Why You Attract Emotionally Unavailable Men: 6 Dating Mistakes

Every man you come across seems to disappoint you, and every time you open up your heart, you end up getting hurt. All you want is someone who will love you the way you love them, so why is it that you end up with a broken heart every time you say to yourself “This time it’s going to work. He’s not like the other men I’ve dated.”?

If you’re someone who always ends up falling for emotionally unavailable men, then maybe you need to look deep within yourself and try to understand why this keeps on happening. Being with an emotionally unavailable man can be a heartbreaking thing to experience; emotional distance is not something that anybody would want in a relationship. 

You might be unintentionally and unknowingly making some dating mistakes that are drawing in emotionally unavailable men to you. But the good news is that, once you realize what it is you’re doing, you’ll be able to work on it and make sure that you finally have a man in your life who doesn’t shy away from opening up his heart to you. 

6 Reasons Why You Attract Emotionally Unavailable Men

1. You are okay with it when his words and actions don’t align with each other. 

He makes you feel like the most special person in the world and whenever you speak with him, you feel like you have hit the jackpot. For him, you’re amazing, lovely, and nothing short of perfect. Wasn’t this what you always wanted in a man? Someone who will make you feel like the most amazing person in this whole, wide world?

But the thing is, no matter how much he might flatter you by saying the right things, he never follows through with any of it. He will make grand plans with you, but will ‘never have the time’ to even meet you. He wants to go on a romantic dinner date with you but always bails at the last moment. If this keeps on happening over and over again, then it’s pretty clear that the man you are dating is emotionally unavailable. 

If he only talks the talk but never walks the walk, then, unfortunately, he is not interested in you nor is he keen on being in a serious relationship with you. It might also mean that he is keeping you as his side chick, for the times when he will need his ego to be stroked. 

Related: 10 Reasons Why Your Man Avoids Getting Emotionally Attached To You

2. You feel you can ‘change’ him into a ‘better’ man.

Whenever you have this thought, that you can ‘fix’ a man and transform him into who YOU need him to be, then take it as a sign that you’re with the wrong person. There are many women out there who believe that they can change emotionally unavailable men into men who are well…not emotionally unavailable, but this is where they go wrong. And if you’re one of them, then you’re in for a rude shock. 

Men who don’t want to change will never change, no matter how hard you try. An emotionally detached man who doesn’t want to engage with you emotionally, no amount of coaxing or fixing can make them do that. The only person who can make him more emotionally unavailable is the man himself. 

Deep down inside, if he doesn’t want to be emotionally open with you, and give you that important place in his life, no power in this world can change that. Unless he decides that he WANTS to change, there’s really nothing you can do, and the more you try, the more disappointed you will be.

3. You think just because he’s attracted to you, he wants to be committed to you. 

This is a mistake a lot of women make, misjudging a man’s attraction as his willingness to be in a serious relationship with them. Even though this is not a weird, inappropriate, or unnatural reaction, to be honest, sometimes thinking like this too soon is not necessarily the right way to go. 

He might be attracted to you, but that doesn’t mean that he wants to be in a relationship with you. Men have the ability to separate sex from emotional intimacy, and they can sleep with you without having any sort of deep feelings for you. So assuming that just because they are physically attracted to you, they might also be emotionally attached to you, can be a misconception. Especially when it comes to emotionally unavailable men. 

So yeah, he might take you out on dates every weekend, but sadly, this might not mean much, except that he is just physically attracted to you. And if you don’t understand this dynamic and keep on expecting something else from him, you are the one who is going to end up with a broken heart.

So what should you do in a situation like this? Accept the fact that the physical and emotional aspects in the equation might not be related at all. An emotionally detached man can sleep with you without having any feelings for you whatsoever, so it’s better not to get your hopes up just after going on a few dates. 

Related: 5 Common Dating Rules That Make You Attract Unavailable Partners

4. You ignore all the glaring red flags because you desperately want to be in a relationship with him. 

All the red flags are in front of you and are screaming at you to take notice. But you’re so smitten by him and blinded by your need to be in a relationship with him, that you keep on ignoring them.

Some of the disturbing red flags that you should never ignore are as follows:

• He never introduces you to his family and friends and treats you like a secret. 
• He cancels on you often, even if he is the one who made plans to see you.
• He is very charismatic and is a smooth-talker. 
• He gets nervous and agitated whenever you try to talk to him about the future. 
• He gets angry at the drop of a hat. 
• He can be very controlling whenever you try to stand up for yourself and try to talk about what you expect from him. 
• He ghosts you for long periods of time and then comes back suddenly as if nothing happened.  
• He tells you that he is not very good with serious relationships, and would rather just be friends with benefits.

If you find these red flags or even some of these red flags then you should run and never look back, because this kind of a man will never give you what you’re looking for. Emotionally unavailable men only care about their own needs, and they could care less about your happiness. 

These red flags should be enough to make you understand that the man you’re pining for is never going to give you the love you’re looking for. So do yourself a favor, and stop ignoring these humongous red flags. 

5. You think he is adventurous and spontaneous, whereas he just doesn’t care to make an effort. 

Sometimes what you might mistake as romance and adventure is only just a lack of effort. When a man is genuinely interested in you and sees a future with you, he will want to spend all of his time with you; it’s that simple. But if he’s not, then he is not really interested in you as much as you’re in him. 

Emotionally unavailable men are experts at disguising their lack of effort and disinterest as spontaneity and romance. Did he ask you out on a date after two weeks of radio silence? He suddenly turned up at your place late at night, because he wasn’t feeling good and just wanted to ‘talk’? He ‘surprised’ you with a gift that blew you away, despite the fact that he ignored all your calls and texts through the weekend?

Such men know how to keep you wrapped around their fingers. It’s not that he is incapable of making an effort, he just doesn’t want to make an effort for YOU. He only cares about his own needs, and he knows you can fulfill them, so he gives you crumbs and keeps you on the hook. Once he realizes that you would be willing to do anything for him, and you don’t need much to be happy, he will use that to his advantage and treat you like a doormat.

Since you’re doing everything he needs without even being his girlfriend, he will continue treating you badly with some sprinkles of ‘romance’ thrown in. He will never give you the relationship you expect from him because, in his eyes, you’re not a ‘challenge’ he needs to win, and hence not ‘worth his time’.

Want to know more about emotionally unavailable men? Check this video out below!

6. You fall for him despite knowing he will never be in a relationship with you. 

He has told you explicitly that he is not looking for a relationship right now, and he is just looking to have fun. But you still fall for him and get attached. One of the major signs that you’ve fallen for an emotionally unavailable man is when he clearly tells you that he is not looking for a relationship, but you still expect one. 

You might think that he might change his mind with time, and that’s why you held onto him, but chances are he won’t. Whenever a man tells you honestly that he doesn’t want anything serious with you, believe him! Don’t think that you will be able to change his mind and a few months later, BAM! He wants you as his girlfriend. It doesn’t work like that with emotionally unavailable men.

There’s no point hurting yourself and getting your heart broken by a man who has already told you that he has got nothing to offer you. Whenever he says anything that is meant to keep you at an arm’s distance, believe it and try not to get attached to him. The only one who is going to suffer is you. 

Related: Loving An Emotionally Detached Man

Falling for emotionally unavailable men is a mistake many women tend to make. Even though you might have your heart in the right place, that won’t change how they think. So why invest your time and energy in someone who will only give you pain and disappointment? Love and respect yourself enough to know who deserves your love, and who doesn’t.