8 Painfully Honest Reasons You're Not Attracting Men On The Same Level As You
Why your current self might not be attracting the deep, meaningful connection you seek.
AleksandarNakic | Canva If you have been single for years, and yet you have the desire to be in a committed relationship with a man who meets you on all levels, there could be some unconscious blocks that are keeping you from attracting him. Before you set out your Welcome mat, consider these eight reasons why your current self might not be attracting the deep, meaningful connection you seek.
Here are 8 reasons you're not attracting a man on the same level as you:
1. You don’t believe that they exist
The most foundational reason that women don’t attract a conscious man is that they believe they don’t exist. Or… "Okay fine, maybe they exist at all, anywhere in the world… but they don’t exist in my city… or in my age group."
This is a psychologically lazy way to let yourself off the hook. Because, well, if they don’t exist then you don’t have to do the work of meeting them or opening to them when you meet them. But what if the truth were simpler, and more confronting than that? What if they existed, as a whole? What if there have never been more conscious men who are doing their inner work than ever before? And what if the huge groundswell of men’s groups, masterminds, and men-only support groups isn’t a mere coincidence?
The truth is… there has never been a better time to meet a conscious man. Both in terms of supply and terms of accessibility. But you’re guaranteed to not meet (or perceive) them if you have a story running that they don’t exist.
2. When you do meet one, your unresolved pain bubbles up and you push him away
The sneaky, secondary symptom of believing that they don’t exist is that, once confronted with a conscious man, many women knowingly or unknowingly push them away. Sometimes it’s because they know that the man has real potential for them, and a small/wounded part of them does whatever it can (usually projects fears and/or criticizes them until they’re sufficiently cut down to size in their minds) to hit the eject button. Or, in a minority of cases, they’re aware of what they’re doing as they do it, and yet continue to sabotage the connection regardless of their awareness.
If your mind has an autopilot feature of criticizing/minimizing/rejecting men and racing to see their imperfections to protect yourself from having to open up to a real, nuanced, emotionally available man… this also keeps you from being in a relationship with a conscious man.
3. You’re performing openness and receptivity but deep down you’re scared of someone who can see you
This point is especially prevalent in the conscious community. The people who take dramatically deep breaths with their hands over their hearts while making weirdly extended eye contact. Cosplaying the ‘divine feminine’ while being truthfully terrified of a conscious man who can see through bullcrap won’t get you very far. The strategy might get you some context-specific social status in your Friday night ecstatic dance parties… but it’ll do nothing for you in terms of attracting a man who won’t just eventually turn into a well-behaved lap dog.
4. You want someone to come and save you from having to do your work
In other words, you haven’t integrated your masculinity. If you’re looking for a partner who can come in and save you from having to learn money, boundaries, punctuality, or self-responsibility, then you’ll be looking for a long time.
Just like any quality, an adult woman would be repelled by a man whose mattress is on the floor, who doesn’t know how to cook himself a meal, and who only showers once a week (in other words, has yet to learn basic self-care, self-nurturance, and integrate his feminine). A high-quality man isn’t looking to come in and embody all of the structure, routine, and self-discipline for the two of you.
Work on your boundaries first. Be responsible with your energy and financial resources first. Learn to live in the realm of time, orderliness, and structure first. Have the functional capacity to do these things on your own… and you’ll be in a far better position to attract a conscious man who doesn’t feel like he needs to rescue you from the work of daily life.
5. You’re lazy
Every week, I get a message from a woman asking me to make a dating app so that they can meet the men who follow my work. In essence, ‘Hand me a partner on a silver platter!’ This is the equivalent of someone saying, ‘I wish I could make more than $20 an hour… but there just aren’t any jobs that pay more than that.’ And then when someone says, ‘Actually there are many. There are thousands of jobs that pay far better than that.’ And then the person says, ‘Okay, give me one.’ Do you think that’s how this would work?
Last time I checked, life is wise. It doesn’t just hand out results to undeserving people. If you aren’t getting the results your mind says that you want, then there’s something that needs to shift in you so that you become worthy and able to hold it. If one (or several) of the things that I mention on this list sound like you, that’s something to work through. And if you say you want to attract a conscious man, and yet you don’t put forth any tangible, consistent effort into leaving your house and doing something about it, then do you? Or is it just a nice thought that feels warm and cozy?
Desire without action is entitlement. ‘I should get this thing just because I want it badly enough.’ No, you shouldn’t. We don’t get what we desire. We get what we put effort toward achieving. If there are blocks, do the work of integrating them. If there’s no action (or inconsistent action) being taken, fix that. Life wants you to have what you want… but it also needs to see you show up, and back your desire with action.
