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Why You Chase People Who Don’t Want You with Laura Berman

You meet someone kind to you. They’re consistent. They call when they say they will. They make it clear they like you. They actually show up. And somehow... you’re not sure how you feel about them. Maybe you start looking for reasons something is wrong. You lose interest. You tell yourself there’s no chemistry. Then …

Why You Chase People Who Don’t Want You with Laura Berman
Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman

Why You Chase People Who Don’t Want You with Laura Berman

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You meet someone kind to you.

They’re consistent. They call when they say they will. They make it clear they like you. They actually show up.

And somehow… you’re not sure how you feel about them.

Maybe you start looking for reasons something is wrong. You lose interest. You tell yourself there’s no chemistry.

Then someone else comes along who is inconsistent, emotionally unavailable, or keeps you guessing, and suddenly you can’t stop thinking about them.

You wait for their texts. You analyze every interaction. You wonder what they’re feeling. The less certain you are about how they feel about you, the more certain you become that you want them.

And eventually you start asking yourself:

Why am I like this?

Why does healthy love feel boring while complicated love feels exciting?

Why do I keep wanting people who make me feel like I have to earn their love?

I’ve heard some version of this question countless times in my practice. And what makes this pattern especially frustrating is that you may already understand exactly where it came from.

Maybe love was inconsistent when you were growing up. Maybe you had to work for attention, affection, or approval. Maybe you learned very early that love comes with uncertainty.

You can understand all of that intellectually and still find yourself wildly attracted to the person who keeps you guessing.

Because insight alone doesn’t necessarily change what your nervous system has learned to recognize as love.

In this Language of Love Session, I answer a question from Pam, who sees this pattern clearly in herself. When someone is kind and available, she becomes bored or suspicious. When someone is inconsistent, she becomes obsessed.

So how do you change what you’re attracted to?

How do you stop sabotaging something healthy because it doesn’t give you the emotional highs and lows you’ve learned to associate with chemistry? And how do you teach your mind and body that calm, consistent love doesn’t mean something is missing?

We talk about how those early patterns get wired into us and what it actually takes to begin changing them, including therapy, somatic work, self-love, and sometimes simply staying long enough to give a healthy person a real chance.

Because if your internal compass was calibrated around inconsistent love, following your instincts can keep leading you back to the very relationships you’re trying to stop choosing.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • Why understanding your childhood patterns may not be enough to change them

  • How your earliest experiences of love can shape who you’re attracted to and what you expect from relationships

  • Why healthy, available love can sometimes make you suspicious, restless, or want to run

  • Why inconsistency can feel like chemistry when it activates an old attachment pattern

  • How trauma and attachment patterns can live in the body, and how somatic experiencing, EMDR, and talk therapy may help

  • How we sometimes sabotage a healthy relationship so we can leave before someone has the chance to leave us

  • Why believing you don’t deserve healthy love can make kind, available people feel strangely unappealing

  • How building self-love can begin to change what you’re willing to accept from other people

  • Why giving someone four or five dates instead of trusting your immediate reaction may give attraction a chance to develop

  • How to interrupt old neural pathways and begin practicing a different way of loving while you’re actually dating

If this resonates, subscribe to The Language of Love on your favorite podcast platform. If someone you know needs to hear this, send them this episode. You can reach me at languageoflovepod@gmail.com or leave a voicemail at languageoflovepod.com, and your question could be answered in a future session. For additional support, you can find somatic experiencing practitioners at traumahealing.org, and EMDR therapy and talk therapy can also help you work through the patterns we talked about today.

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