“I’m 30 years old and have never been in a relationship – what am I doing wrong?”

“The main thing is to take the first step”

Inna Khamitova, family psychotherapist

Our desire to create and maintain long-term relationships is hampered by various fears: the fear of being disappointed in a person who will not meet our ideas about an ideal life partner. Fear of dissolving in a partner and losing yourself. Fear of losing your freedom, allowing someone to interfere in our well-established life … But you write about something else – that you are “afraid of being rejected.”

In general, such a complaint is addressed to psychologists quite often. Moreover, really real smart women and beauties, interesting, sincere, emotionally subtle, who ask: what is wrong with me?

Unfortunately (or fortunately?), our ability to build relationships with others depends very little on how beautiful we are externally and internally. It depends on how we are able to open up, be close and show another our interest in him.

Revisit the past

You may have had a traumatic experience when you had high expectations for a relationship that was (or could be) just getting started, but you were rejected. Or the relationship did not work out, and you are now projecting this situation into further meetings. But most often, our fear of rejection appears much earlier, even in childhood, and depends on the type of attachment that developed then.

If we have formed a safe type of attachment, we willingly make contact, easily open up to other people and understand that even if we are rejected, we will cope with it. We are able to be alone and find beauty in solitude. At the same time, we feel the need to share our daily experience, thoughts and feelings with another person.

But if the parents were too distant or unpredictable and the child did not feel their love and support, did not feel safe, then in the future any close relationship will be associated with pain, fear, loneliness, or something unstable and disturbing.

Growing up, such a person strives for close relationships, but at the same time unconsciously fears the pain, anxiety, disappointment, rejection or loneliness with which they are associated for him. And then his behavior in choosing a life partner from the very beginning can be rejecting.

fear of intimacy

Long-term relationships require a certain amount of courage because they involve openness and trust in another, which makes us vulnerable. Entering into a relationship, we always run the risk of being abandoned, rejected, receiving condemnation and criticism instead of support and approval.

Maybe it’s not your partners who initiate the breakup, but you, because something doesn’t suit you in them? Maybe you are looking at a person under a “magnifying glass”, exaggerating his shortcomings.

But think about it: the unwillingness to accept the other as he is is also a kind of protection. Behind this, too, lies the fear of intimacy, the fear of letting a person in. Why is the fear of opening up and showing your weaknesses to another so strong?

A person with an avoidant or anxious type of attachment usually has a clear concept from childhood why his parents abandon him, criticize him, and reject him. Most often the reason is one: “because I’m bad.”

For a person who is deep down convinced of his own worthlessness, someone else’s criticism, any harsh word spoken to him is confirmation that the other person really saw his weaknesses, his imperfections. He saw what only he knew about himself. How to open up to someone with such a sense of self?

A terrible fear of exposure makes him avoid any kind of deep relationship.

Take the first step

I can assume that because of the fear of rejection, you are already tense on the first date and strive to emphasize your disinterest in the relationship, which can be perceived as detachment and coldness.

Perhaps you demonstrate excessive independence, are emphatically ironic and arrogant. Or you talk about your work, travels, friends with such enthusiasm that your potential partner does not understand why you actually need him and whether there is a place for him in your life.

If you are preoccupied with your anxiety, then you do not see the one who is now in front of you. You seem to be next to the person, but not in contact with him. And he reads it. Try to calm down and enjoy the date. You don’t go to a job interview, you just want to have a good time.

Don’t ask questions, will it work out or not, what impression will you make … Imagine that you are in an unfamiliar city, perhaps for the only time in your life – how will you behave? Most likely, you will try to see something special in the city, to feel its individuality, to make an impression. You will not think about how you look on its streets.

In a word, relax and just look at the one who is now in front of you. What is this person? Try to tune into his wave. Ask him about himself: how he lives, what he likes, what fascinates him. Show that you are really interested in him.

The next step could be some kind of joint activity, important for both, a business, a project that will naturally bring you closer, make you open up, express yourself. A possible option is classes in a dance studio. But all this, of course, makes sense if your companion attracts you, if you feel attracted to him.

learn to be friends

How can you advise a person who already has a history of unsuccessful meetings not to be afraid of pain and rejection? It is difficult to open the visor if you constantly expect that a spear is about to fly in your direction. But it can be cured only in contact.

You say that you have many friends. But according to your letter, it is not clear whether there are men among them and what kind of friendship this is. Try to consciously create friendships with a man. And gradually, without making sudden movements, without opening up right away, add a little more sincerity and warmth to these relationships. Most likely, by revealing your weaknesses to him, you will find that it is not easy for him to get out of his cocoon either, and he also needs support.

I want to emphasize that the establishment of genuine contact is facilitated by relationships built not on competition and rivalry, but on support and trust. And I will add that the ability to trust is a very fragile thing, and often it is built most successfully only as a result of working with a psychologist. Sometimes quite long.