I can't find my man. Nobody likes it. What to do?

Lower the bar

It's very difficult to enjoy yourself when you experience constant failure. By repeating the same mistake again, the only lesson you learn is that you are no good for anything. But the problem is not that you are not good enough, perhaps your ambitions are too high.

Psychologists advise practicing lowering your own expectations in order to give yourself the opportunity to exhale and enjoy victories, no matter how small. Lowering the bar means thinking more rationally and realizing that you may simply not be ready for something yet, and this is not a reason to miss opportunities for triumph in areas that are more accessible to you. Stop jumping in over your head and first learn to be the best where you are now.

Reasons for lack of sympathy

To people in general

Why don't I like any of the people?

It is possible that you are a pure introvert and do not particularly dream of expanding the boundaries of your social circle , or that you have a mature consciousness that allows you to quickly understand what a person is like after a little contact with someone.

And to strike up a friendly relationship with a person who, even at the first meeting, repels you with his characteristics , is already, you see, a pathology. For the development of sympathy, there must be certain conditions and some period of easy idealization of the other.

Only after this can you turn a blind eye to someone’s shortcomings and continue to maintain a relationship with him, without experiencing any particular discomfort from the person’s fads and personal “cockroaches .

It may also be that in your environment, unfortunately, there are no people with similar views on life and interests. Therefore, it is difficult for you to find company or even just make a couple of bosom friends.

Or you don’t have the desire to let someone in at an “intimate” distance, because you’ve already been “burned with milk” more than once , and now you’re even “blowing water.”

To the opposite sex

Why I don't like anyone of the opposite sex:

1. You are faithful to your first love, which is no longer free, has ceased to be interested in you, or has even already moved on to another world, and you are monogamous by nature .
2. You are carried away by a hobby or work , or, worse, you are so exhausted working that you don’t have enough attention and energy for strangers.
3. You don’t want a relationship because you recently watched the suffering of a loved one in conflict with your significant other or you yourself experienced a painful breakup with your partner and now you are afraid of getting into a similar relationship again.
4. Actually, there is no one to choose from because of living in a small place where there are few people with whom it would be interesting to communicate on exciting topics.
5. You have settled down so comfortably in this life that you do not want a close relationship with someone and simply enjoy every day you live for your pleasure.
6. Because he is attracted to members of the same sex .
7. Because you hate such people because of childhood trauma caused by loved ones.

All of the above basically describes situations where a person does not particularly suffer from the lack of bosom buddies.

Yes, there are those loners who do not need anyone for close communication , since there are still some people, at work or in an educational institution, and they allow them to fully satisfy the existing need to sometimes contact society.

As long as the person himself does not suffer from this , but only relatives who believe that friends, husband and wife are an indispensable component of a normal person, the problem of lack of sympathy is far-fetched.

And any attempts by others to correct the situation are, to say the least, tactless.

The last item on the list concerns unresolved problems in the relationship with the father or mother.

They, even if we deny their role in our own upbringing, leave a trace in it even if they are absent as a real subject.

Parental influences causing difficulties with the opposite sex:

1. The idea that all representatives of the opposite sex are vile , unworthy of existence, bringing nothing but problems.
   Reason: the second parent did not take part in the upbringing because he left the family and was addicted to alcohol and drugs.
2. People of the opposite sex are a source of pain . Reason: a domineering and despotic parent or both.
3. Denial of personal happiness due to self-doubt. Reason: humiliation in the family.
4. Duty to parents. Reason: the need to care for a sick relative who zealously protects the child from thoughts of personal happiness.

If life is eventful, then there may simply be no time left .

This means that for you the world is still full of unknown secrets and you don’t want to waste your time on someone else.

When communicating with “available” people - we understand them as existing in the environment - you realize that all that each of the representatives of the opposite sex you know wants is to arrange their own life at your expense.

In such circumstances it is difficult to make a choice. And is it really you who really need him, and not his relatives, who apparently set out to help expand their social circle?

Why I don't like boys and men:

• busy with career;
• I don’t want to enter into a relationship because I don’t want to limit my freedom;
• low self-esteem (who will like me fat, small, thin, stupid, etc.);
• inflated self-esteem (why do they care about me or why do I need a load of problems);
• oppressive father;
• unsuccessful romance in the past;
• Electra complex;
• the belief that men are seducers, lazy people, etc. - depending on what attitude comes from childhood or what kind of communication experience you had in the past.