6. You tell yourself that you don’t want it
I think that this one is the most heartbreaking of this entire list. Ultimately, there are two ways to feel better about where you are in life. The first is to take responsibility for making the changes to get what you want from life. The second is to convince yourself that you don’t want what you want.
On a global scale, the latter strategy is the one that the vast majority of people choose. The ego says: Better to shake your fist at ‘those billionaires’ than to own your desire for more wealth and change your bank account. Better to judge a person with a fit body than to feel inspired and start going to the gym. And better to tell yourself that you’re actually, truly better off alone… and that this whole relationship thing is overrated than to admit that your greatest desire in life is to share it with someone amazing.
And yet, every single day, this is exactly what countless women do. They twist themselves into pretzels to convince themselves and pretend that they’re actually just fine for a relationship, Thank you very much! Why? Because it’s easier to deny your longing than it is to feel the pain of it.
There’s nothing more sad than the person who secretly aches for a healthy relationship… but has allowed a crust of denial to form around themselves. Like a translucent armour that works as a superficial cape, but that everyone can see through. They do the mental gymnastics to convince themselves, and others, that they’re far better off alone.
7. You have a father wound you haven't processed
Another reason that women haven’t attracted a conscious man is they have wounding with men they haven’t integrated. This is either wounding from their relationship with their father, or an intimate relationship with a man.
Whether their father was absent, neglectful, compulsive, abusive, unreliable, a cheater, an addict, abused his power in some way, or any other number of ways that she could have been let down by him, the emotional residue remains. So long as the wound has yet to turn into scar tissue, the woman with an unhealed father wound will continue to call in men who remind her of her father. Or they will project their father's shortcomings onto men with real potential and sabotage the connection.
I have worked with countless women who, when they’ve honestly dug into their wounding with their father, within weeks start to meet and attract (or, perceive and tolerate) an entirely new kind of man into their lives. Men who are present, engaged, calm, loving, available, and kind. I would say that this is some kind of miracle, but I have seen it happen too many times to too many women to think anything other than, when we do this deep healing work, progress in the real world is inevitable.
The simplest one-two punch of how to make progress in this realm is to feel the unfelt feelings (most commonly: anger, grief, sadness) tied with your father, and get regular exposure to healthy men that your body feels safe around. Many women who have joined The Circle over the last couple of years have told me that their sole reason for joining was to simply have ongoing exposure to me (a man that they trust, and can feel the heart of), which is a viable option to engage in if you don’t have healthy, trusted men in your life that you can be in regular contact with.
Krakenimages.com / Shutterstock
8. You aren’t willing to drop your old stories about men who have hurt you
Ultimately, a lot of this issue comes down to this. You would rather cloak yourself with the protection mechanism of your old stories than be open to a new way of living. And listen, I get it. In the short term, it can feel a lot easier to keep ourselves disconnected from the reality we say we want. The ego gets to remain in control when our stories are steering the ship. It takes vulnerability to drop the old hundred-pound shield and expose ourselves to life.
But at a certain point, we must decide to value what we say we want over the old story that keeps us small and superficially protected. There is no possibility of entering a conscious relationship if we’re hiding behind our stories. You can have your stories and old pain, or you can have what you want. But you can’t have both. Thought is quite literally creative. The things we consistently think and believe will inevitably shape the realities that we experience. So by maintaining our stories, we create and recreate the things we say we don’t want.
Imagine that you’re set up on a blind date. Upon meeting up with your date, you realize that he is attractive, present, warm, kind, funny, and intelligent. Your conversation is smooth and easy. His vocabulary is diverse and his mind is quick. When you lock eyes, he seems to be able to peer through you. Not in an invasive way, but when he looks at you you feel, simply, seen.
Now, as you imagine being on a date with this kind of a man… what comes up for you? Does your body feel calm, engaged, open, and excited (‘Finally!’)? Do you feel nerves, tension, and squirminess (‘He’s going to think I’m not good enough’)? Do you want him to envelop you… or are there parts of your mind that would rather pick him apart (‘He must be married, or a liar, a narcissist’), or run away?
Engaging in this kind of hypothetical meditation shows you where you may still have resistance to love. Resistance to this kind of a man. Awareness comes first, and action comes second. Seek out the parts of you that still actively resist love, and work through them, one by one. At a certain threshold, the work you have done will gain momentum. You’ll know you’ve turned a corner when you call in a trickle, and then a flood, of these men.
Relationship coach and writer Jordan Gray helps people remove their emotional blocks and maintain thriving intimate relationships.