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.

When I saw the episode of The Bachelorette, the situation inspired me to write this article. Ashley feared that the guy she was attracted to wouldn’t like her back. She feared that he wished she was the other girl from last season. She said this over and over in her interviews. Instead of focusing on finding true love, her energy was more focused on being rejected. Out of all the nice guys, she picked the one guy that fulfilled her biggest fear. And…she created a monster.

The good news is that you can start to look at these situations and take responsibility for them. You can ask yourself, what have I been focused on to generate this experience? If you are truly honest with yourself, you will see the pattern of energy that drew that cheating or unavailable man or your dateless weekends. Identify your biggest fear about your relationship life and you will see how you have been manifesting your love problems all along.

Don’t use this realization as a way to beat yourself up, but to empower you to shift your feelings so you can create what you do want instead of being the victim of circumstance. Although fear is the default, you can retrain your habit of feeling. Daily visualization engaging the feeling of love and coupling that with conscious awareness of your feelings throughout the day will make a huge impact on the type of men (or women) you attract into your life.

Within 90 days, you can get into a new habit of feeling so that is more natural for you to be hopeful rather than discouraged. The challenge is not to let outside influences shake your center and suck you back in to the old negativity. Learning this takes practice, but is worth all the wonderful rewards. Being able to shift your energy from fear to hope can be done.

It is too early in the season to see if Ashley will get out of “fear mode” and really engage in the feelings of true love so that she can be drawn to the man that will deliver that for her. I wish I could tell her what I am telling you now. You are now armed with the inside secret of attraction so you won’t fall for the same trap again. You can begin today by changing your focus and you will be amazed at how powerful you are.

Thank the jerks for making you aware of your misalignment and let them go. As you refocus your energy, a new, wonderful man (or woman) will be drawn to you.