Why I don't like any of the girls:

1. Career aspirations.
2. Today's single status seems comfortable and not a cause for concern.
3. Reluctance to turn into a “cash cow”, since all previous connections were oversaturated with requests from the material plane, and the ladies themselves were preoccupied with “cutting the facade”.
4. Problems with self-esteem, because of which the worthy seem to be inaccessible celestials, and those who live here - in the entrance, house, street, city - are not worth attention.
5. Mother had enough in childhood.
6. Inability to communicate (that’s why everything is bad, like a fox, for whom “the grapes are green and sour,” but I’m not able to get to them).
7. In the past, I have experienced relationships with an unpleasant ending and in the future I want to avoid this.
8. There is an attitude towards searching for an ideal, and so far not a single girl has “withstood criticism”.
9. There's no time for it. There is no time or opportunity to get to know those who are interested, and those who are sticky themselves are of no interest to you.
10. Men look more attractive than women.
11. Mom is against it, and her opinion is law.
12. You suffer from an Oedipus complex.

The last two factors must be eliminated with the help of a psychologist , because there is a risk of unknowingly depriving yourself of a full life.

After all, there is an unconscious ban on personal life, but at the same time, usually, a person is deeply unhappy because of his loneliness and would really like to start a relationship with someone.

Create a “Self-Esteem Folder”

Psychologists very often advise clients to make a list of the strengths of their personality and appearance, which increases self-esteem and helps combat problems of self-acceptance. But having made such a list once, you will not get rid of the problem, because as soon as you experience another disappointment, you will already forget about what you wrote. Therefore, it is better to create a so-called “Self-Esteem Folder”, where you can put all the positive things that people say about you. They gave you a compliment - write it down; your friends praised you - add this to other positive characteristics. Every time you feel uncomfortable in your own body, go leaf through this folder.

What to do if you don’t like yourself externally?

Fat or very thin, tall or very small, with curly hair or straight, blonde or brunette...no matter what you try, no matter how you change your appearance, image and style, you still don’t like yourself and everything is wrong with you. Well, then let's talk with psychologist Vlada Berezyanskaya about how to like yourself in any state and form, how to love yourself, how to love your shortcomings and use them.

Vlada Berezyanskaya

Founder of the private practice “Your Psychologist”

Education: Ukraine, Germany, Austria

Work experience: more than 5 years

Everyone's not perfect

Not many people can honestly say that they are completely satisfied with themselves and love themselves impeccably and unrequitedly. Every person, even the most beautiful and ideal in your opinion, can actually also experience a feeling of dissatisfaction with themselves. Therefore, just accept that it is normal to not be completely satisfied with yourself. But this is normal only if it does not cross the line and does not turn into a fix idea that you constantly think about.

Why do some people love themselves, while others don't like themselves?

Remember your childhood! What did your parents tell you about your appearance? Have you ever been scared that if you eat a lot of sweets, you can become very fat and ugly? How often have people told you how wonderful you are? Or, on the contrary, did they tell you what you should or shouldn’t do to look better? Already based on these answers, you can understand why you are often visited by thoughts about your appearance and its not being ideal, while someone else, and an absolutely unattractive person, is visited by completely opposite thoughts.

What to do if you don't like yourself?

So what? You have work to do on yourself! And not at all the job you thought about. We will not work on your appearance, but on your thoughts.

1. Every morning, stand naked or semi-naked in front of the mirror, look at yourself and tell yourself the nicest words about how beautiful, sexy and wonderful you are. I’ll say right away that in the first week or month you may not feel absolutely any changes. But! If you do the exercise regularly, then over time you won’t even notice how it starts to work.

2. Think and write down what exactly you don’t like about yourself. Look at the list and spend time on each item! Do you really not like this about yourself or did you invent this flaw in yourself and highly idealize how it should really be? Perhaps after such work there will be many more reasons to love yourself...

3. Take the list of your flaws and make a list of your strengths from it. Love yourself for your short height and straight hair.

4. Stop talking about how you don’t like yourself with your girlfriends! When you talk about it often, people who think you're very attractive begin to change their minds. Just because you inspire it in them. And when these people change their minds, they begin to treat you as an unlikable person. Then you feel even worse. Do the opposite. Speak exclusively about your strengths - to yourself and others.

5. Even if you don’t like yourself very much, there is something that you are proud of in your appearance. List all these qualities on paper and every morning, after the ritual in front of the mirror, re-read this list. Gradually add to the list with everything that you begin to discover in yourself.

6. Change! Change your clothing style, hairstyle, makeup. Changes always bring new experiences and impressions. Perhaps the chosen style just doesn’t suit you and you’ll feel great with a new one!

7. If you objectively find a flaw in yourself that cannot be corrected with positive thoughts and exercises, learn to cope with it. For example, women who have very thick legs hide them under long skirts. Those with large noses do their makeup in such a way that they visually make it smaller.

8. Think about your unique abilities and write them down. What can you do best that others can’t do? You see, you are a unique person. There is no one like you anymore.

