Why We Chase the Wrong Relationships and Reject Healthy Ones

A real relationship is choosing. You actually have to choose. You have to choose a real human being, not a mystery human being, not an exciting human being that you can't quite see their flaws because they're too far in the distance, they're too dis, too removed from you. A real relationship is you actually have to choose a human being and every human being is flawed.

We have somebody else who wrote in and her pattern was that she finds something wrong with everyone. And I think that is so common. We hear it all the time. Tends to go hand in hand with, you know, chasing unavailable people and being repulsed by people who actually want to be with us.

Yeah, yeah. I, I think that there's this really interesting dichotomy. I know we spoke to someone recently in one of our programs who said, anytime I When someone's making me chase them, I have this certainty. And when someone is into me, I find myself constantly doubting whether they're right for me.

And.

What that can do is it can make the same person look like they're anxiously attached when they're chasing someone. but avoidant when someone wants them. And to me, there's a really interesting thing going on there, whereby when someone is making us chase them, we don't really have any bandwidth to evaluate their flaws. We're just so busy trying to get them. You can think of that with anything in life. When a goal seems hard to achieve, or whatever, you don't have to worry about whether it's the right thing. You're just like, but let me just achieve it, 'cause I don't know if I can. And then I think that's why a lot of us, when we achieve our goals, we find ourselves going, oh, like this was the thing. This was what I was doing all this time. There's a certainty about chasing something, 'cause it's all consuming. And it's the same with people. There's a certainty about chasing people. You don't have to ask if they're right for you. You just want to make sure they want you. And when someone wants you, you've suddenly got all this energy freed up because you're no longer consumed by trying to get them. They want you. So all of a sudden, you've got all this bandwidth to assess them, to look at what's wrong with them, to look at their flaws, to inspect them up close. and all of a sudden all this doubt comes in because you're actually looking at all of those things. And now you're forced to actually make a decision. There's agency to that. We think we want agency, but a lot of the time we don't. We think, oh, I just want to be able to choose what I want for dinner tonight. But sometimes there's nothing more rewarding than a friend coming along and saying, I really fancy Indian tonight. and you're like, Phew, I don't have to decide between the 20 different cuisines on my app right now.

You're not like that. You like to scroll the app for hours, sometimes days, before finding. Yeah, but that's- Before landing on one of the three things you always order.

I'm gonna come by and order for you tonight, just like old times.

Yeah, I quite like that. Yeah, you do?

I do like when someone expresses a strong opinion, like, oh, I really fancy this. And then it takes the weight off of me having to decide. Because in relationships, When this happens, it takes the weight off of us having to figure out whether someone is right for us. And that is a heavy weight. When you're thinking, who do I want to spend my life with? We're not talking about what to order for dinner tonight. We're talking about my life. Who am I going to spend it with? Most people don't trust themselves on day-to-day decisions, let alone a decision about who to be with forever. so the stakes feel really high. And weirdly, the stakes, you don't think about those Stakes when you're chasing someone. You just think about whether, whether you can get them. And that's why, for anyone out there listening right now, if you find that you're anxiously attached with people that make you chase them and you feel avoidant with people that want you, I believe that that is, this goes to the heart. of why that is for so many people. You don't have to decide with someone who's not sure about you, but you do have to decide with someone who wants you. And when you don't trust yourself, when someone wants you, you can't get out of your doubt. Because really, it's a doubt about your own choices. It goes beyond a doubt about them. and that's ultimately a real relationship is choosing. Chasing someone all the time who doesn't want you, isn't sure about you, who doesn't want to commit. That's a fake relationship. A real relationship is choosing. You actually have to choose. You have to choose a real human being, not a mystery human being, not an exciting, you know, human being that you can't quite see their flaws because they're too far in the distance. They're too dis, too removed from you. A real relationship is actually have to choose a human being and every human being is flawed. Every single one of them has something, whether it's something physical, whether it's something psychological, whether it's something in their history, a problem in the present that they have to deal with, a challenge in their future. Every single human being is flawed and has a flawed life. And I feel like that's truly the moment where you realize you're ready for a relationship, is when you're ready to choose flaws.

You mentioned the other day that Christopher Hitchens quote, you, have to choose your regrets in life. And you've never used it in this context before, but it's kind of interesting here. You have to choose your regrets in a person in life. You're going to choose a person and the person is going to come with flaws. The choice is going to come with regrets. I don't know if that's the right word, but it's some lack of perfection. And growing up, I think, is realizing like life ain't going to be perfect. People are not perfect and your choices aren't even really perfect. Everything's super gray and fuzzy.

Yeah.

And yeah, but choosing is pretty powerful. And once you actually choose, you can kind of use that as more energy to put into the choice.

Well, and nothing imbues something with more meaning than choosing it. Right. When you when you actually when something didn't choose you, when you choose it, you know, I was I was speaking to someone who was considering having a child on her own. And she actually had a person in her life who was smitten with her and wanted a child with her. And she felt like it was this very, very difficult choice between, like, she felt it made the choice harder that there's this person that wants to do it with her, wants to marry her and have a family that she didn't feel was right for her, and that she was giving up a family with this guy in order to have a child on her own. and what I said is, you know, in an interesting way, this actually gives it more meaning. You having a child on your own, because you're not saying there's. There's not another option. So I'm gonna do this. You're saying there is another option, but I'm still gonna do this. That gives it even more meaning because you're just you. You. That your story is deciding to do this because. you real, this wasn't right for you over here. This person, even though it represented a traditional family unit, wasn't right for you. So you having a child on your own was right for you. And anytime you don't have to be in that kind of a position to just be choosing a person and saying, if I could choose lots of different.

People.

Then, and all of them are flawed. then the flaws that I do choose have real meaning. Because what they represent is, oh, they're attached to someone who has things that are extremely important to me. What they have is that important to me. And that's why I'm choosing this. The mistake people make when they choose people who make their lives truly miserable is that the qualities they're choosing are actually, you know, the qualities they're choosing are not qualities that create long-term peace and happiness. They are the qualities they're ignoring someone's flaws because someone has a lot of Charisma. They're ignoring someone's flaws because they have a lot of success or because they're really attractive. Those aren't things that create long term happiness or peace. So when we are choosing our flawed person, we better make sure that the things we're choosing are things that create long term happiness, not things that just create short term thrills. Thanks so much for watching. If you haven't already, go check out my free training dating with results. If finding your person is a priority for you this year, If your love life is something that you are sick and tired of waiting on, you want it to happen now so that you can enjoy it, go to DatingWithResults.com It is a free training that gives you a roadmap. Go check it out at DatingWithResults.com.