I’m Interested In Dating Someone But I Always End Up Running Away, What’s Should I do?

by Reid on May 3, 2021

I’m Interested In Dating Someone But I Always End Up Running Away, What’s Should I do?

Cathy: Someone wrote in and said, I’m having a hard time dating because I get really messed up when I’m interested into someone. I’m usually okay for the first couple weeks but then, either I ended up clinging or I want to run away because I’m afraid they’re going to hurt me and I end up alone and disappointed. I have a kind of clinging pattern going on. Is it something wrong with me? What do I do? How do I get out there and really make connect? Good deep connections.

Reid: Yeah and thank you for writing, this isn’t I think it’s just the one that somebody emailed me

Cathy: Yes

Reid: so I talked about this in more depth in a Facebook live video. So if you haven’t been watching, I tried to do Facebook live everyday so you could go to reidaboutsex.facebook.com/reidmihalko and that’s my personal page and you can follow me there. And then you know sometimes I get these questions really quickly because we meet and frequently. What’s your advice because there’s….my stuffs on Facebook and I’ll say some more now but I’m curious about your advice.

Cathy: Yeah, I think that it’s really easy to get that push-pull like I want to be really close, I’m starving I want….I don’t want to eat and want to consume that and I want to run away because it’s always going to fail. There’s a catch going too there that a lot of people get into so if you can be just gentle with yourself and I think that people are much more stable and they’re getting their needs met in a lot of different ways. So for just relying on just from pure physics if you’re relying and one’s point of stability you’re very tippy and if that person isn’t available or they’re having a bad day, all of a sudden those fields of the world is kind of walked out. So if you can find other point of stability friends, jobs, community, that you have different groups that you’re part of, you can start building a much more stable place where “Wow, that person is important to me and I want you know.” It’s nice to have a love and just be a main part of our lives but they don’t have to be the only thing and if they’re feeling like they’re having a bad day or just not feeling particularly close because people do, they have been to flow there’s like day when I really like Reid and days I just want to just kick him out the door.

Reid: The second one is the more of those days.

Cathy: Um, but no. Every human,  humans there’s a dance and sometimes were closer and sometimes we’re further away and if we’re only relying on that one person they start pulling away. There’s a feeling like we do need to grab on and cling or run away before we go so we don’t get hurt so much.

Reid: The analogy I use is like going food shopping. When you go food shopping hungry you tend to make poorer more poor food choices, there have been actual studies about that. So can you get your social needs met? Can you smack it with friends, community you know going out for munches or joining some meet up group or something like that hanging out with coworkers if you like them, where can you get some of those social needs met and that way in dating realm you’re not so starving. And then you start like pulling at the person who’s helping you get your needs met rather than you know you kind of having your tanks more full.

Cathy: Yeah so, and just be gentle with yourself part of that a lot of people that have that clingy or wanting to run away response might have learned it when we’re very little. We’re trying to deal with something you’re a very small child, you’re faced with a parent that wasn’t available or was too tuck’s too close. Most people don’t know boundaries, they don’t know how to give them especially to children and so we made meaning about it, we made it if I don’t hold on someone’s going to leave or they’re going to suffocate me if they get too close. It’s often about something we decide when we’re very little so you can work through that there’s you know therapy, coaching, journalling as you suggested. And also just having a lot of people in your lives feel like “Hey! I need a break from you for you know I don’t want to see you later today. I’m just going to take care of myself and go out with my friends or give myself space”.

Reid: And again, you can also practice when you do go on dates or hang out with those people who tend to be your main source of nutrients. Try to be intentional and go hang out within groups with them, go do something social together so that you’re not always just doing things always alone. If doing things always alone and you’re in the situation where things are wobbly just be suspect of that.

Cathy: Yeah

Reid: And like Cathy said if you have a lot of things from childhood that you haven’t dealt with yet and all this may be going on in its way for the people that you hang out with like if you flip the video and think of the people that you’re dating going through these things too. You might want to just have a conversation the two of you about these dynamics like watch this video together but also understand if you know you have a bunch from childhood that you haven’t dealt with yet, you are unintentionally pulling on this other person with all your childhood stuff and now that you might know that it’s there, I think you owe it to yourself

Cathy: Yeah

Reid: and to the world at large to go find resources to handle that because if you don’t, you don’t have to be perfect about it. If you don’t, you’re kind of foisting that it’s the other person who has to deal with it which I think maybe why people feel weird because most people don’t want a lot of pulling or to feel responsible for somebody else’s childhood stuff. Even if that’s not conscious, it could be a feeling because again, I grow up in a family where I was kind of expected to save my mom and dad. So if you…if this person dating is expecting me to save them, it….now I am dealing all of my parent stuff. So again like remember, everyone’s going through their own version of what we’re talking about how conscious you can make it and then can you support each other in going and getting those resources handled on your own because you end up unconsciously creating a therapy situation with each other

Cathy: Yeah

Reid: which I don’t think is what dating is about. I think not.

Cathy: I love that you asked in your Relationship 10X, your relationship program why are you dating? Then you get people present to why they are dating and I think that’s worthwhile. Why are you out there dating? What do you want to add to your life with dating? And then go from there.

Reid: I want to read you on my family, will you marry me? That’s romantic

Cathy: So romantic.

Reid: Leave comments, what do you think? Bye! Hit subscribe.

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