Self defeating behavior illustrated

I am currently chatting with a woman (in a dating context), who must remain unnamed.

As I am currently travelling in Australia, and she is in Germany, I have not been able to meet with her yet. We have been writing on and off, and it transpired that she is interested in me. I also got to know that she is afraid of rejection, and doesn’t want men lying to her.

As I haven’t met her yet, and am not sure whether we will resonate in person, I have decided to share with her that we are not exclusive yet (she talked about me being her crush – which made me think that she is at a different level of commitment!). This was also done, if I am 100 % honest, as a dismissive self-defense against too much closeness with her. That is an issue I will continue to work on.

She wrote that she doesn’t like that. And her communication behavior changed after that – she did not react to some messages I sent to her.

I recognized that something is up, and wrote to her. She says she does not want “to be in a competition”. She also said “don’t treat me like I have to win 1st place to see you”.

Immediately, I saw that this is due to some core wounds of hers. I was not indicating in any way that she has to “win 1st place”. In fact, I am happy to meet with her (once) in any case! I am very flexible concerning the first date – and have had some positive surprises with women where I didn’t expect much.

It is true, there are lots of women and men out there. But most of them are not a fit – which I tried to explain to her – because they don’t have the kind of personality which will resonate with me, or her, for that matter. It is not a competition – it is a search for a good fit!

She is overreacting to my honesty (which I admit was weaponized, but still honest – I had a date already while here in Australia, and a second date is planned tomorrow). We have not been on a single date yet – we had just been texting.

I made her an offer that we will go on a date, and if we resonate we can discuss on the second date what we need to keep seeing each other. She read the messages, but has not replied to them.

I offered a compromise. By her being afraid of rejection – and not talking about the insecurities in a vulnerable way, asking for what she needs, etc – she makes it harder for herself. I already started to assess her reaction to my communication, and am projecting that into a future life together – I’ve learned that withdrawing from problems by the woman I’m interested in will make communication much harder.

Her fear is driving her to disengage with me. Her fear of being rejected, the actions she takes to handle that fear, actually increase the likelihood of being rejected!

I am not sure if we will resonate on the first date – or if we will even go on the first date. I just know one thing – that is that I’m going to continue to look for solutions and compromises which take what I need into consideration. And I need to see more women, to find the one I really resonate with – I don’t want to change my approach to fix someone’s insecurities. I am however happy to talk about compromises. Or to move on from her – which would then result in her fear being realized …

I care for her as a fellow human being, but there is no attachment to her which has formed within me yet.

Btw. The irony is that possibly it is also self defeating behavior on my side – where I have chosen to use weaponized honest communication – thus causing her to flip 180° from me being her crush to her being cold and distant; thus also sabotaging my own chances of meeting her in particular. I will continue to do emotional processing when such a situation will pop up the next time. Right now I do not have the desire to push her away. It is important for me to be aware of that, and process it – I feel the dismissive side feels more logical at times than the anxious, and that is what makes it more dangerous to deal with.

Photo by Alexandru Zdrobău on Unsplash