Taking Ownership & Avoiding Bad Choices

Baring my soul in public this way is not only helping me learn to be at peace with myself and who I am; it is helping me take ownership of my writing through the practice of writing in the first person.

Writing in the first person has always been hard for me. I prefer writing in the third person; being an observer rather than a participant is more comfortable for me I suspect. When I started this blog it was very hard for me to learn to say me, my and I in place of they and them. Perhaps I’m conditioned to expect ridicule for feeling a certain way about something. Feelings are kind of hard to own up to sometimes.

I am finding that the more I write about how I feel about things, the less weird I look and the more boring I seem. My thoughts and feelings really aren’t all that earth shattering even written in the first person.

The one thing that strikes me though is how hard it is to break out of the hardened muddy ruts once you’ve driven the old Jeep down this slippery slope. Now that I know my weaknesses for things that aren’t good for me, namely emotionally unavailable men, how do I change the pattern of behavior that draws me to that type of men? How do I spot an emotionally unavailable man out of a crowd so I can remove him from consideration?

Well, I did what I always do when I want to know something, I Googled it, “How to Spot Emotionally Unavailable Men,” and this is what I found (and I’m only including those which apply to me either now or in the past; you can Google it for the rest of them):

How to spot emotionally unavailable men

He’s very reliant on text messages, IMing and email for the majority of his contact.

They’re ambiguous about the status of the relationship.

You’re not sure when you’ll hear from him next, even though you’ve been dating them for a while.

You think you’re in a relationship, but it’s closer to a booty call.

He says stuff like, "If only the timing was different, you’d be the perfect girlfriend" or "If only things were different I’d definitely marry you." ("Hurry up and marry me so I can end this online dating madness.")

When you try to tackle the status of your relationship or any issues, he either tells you what you want to hear and then returns to his normal behavior or he just skirts the issue. One way or the other, you wind up back at square one.

He lives with his ex (they are just good friends, right? bahahahaha)

He admits that he is dating multiple women continuously.

He doesn’t call when he’s supposed to. Ever.

He’s one big walking excuse. (Has an excuse for every damn thing.)

You feel empty after you sleep with him.

He creeps out after sleeping with you even though you’ve been together for a while.

He has a stringent routine that he just won’t deviate from.

He is resistant to involving himself in your life.

He determines the momentum of the relationship – you meet up when he wants to meet up.

He never refers to you as a girlfriend, partner or any form of significant other.

He uses sex as his way of demonstrating his so-called emotion.

There are pockets of time when he seems to just disappear, and then he resurfaces with little or no explanation.

It feels like he blows hot and cold.

He’s quick out the gate in pursuing you, gets your attention, and then goes into a slow canter. (stagnant relationship)

He tells you that he has a lot of issues that he needs to deal with.

He actually says, "I’m not ready for a relationship," but is still with you .(hangin' around)

He can’t commit to anything, no matter how minuscule – everything that he’s asked, such as whether he can do something with you is a big drama to get him to say yay or nay.

He may try and sleep with you on the first night.

In every single case when I’ve found myself connected to an emotionally unavailable romantic interest, at least one of these scenarios has been in play. I didn’t recognize these things as the red flags that they are. Now that I can identify some of the warning signs, I need to attach a shock collar to keep me away from the dawgs.

I realize that there is one single behavior I could change about myself which would act as that shock collar. I need to change my old fashioned ways and stop refusing to call men when they give me their phone number. I am really shy about calling anyone, not just men. I simply don’t like to initiate phone calls. But most especially, I don’t like calling men. So, I guess I will practice on that one the next time a guy asks me to call him. It is NOT going to be easy. This is a life-long behavior. But I quit smoking and if I can do that, I can do anything! Send me your number, please!