Why You Attract Men Who Are Bad News

I have a secret guilty pleasure and that is watching The Bachelor series. I know, I know, most of the time it is just a train wreck of ridiculously attractive men and women who have low self-esteem and very little depth to them. What amazes me over the years of working with singles that even the most seasoned self-help veterans fall into the same traps as these women who don’t know any better. They keep falling for the men who are bad for them.

Recently, the bachelorette, Ashley, fell way too fast for Bentley, the best-looking guy in the house. (I feel her pain, I’ve been there many times). She was smart, successful and seemed to be emotionally-stable and had the best intentions of finding true love. You may wonder why, out of all the great guys that wanted a relationship, did she fall for the one who was the biggest jerk?

This bad-love scenario was created by her greatest fear. Often we blame external forces or bad luck on the problematic people who show up in our lives. We like to think it is their fault for being such a bad person or that all “men are jerks.” But, you can’t believe that you create your life and at the same time think you only create the good stuff.

Some like to brush off the responsibility for their life events by justifying misfortune with labels like bad karma, meant to be or teaching them life lessons. I have a more powerful way to look at these seemingly bad scenarios. Use every event or person that shows up in your life to gauge where your attention has been. The subconscious is not logical so it does not know the difference between a wish and a fear. By default, it is programmed to draw to you experiences that mirror the strongest emotion. The emotion of your deepest fear is often stronger than your highest desire.

When you create out of fear, there is a lot of energy in your body. The emotions are stronger and often misinterpreted as love. Putting the man on a pedestal as if he is the one to fix your “single” problem only fuels your desire for him and your logic flies out the window. At the same time, he feels your desperation and can swindle you into believing he is the real deal.

Of course love is greater than fear, but fear is a programmed in by default for our survival. Humans often act out of fear more than they act out of hope. The fear of being alone, the fear of rejected, the fear of poverty, the fear of being abandoned and ultimately the fear of death is what drives people. Many want a relationship to fix the fear, not out of the true desire of sharing love. Rationally, your intention is to not have these bad experiences, but your feelings could be pulling you toward them and creating more of them just by holding that fearful feeling as your primary focus.

If you have been single for a while, you may be constantly worried that you will never meet anyone. Although your intention is to find love, the feelings you have may not be aligned with that vision. The undercurrent inside of you fears the worst case scenario versus focusing on the best case scenario and that is why it seems your love life is stuck in neutral. You keep getting what you are projecting internally as feedback in your dating life.