I tend to meet women who are logically unavailable

When a woman is thinking out loud about her romantic history, she'll often say: I tend to go for men who are emotionally unavailable.

Somewhere in Hell, Freud is sniffing another line (though maybe in Hell there are no razors to cut up your coke...it is Hell after all) and cackling as newfangled versions of his nonsense continue to confuse otherwise thoughtful people.

Let's walk through this:

So upon meeting this guy in a bar, you immediately sized him up and figured out he was ultimately going to be emotionally unavailable. While the two of you made bad small talk about micro-brews ("Have you tried the Staten Island Guido Stout? It's made with 20% Muscle Milk"), you just divined that three months down the line he was going to be "emotionally unavailable?" This subconscious insight then sent signals to your loins to GO FOR IT..?

Interesting. The same woman who will come running to you, New York Times in hand, screaming that there is a WAR ON SCIENCE!!! will in the next breath declare she was able to do the very thing no human, scientist or otherwise, has ever been able to do: forecast the future. She can't believe people still believe in psychics!!!!, but when it comes to her relationships, she talks like a madame staring into a crystal ball.

Here are some possible alternative explanations:

Maybe you're just incapable of attracting stable men.

Maybe he just doesn't care about the same things you care about. Just because someone doesn't get as emotional about something as you doesn't make that person "emotionally unavailable." Have you ever stopped to think you might be emotionally overavailable? Maybe you're an emotional 7-11 that remains open even on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Maybe you should close once in a while.

Maybe you simply like him far more than he likes you; hence the lack of reciprocation. Even if his feelings equal yours, remember that men in general do not chatter nonstop like women. Failing to be effusive and monotonous doesn't make one emotionally unavailable.

Maybe you just go for men with blue eyes. You see a blue-eye chap, the blue eyes trigger the initial spark, and by coincidence, you happen to have met five blue-eyed losers in a row. The common denominator that grabbed you at the outset was the eyes, not the emotionally unavailability you somehow foresaw.

Most relationships, like most things in life, fail, so no matter what kind of men you are attracted to, it isn't going to work out THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE TIME, regardless of whether or not you have some fatal flaw. And because relationships have such a huge impact on us, we are inclined to construct powerful narratives and rationalizations to explain their failure. Also, there is the reality that people today play the field a lot more before getting married. When they do get married, it lasts six months, leading to more field playing. All of a sudden you've got a generation of women with 85 failed relationships to ruminate on. Combine that with the insidious boom of the self-help, pop psychology, and MAKE IT WORK! industries, and next thing you know every woman is approaching her relationships with the confidence Bambi had just after seeing her mother get it between the eyes.


Have you noticed men never talk about women being emotionally unavailable? With men and mating, the decision is binary: either a woman is attractive enough to have sex with or she isn't. If she is, and the pursuit works up to a point, fine. If not, there are several million other women between the ages of 18 and 40.

Blind dating with my eyes open

I have started Internet dating again (back by popular demand). It continues to be a misadventure, mainly because the women I like spend the whole date planning their exit and the ones I don’t care about come back for more.

When it comes to first dates, it has reached the point where as soon as I start to like a woman, I have to repress grim chuckles, because I know in a few weeks I’m going to be walking down the street, my head tilted slightly, wondering how I bungled it…

Right now I am nursing one of those glum bits of reflection.

Recently I arranged a date I had a good feeling about, and by good I actually mean bad, because I kept thinking if I like this woman and it goes poorly…how am I going to pick myself up for the 10 millionth time?

Day-to-day I’m a sour, saggy guy, so perking up for first dates is a full cardio workout. First dates demand even more pizzazz than job interviews. You can't be a grouchy vegetable and expect another shot. This puts overwhelming pressure on a killjoy like me. Normally, if I smile more than five times in an evening, I have to go home and ice my cheeks.

When my date entered the bar, I couldn't keep from blurt laughing. I knew I was going to like her. I think I even muttered, “Not gonna go well.”

But it did go well, and I wound up liking her even more than I expected to. I could have spoken to her all night. And for my part, I was absolutely on fire. No crabbiness, no ill-timed sighs. Somehow I kept matching her crackling energy. I was fighting above my weight class, but I never clinched. I was like Billy Conn in his first 12 rounds against Joe Louis.

When we said goodnight, my first thought was, "That is as well as I will ever be able to sell myself. If that wasn’t enough, it just ain't gonna happen.”

Of course it wasn’t enough. She didn’t buy what I was selling. Not even the unusually upbeat and spicy version of me she was treated to was sufficiently intoxicating.

If I were younger, I could reassure myself by saying: "At least I know I gave it my best." Too bad I'm old enough to know better. It is far more comforting to fail when you didn't rise to the occasion, because then you have this trusty excuse: "If only I'd given it my best...it would have worked out."

When you deliver the goods and still flop, you are forced to endure the cruel fact that your best still wasn't good enough.

Another youthful rationalization is the classic line: "Hey, it's a learning experience!" Sorry, but after a while your failures stop bringing you new wisdom. No one ever erred their way into Mensa. “You mean I made exactly the wrong decision yet again? Cool, now I can take that job teaching particle physics.”

At some point you need some victories to round out your knowledge base.

Just as nothing succeeds like success, nothing fails like failure. Eventually compound interest takes over and every little misfire wounds you down to your marrow.

I have no further need for “learning experiences.” I have learned quite enough from failure. I have fallen on my face more times than a drunken kangaroo. I need some wins, because I am all out of rationalization juice.

I'm still here though, so I must have rationalized it somehow, right? Would you like to read that rationalization? You just did.



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