3 Tragic Habits Of Women Who Push Men Away, According To Psychology
Your fear of him drifting away can push him out completely.
Nicolas Menijes | Canva When you meet a new guy you like and feel major attraction to, it's easy to wonder if he feels the same way. But in your eagerness to learn how to get this guy to like you or to make him chase you, you might be appearing desperate and pushing him away.
Here are three tragic habits of women who push men away:
1. Always initiating contact with him
When he's always on your mind, it's natural to want to let him know it. If you find yourself doing any of the following more often than he does, it's a red flag:
- Calling him because you heard or read about something interesting, or because you knew there was a great band playing somewhere, or someone told you about some great event you want to invite him to.
- Calling to ask why he hasn’t called you.
- E-mailing him, texting him, Facebooking him, sending him a cute card, dropping by his house, or in any way attempting to initiate some kind of contact.
- Asking him how he feels — especially asking him how he feels about you or the relationship.
- Inviting him to come and join you, or in any way acting like the social director of the relationship.
At first glance, these actions might seem completely harmless. You may feel he just sees you as being friendly, maybe even take it as a compliment, and want to get closer to you. But doing any of these things more than he does could be scaring him away.
2. Letting insecurity drive your interaction
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At best, when most men feel pursued, they’ll feel they don’t have to work to win you over and will immediately drop their efforts. At worse, he'll start to feel more than just pursued.
If you keep checking in with him in those friendly little ways that are really about getting the reassurance you need, he’ll start to get that chased feeling. And he’ll do what anyone would do when feeling crowded, smothered, or pressured — he’ll start moving away from you.
Whether you realize it or not, the urge to do all of these friendly things comes from just one place — your fear of losing a man by failing to let him know you’re interested in him, this is often from an insecure attachment as explained by 2005 research. But you couldn’t be more wrong. By giving in to this fear, you're in worse danger of scaring a man off for good.
This type of chasing behavior is like an alarm going off for a man. It sends him the message you’re insecure in yourself and sends an overly aggressive vibe, says research from The American Psychological Association (APA, that makes him feel uncomfortable, even trapped.
To say the least, this makes you less attractive and makes sure he won’t feel inspired to explore getting closer. After all, you’re interfering with his chance to learn how he feels about the real you, so sooner or later, he’ll lose interest and then start looking for a chance to escape.
3. Not letting him have space to meet the real you
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I know how frustrating it is to sit back and let a man take the lead. You want him to know you’re interested in him. You want to make it easy for him to ask you out again. You want to seem enthusiastic and easygoing.
Additional research from the APA supports how the only way to make sure a man feels inspired to do everything in his power to get closer to you is to make sure he feels happy and good around you.
What’s the best way to do it? Give him the breathing space and the opportunities he needs to start pleasing you. As long as you seem happy and show him how much you enjoy his company, a man will always keep coming back for more.
Best of all, when he sees you are a woman who is secure in herself and doesn’t need to pursue him, he’ll step up his game to make sure another man doesn’t beat him to the chase!
A study from Nonverbal Communication In Close Relationships Journal helps explain how the signs of attraction between people aren't always obvious, and each approaches the relationship with different goals in mind. But if you're acting out of desperation that you're going to lose the guy you like, you might be the reason your relationship isn't going anywhere.
Think you’re just being “friendly” by sending him a flirty text or baking him a birthday cake? Truth is, you’re probably doing more harm than good and pushing him away instead.
When you find yourself falling for a man, it’s normal to start feeling that if you don’t show enough interest in him, he might get the wrong message and drift away. You want to make sure he knows you like him, but you need to do it without going overboard and making yourself look desperate.
So, let him take the lead while you continue to be receptive to him. It will powerfully fuel his passion for you.
He will adore you and appreciate you for it, and you’ll be able to relax in the knowledge you have become a rare, irresistible, highly desirable creature he’s been looking for — and he’d be a fool to take you for granted.
Rori Raye is a relationship coach who's helped thousands of women transform their love lives.