather than like what happens after people get together and you're just in a relationship in a normal regular relationship and that part's never really glamorized in the same way. So the sort of the peaks are the things that we almost chase after because we think that's love and we recognize that as passion. And maybe then emotionally unavailable people as a result feel like the epitome of that and the epitome of acquiring love.
Yeah. No, that's right. There's an intensity to chasing someone that feels unavailable and then the feeling you get when they give you a little bit of attention. It feels like a rush. You know, it's. It's exciting. It's euphoric. It's this huge release. It's not a normal feeling that you have in a stable relationship. so if you live your life chasing that feeling, you're gonna have to keep going and getting those highs in people like that where it's push pull all the time. It's not, there's no sense of just, oh, there's a, there's a piece to this. Peace doesn't necessarily feel exciting. And if exciting is what you're always driving towards, if that's the thing you value the most, then you'll be attracted to situations that create those kinds of feelings. Thank you so much for watching the video. Before you go, the MH retreat is happening again this October. It is from the 9th to the 15th. It's taking place in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We normally have more tickets left by this stage. There's less than normal. So if you know you want to come, if you want to do that deep work that is going to allow you to have a successful love life and be happy in yourself. You need to be there with us. Go to mHretreat.com to get your ticket and to find out all about the event and I'll see you in the next video. Thanks for watching.
