There is this guy that I met at a meditation retreat last spring. We ended up hanging out after the retreat and becoming closer. We decided to date for a while, but my old patterns took over and it became the classic push-pull dynamic that those with avoidant and anxious attachment styles get into. We have been “hanging out” on and off since the summer. I would call it casual dating with no plans of it becoming serious on my end. He is a pretty heavy weed smoker, so I feel I can allow that behavior in my life casually but nothing more. Ultimately I would like a partner who embraces a more sober life with me. So I don’t see a future with him and I have started to think it would be better if I kept even more distance from him than I do now (which currently is see him maybe once a month). I believe I have to be willing to let go of this energy to allow a new energy in my life, even though it hurts to lose this connection with him.

I noticed some reoccurring patterns in my relationship with him. I must be looking for lying, because that is what I see in him. There were some instances where he would be talking on the phone with his mom when I was hanging out with him, and she asked if he went out to dinner with anyone but he would say “just myself”, which was a lie because he went out to dinner with me. Things like this would happen on numerous occasions. When I asked him about it, he said it was just easier to not explain to her our situation (we had labeled it dating and not dating, on and off), which I can understand because our situation was complicated in conventional terms. I still found myself judging the lying as “bad”, and thoughts like “if he lies to his parents, he will probably lie to me.”

Another reoccurring thing that I noticed is that even though I am off all forms of social media, I created a fake account to stalk his profiles, which is something I have a pattern of doing with men in my past. This stems from a lack of trust that probably goes back to broken trust with my primary caregivers. Anyways, I discovered that on his Instagram he follows tons of accounts of models wearing lingerie and just overly sexualized females in general. So, on top of him smoking weed regularly, lying to his parents, and perv-ing out with these random Instagram accounts of females he follows, I have deemed him as unfit as a partner for me. There were a lot of things that I appreciated about him, but these things I just can’t accept. I am getting frustrated that I keep attracting the same type of guy. I have labeled him as a perve, which is probably not nice but it is what it is. I know I have to stop judging the behavior in order to stop attracting it, which has been difficult. Sometimes I wonder if I could just find a man who doesn’t put his energy into social media, like me, I wouldn’t have this issue. But then I would probably look for signs of him being a perve in other ways. Social media has been a HUGE trigger for me in relationships, and I’m so frustrated by this. I just wish I could meet a guy who isn’t interested in perv-ing out on females via social media, but it seems like it would be so rare to find. Plus, the more I judge that behavior as “perv-ing out”, the more I will probably attract that in my life. I also put that behavior, along with the behavior of smoking weed and drinking, of others, as an obstacle to my happiness. I think once I fully embrace that other people’s behaviors don’t have to be an obstacle to my happiness, I can just be happy. Some thoughts that have been running through my head lately…Do I have a biological need to have close, physical connections in my life, or are they too much trouble, can I just give them up and become a celibate, asexual, a loner? Should I keep letting go of these men who’s behaviors I don’t approve of, to allow space for a man who doesn’t partake in these behaviors? If I keep running away from these behaviors though, I will probably keep looking for/attracting them. Maybe I am better off not pursuing romantic relationships because they seem to be too overwhelming and too much trouble for me, and I keep attracting similar energy.