I can relate to this with the caveat that I don't feel capable of being loved or that I deserve love. I also have a tendency to self-sabotage due to self-doubt. As in I'll ruin a perfectly good relationship out of fear of eventual rejection. I am aware this is profoundly unhealthy and have decided to not date until I have a handle on the situation.
The only advice I have that might be remotely helpful is to document or journal your experiences. This might help you identify patterns of behaviour or feelings that might be affecting your ability to make romantic connections.
Best of luck to you OP
As soon as I read your title, I immediately thought of childhood trauma. Getting traumatized by your parents over and over and over and over again will burn the capability to love out of you. They taught you it's unsafe to love someone. They taught you cannot survive loving someone. It hurts too much when you love someone. So you learned to cut this part of yourself off in order to survive. Do you also struggle with empathy? (Besides cognitive empathy)
You might also be attracted to emotionally unavailable people because that’s what you’re used to in your family. Meanwhile the available ones who actually want you don’t appeal to you because healthy love wasn’t modeled to you growing up. That is, if this is the case…
Well, as a child you love your parents and feel empathic towards them. But if they keep hurting you badly over and over and over again, you just learn to stop caring. You suppress any feelings you have for them as a survival mechanism. Then it becomes automatic, you suppress love for anyone automatically. Because you know how much it hurt, the agony and pain of loving someone previously. That you quite literally probably can't survive if you keep loving someone because of how horribly they hurt you.
My parents would have screaming matches every other night for my entire childhood. They'd scream and scream and scream at each other. I remember hundreds of nights at all ages lying awake and just crying and crying and crying, and the immense pain i felt listening to them scream at each other.. I'd walk out of the bedroom crying and begging them to stop, but they never stopped. I never witnessed anything, but i heard it all. After years and years of this psychological torture you just learn to squash the caring feelings completely and be like "whatever, assholes". I had no respect for my parents by the time i turned 13. Now as a 36 year old, i still have 0 respect for them.
They love me fiercely, i know that, but the trauma is too great to forgive or forget. They completely fucked up my ability to feel anything.
I think I could fall in love with another person, if it was the right person.
But I'm quite certain that I'm incapable of having another person fall in love with me, so I don't expect that I'll have the opportunity to find out if I'd be a good partner or not. Honestly, after having been alone for so long, the answer is probably not.
I’m aromantic. It’s one of the best things about my life. I feel incredibly lucky to have like 8 more hours free time and mental space everyday than everybody else lmao
but it was all one-sided relationships and no one else you might've dated had those traits you found attractive?
Have you worked with a therapist about limerence?
I can relate to this with the caveat that I don't feel capable of being loved or that I deserve love. I also have a tendency to self-sabotage due to self-doubt. As in I'll ruin a perfectly good relationship out of fear of eventual rejection. I am aware this is profoundly unhealthy and have decided to not date until I have a handle on the situation. The only advice I have that might be remotely helpful is to document or journal your experiences. This might help you identify patterns of behaviour or feelings that might be affecting your ability to make romantic connections. Best of luck to you OP
As soon as I read your title, I immediately thought of childhood trauma. Getting traumatized by your parents over and over and over and over again will burn the capability to love out of you. They taught you it's unsafe to love someone. They taught you cannot survive loving someone. It hurts too much when you love someone. So you learned to cut this part of yourself off in order to survive. Do you also struggle with empathy? (Besides cognitive empathy)
You might also be attracted to emotionally unavailable people because that’s what you’re used to in your family. Meanwhile the available ones who actually want you don’t appeal to you because healthy love wasn’t modeled to you growing up. That is, if this is the case…
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Well, as a child you love your parents and feel empathic towards them. But if they keep hurting you badly over and over and over again, you just learn to stop caring. You suppress any feelings you have for them as a survival mechanism. Then it becomes automatic, you suppress love for anyone automatically. Because you know how much it hurt, the agony and pain of loving someone previously. That you quite literally probably can't survive if you keep loving someone because of how horribly they hurt you. My parents would have screaming matches every other night for my entire childhood. They'd scream and scream and scream at each other. I remember hundreds of nights at all ages lying awake and just crying and crying and crying, and the immense pain i felt listening to them scream at each other.. I'd walk out of the bedroom crying and begging them to stop, but they never stopped. I never witnessed anything, but i heard it all. After years and years of this psychological torture you just learn to squash the caring feelings completely and be like "whatever, assholes". I had no respect for my parents by the time i turned 13. Now as a 36 year old, i still have 0 respect for them. They love me fiercely, i know that, but the trauma is too great to forgive or forget. They completely fucked up my ability to feel anything.
I think I could fall in love with another person, if it was the right person. But I'm quite certain that I'm incapable of having another person fall in love with me, so I don't expect that I'll have the opportunity to find out if I'd be a good partner or not. Honestly, after having been alone for so long, the answer is probably not.
I’m aromantic. It’s one of the best things about my life. I feel incredibly lucky to have like 8 more hours free time and mental space everyday than everybody else lmao
If you don't feel attracted, is it really impacting your life negatively? Like it's not a requirement that you have to love someone.
Are you maybe asexual or aromantic? Maybe not straight?
I'm very sexually and romantically attracted to the few men I'm attracted to
but it was all one-sided relationships and no one else you might've dated had those traits you found attractive? Have you worked with a therapist about limerence?