THE JOURNAL
Illustration by Mr Anthony Eslick
There is nothing inherently wrong with being single. (This isn’t a targeted ad, aimed at any of the men that I’ve previously dated – in fact, being single can be a very healthy, fulfilling and important experience.) However, if you crave a relationship or a deeper connection with someone, but find yourself a) with a forever revolving bedroom door, b) having lots of very intense but short-lived relationships, or c) avoiding dating at all costs, it might be worth digging a bit deeper and explore the patterns that haunt your romantic life.
We can be quick to label people with certain behavioural patterns as toxic or narcissistic. But avoiding or sabotaging relationships is more complex than that, and likely to be a result of our individual life experiences. Mr Todd Baratz is a certified sex therapist, licensed individual and couples’ psychotherapist whose Instagram grid can transform your dating experiences. He is fighting a one-man battle against this kind of reductive categorisation. “It’s crucial for us to reevaluate how we approach attachment and connection, as the current binary categorisations of phobic, avoidant or anxious oversimplify the complexities involved,” he says.
Taking the bigger picture into account is essential for understanding ourselves and others. “Early childhood trauma can have a big impact on an individual’s ability to form secure and trusting attachments,” Baratz says. Certain defences such as creating emotional distance, avoiding intimacy and even wrecking relationships may all come from a learnt mechanism of self-protection due to childhood events or unstable primary relationships.
With expert advice, here we break down five self-destructive patterns and suggest how to deal with them before they can tank a relationship.
01.
Getting scared – and how to overcome it
Fear is a huge part of dating. “Dating inherently involves insecurity and risk-taking,” Baratz says. Past experiences and battle scars might also be sending our systems into red alert when it comes to opening up to another.
Mr David Chambers is a dating and intimacy coach for men. He shares that while dating, he once told the woman he was seeing that he loved her, and her immediate response was to end the relationship. It might sound horrifying, but he explained that surviving your worst fear has its own empowerment. “You learn you can survive them, and express what you feel without an attachment to the response,” he says.
Taking small risks and communicating your feelings at each stage is huge for building confidence and deepening intimacy with another.
02.
Train yourself to avoid swiping addiction
Stats from Tinder in 2023 help explain a key issue that men using dating apps often face. On average, men have a 0.5 per cent of getting a match on Tinder. It means that the primal need to avoid rejection can often take over.
“Dating apps are a buffer against rejection, they promise to remove rejection to a degree, but allow humans to be superficial without any shame,” Chambers says. “It’s a system that can compare and contrast people very easily, using apps is like playing computer games, it becomes something you can win or lose.”
We have to learn how not to take rejection personally, Chambers advises. “Every time someone says no to you, they are saying yes to themselves,” he says. Quite simply, it’s not all about us.
03.
Don’t go looking for trouble
Finding flaws in the person we are dating is a defence mechanism that we can often turn to. It might be as small as being annoyed by the way they eat, or as big as assuming that they don’t want what you want from life – before you’ve even asked. Chamber’s highlights this pattern: “You start to find a problem and focus on the problem, and become consumed and over focused by this little problem,” he says.
Overcoming this really comes down to training your mind. If you’re nervous about getting into a relationship, your brain might be looking for excuses to get you out of it. However, escalating someone’s flaws or projecting them into the future rarely helps.
“When you start to think something is wrong with the relationship, ask yourself, is this really actually a problem?” Chambers says. “Did they say that or am I assuming? Can I talk to them about it?”
And, so what if there are somethings you don’t like about the other person, he adds. “There can be a level of perfectionism or being highly critical that is often directed at self and then directed at others. And some of it is just learning and practising acceptance by letting go of some of the meaning attached to these things.”
04.
Blowing hot and cold?
Because we are complex beings, it is possible to want one thing, but for our actions to indicate another. Chambers shares that creating distance and then leaning back in to feel close was an unconscious habit he has previously been in. Hearing that someone he genuinely cared about wasn’t going to tolerate it was a wake-up call.
Many of our behaviours are completely unconscious and can come from deep places relating to our childhoods. If the yearning for a deeper connection with another is in you, but you find yourself in destructive cycles, it might be time to talk to a therapist.
05.
Stop avoiding the serious stuff
Does any hint of a serious conversation send you running out the room, only after accusing your date of being “needy”? Or could it be that having to worry about another person’s feelings feels claustrophobic? Honest communication opens us up to conflict. However, if you have avoidant tendencies, this could feel impossible.
“I always recommend that when something becomes important and meaningful to you, to find a way to communicate in a space where somewhere can listen to you,” Chambers says. We don’t have to tell the person we are dating every single doubt, fear or frenzied thought that crosses our mind (again, call your therapist). But practising communication from the very start can change everything.
What’s more, beginning a relationship under those terms means that when big stuff comes up, the relationship has the capacity to withstand it.
