FashionSex & Gender

5 unhealthy thought processes of a single female

November 18, 2013

As a part of my bid to reconcile myself with all that is moral and fulfilling, I’ve decided to settle for nothing less than a relationship in terms of romantic interests. No flings, no one-night stands and no casual arrangements. Noble as that may be (depending on who’s looking at it), the chronically single will understand that the click of a finger a boyfriend does not summon! A lot of us are out of practice and what some may not realize, is that we are making ourselves undateable for some reason or another.
Up until recently I couldn’t understand why nobody was willing to settle down with me; I’m quite confident with my looks, and have no real problems in making conversation or flirting with men I’m attracted to – yet I felt like I was scaring people away. It wasn’t until I had my closest friend read me my rights that I realized that it was all down to me and not only how I was acting, but how I was thinking.

By Tash Vals, AFROPUNK Contributor *

So because I am a loving blogger who likes to spoil you guys, I have compiled a list of unhealthy thought processes of ladies who just can’t seem to find Mr Right. If you see yourself somewhere in here, get your shit together damn it!

1. “Everyone’s out to get me”

A belief I held on to stubbornly. This perception is mostly popular among people who are used to keeping their guard up. Most of the time it’s because of past heartbreaks but other times it’s simply because that is the way they’ve been programmed. In my case, I grew up the youngest as well as the only girl out of my siblings, and so day in and day out my brothers would reinforce the idea of guys only wanting to take advantage of me. I carried this with me into my adult relationships and although I appreciate my brothers were just trying to protect me, their words only fed my lack of self-esteem. They were inadvertently teaching me that my character was not enough for anybody. It wasn’t possible that I was interesting or compelling enough to appeal to guys on a respectful and positive level. This made me shut every guy off emotionally when actually some guys were just genuinely nice.

2. “He can come to me.”

If like me you have chronic bitchface where your default facial expression is set on “Touch Me and I’ll Break Your Fingers”, chances are that he probably doesn’t think you like him. Sometimes females forget that guys are people with doubts and pride too. When you like someone, your insecurities try to bring up every reason under the book as to why the person couldn’t possibly like you back and your attitude may be one of his reasons. Chase him a little bit and it’ll shut his insecurities up.

3. “He’s feeling everyone but me.”

If you’ve ever liked a typical ladies man or just generally a really friendly guy, this has been a problem. You never really know who he likes because he’s such a damn people person. If you find yourself in a position where you’re with a group of people and he tends to address/make eye contact with everyone but you, that’s most likely a good thing. It means you make him nervous. But if he seems to be treating you the same as everybody else, stop being a princess and start being more obvious!

4. “I’m waiting for the right one.”

There’s no such thing. Although you should respect yourself and know what your values are, nobody’s perfect. Point addressed. Next!

5. “I’m not his type.”

A lot of the time when I’m advising a girlfriend on a guy she likes, she’ll always use the excuse, “He’d never go for me”. Or alternatively, I might be interested in a preppy white guy for example and someone will go “oh he only dates blondes”. In both scenarios I always draw my doubter’s attention to the Swan Theory. I’m probably horribly misquoting here but some guy called Popper came up with this theory that says that if you consistently see nothing but white swans, it’s rational to believe that only white swans exist. All it takes however is one black swan to completely rule out that notion. Similarly, even if white swans are all that you ever get to see, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t black swans somewhere out there. My point is, I’ve been ‘the first’ on several occasions. First black girl, first African girl, first short girl, you name it! Just because someone doesn’t appear to go for a certain type, doesn’t mean they never have or never will. So when someone says, “he doesn’t go for [insert relevant category here] girls”, I just say “sure he does. He just doesn’t know it yet”.

I’m not gonna sell you a dream; sometimes the above information won’t apply. Maybe you really aren’t his type, or he really isn’t the right match for you or he may be taking advantage. The point is, if you don’t take risks sometimes you’ll never find anyone. Change begins when your comfort zone ends, so once in a while you have to try something different. The title picture is so relevant because a lot of the time we (myself included) complain that there’s nobody out there but who knows how many potential love stories we’ve sabotaged for ourselves.

Let’s stop getting in our own way.

* Follow Tash on Twitter @ohlookitsTash

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