9. Never punish yourself for not liking yourself. By punishment I mean poor nutrition, excessive consumption of alcohol, nicotine, and drugs. Start loving your body, even if you think there’s nothing to it. Join a gym, pool or fitness class. Remember your hobby and start doing it again to develop your inner world.

10. If it’s really difficult, then seek professional help from a therapist.

Vlada Berezyanskaya

Imagine yourself as someone else

Visualization is a very powerful tool, because it connects your imagination to your work, helps you realize your true desires and bring a positive result closer. Psychologists advise not just looking in the mirror, but imagining yourself in one image or another. In a luxurious dress, jewelry and flowers or in a business suit, on stage or on a cozy veranda. Try to see as many details as possible: what your hair looks like, your skin, what you’re wearing, whether you have makeup on, and also who you look like in this image, because we think in associations - sometimes it’s much easier to imagine yourself in the image of your favorite actress than someone something original.

Our psyche is designed in such a way that as soon as you realize exactly how you want to look, you will certainly begin to move towards this result. You will want to change your hairstyle, buy new clothes, change something in your manners, movements, and then you can decide on more global changes: work, place of residence, relationships.

What to do?

First of all, understand what exactly you are unhappy with, what you feel about yourself. Then ask yourself: “At what age did I decide that I was unattractive (or that I was unworthy of the best, unworthy of a good relationship, that I was bad, that I had to earn self-love...)?” Remember who you first heard this from. Is this belief really worth carrying throughout your life?

If you have answered these questions, then you realize that the belief you live with is not your truth. This is something that you heard a long time ago and perceived in your own, childish way. And perhaps this belief helped you a lot when you were little. But now you have grown up. And you have a choice: continue to be faithful to this belief or let it go with gratitude and choose a new belief for yourself that will help you further.

Yes, not everything is so easy, and change takes time. But by changing your beliefs, you become happy, successful, you build wonderful, harmonious relationships, and life takes on new colors.

Make yourself an idol

One psychological study conducted in Oxford showed that visualization helps people not only expand the boundaries of their imagination, but also quite literally change. Pre-tested participants were asked to look at different photographs of people they liked for a period of time and listen to them speak (if possible). Almost all participants chose celebrities as objects of their adoration, looked through photographs from their lives and watched video interviews with their idols. Afterwards, the participants were asked to take the test again, and as a result, it became clear that the subjects began to answer many questions differently.

The positive emotions we experience when observing someone we really like, someone we would like to be like, have a powerful effect on our own self-esteem. If you look in the mirror and don't accept your reflection, you only traumatize yourself more. Looking at a photograph of an idol, you compare your merits with his, but at the same time you subconsciously want to be like this photo, which pushes you to literal changes.

So find someone you've always dreamed of being like and hang their portrait in your home. Admire, visualize and start thinking about change. In a year you won't recognize yourself.

My light, mirror, be silent

We are used to seeing ourselves in the mirror, but we don’t even think that the image there is upside down. Habit usually gives rise to sympathy, so the reflected image is liked more than the one captured in the photograph.

Popular portrait artist Kim Ayres from the UK cites a stunning statistic: more than 90% of his interlocutors hate being photographed and consider themselves the most unphotogenic in their family, circle of friends, or even in the whole world. Sometimes the master is cunning and “mirrors” the pictures on the computer - and, lo and behold, people are immediately satisfied with what they see.

There are no completely symmetrical faces: most have one eye slightly larger than the other, one eyebrow is curved and the other straight, the smile in one corner of the mouth is slightly wider. And the hair is usually laid on a certain side.

If in reality the nose is bent by 2 mm to the left, then in the picture it will seem that it is skewed to the right, and by all of 4 mm. When Kim Ayres shows someone the upside-down Mona Lisa, it does not cause wild delight, because da Vinci’s canons are firmly rooted in the mind. That’s why in group photos everyone is cute, but you can’t look at your own face without sighing. Because it is not upside down the way you are used to seeing it in the mirror.

The True Mirror company produces mirrors for daredevils that show a real image. Mini versions for selfies cost 120 USD, full-size ones - 2000 USD, demand is still low.

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin in Madison (USA) knew about everything back in 1977. Participants in the experiment were shown two portraits of themselves from one negative: the original and a mirrored one. Almost everyone preferred the second option, explaining the choice by changes in angle, head tilt or lighting, which were not in sight.

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The opinions of others are just opinions, not the ultimate truth.

If you strive to please everyone, you begin to take to heart everything that other people say about you. Even the smallest comment another person makes to you can ruin your mood for the whole day.

Remember that you shouldn't always take what other people say seriously. As someone once said: “A compliment can be said out of pity, but a nasty thing can be said out of envy.”

In any case, all opinions are subjective. By adapting to those around you, you will live not your own life, but someone else’s life.