Dear Goddess: Try as I might, I keep going out with similar kinds of men-men who don’t look or act the same-in fact I make a point of trying to break the pattern– but who turn out to treat me a certain way that I hate. I worry about my ability to choose….
Dear Earth Girl,
How smart of you to recognize that you’re choosing them! Many think that because they end up with a certain type (alcoholics, say; or emotionally withholding), that they’re doomed-as though there’s no way out; as if somehow that’s how men (and gods) ARE.
There is a way out, and it’s not, of course, the way men are. It’s the way the men you’re comfortable with (on some level) are. To find others, you have make a conscious effort to go against your own instinctive “comfort.”
Let’s say your dad was shy, funny, removed, cool-and you never connected with him as deeply as you wanted. You’ll find similar qualities in your lovers-even if those qualities don’t show up; even if the men in no way seem like your dad or resemble each other-and then try to “win” them. But you won’t win them, just as you didn’t win Dad. This is Freud’s “repetition compulsion”: trying to get what you wanted by repeating the old dynamic again and again-and losing each time. But the trick to ending your own compulsion to repeat (and lose) is to remember precisely what happened initially, and then to consciously and carefully insist on another, winning, dynamic. You must choose someone who doesn’t relate this way. You must Go Against Type.
” Go Against Type” is (as many women on earth and goddesses in the heavens will attest) one of my mantras. It’s the best advice I can give you when you find yourself circling like this, but it’s hard. You may THINK you’re choosing a different type each time you choose a new lover, because their superficial qualities are unalike. But to Go Against Type you have to actually ignore precisely what you have always been attracted to. You have to defy your own natural inclinations. It feels like ignoring chemistry. That’s what’s so hard and what requires such self-knowledge and authenticity.
Say you gravitate toward funny, self-deprecating guys who are kind of loners, and who love you because of your dry wit and ability to “get” them (when so few other women do). That’s how you relate to men, right? They get you; you get them-through humor. But watch: Each time, you find that they’re very sad underneath that humor, and perhaps very withholding; and that the humor you adore actually covers any ability to relate authentically to you, and to communicate in a straightforward, loving manner. And each time, you end up feeling just as you did with your shy, withholding dad-like you’ve hit the brick wall of noncommunication; as if you’ve once again chosen terrified, cool men who are afraid to reach out and love.
Next time I want you to go out with someone who is literally the opposite of this funny, self-deprecating, loner. I want you to try–just for a few dates–a talkative, forthcoming person who doesn’t relate to you through humor. I want you to pick a guy who seems very interested in you, and doesn’t try to seduce you through charm and wit-who just likes you. I know this sounds boring and awful to short-circuit your own desires, but what we’re doing here is trying to break YOUR pattern of making bad choices by interrupting YOUR attraction to qualities that end up boomeranging. We’re working not on the men here. We’re working on uncovering your unconscious desire to sabotage yourself by choosing unsuitable, if adorable, guys.
We’ll talk more about this-because it’s so hard to do. But I promise you, dearest earth girl, Going Against Type is one of the surest ways to unmask your own neurotic choices– at the same time as you learn a new way of relating to men-men who may give you exactly what the others never could.
