How Do I Stop Over Pursuing?

They’re not interested but I can’t seem to stop chasing.

She asked, “How do I choose myself when I’m chasing a guy who isn’t choosing me back?” She’d just started to come to terms with how he was not expressing or showing equal interest. But even though she knew she should stop chasing, she still felt this desperate desire for him to choose her. They say awareness is the first step to change, but how do we move past being aware of the pattern and stepping out of it? And what does it mean to choose yourself in this kind of situation? 

When you are waiting for someone to choose you and they are not, that places the choice of you in their hands. And when you put choosing you in someone else’s hands, then you will wait forever. You will always be chasing people because you don’t trust yourself to choose you. Sometimes it’s safer for us to stick to the same old comfortable patterns. We keep getting into the same dynamics because we know the outcome. We wait and wait and wait before actually making the leap to choose yourself. In this situation, choosing yourself means choosing not to chase someone who isn’t choosing you back. 

You know, I think we often forget that one of the qualifiers for dating is not, “If you like me, then I like you back.” Too many people live their lives thinking, “So if you like me, then I like you.” No! The real questions you should be asking are: Do you like them? Is the way they show up to life the way you want? Do they have the values that you want? Are they available? Do they do personal work? How do they talk about their past relationships? Why did their past relationships end? 

Remember, you’re picking a partner. You’re not waiting to be picked. You’re not an effing princess waiting in a castle to be saved by some Disney prince. This is not the Bachelor or Bachelorette, where you’re up against two dozen other people, all vying to marry one person. Dating is not reality television, people! (I wouldn’t personally put myself in that situation, but it can be wild to watch it unfold on TV.) 

Choose yourself. Claim yourself. So what does that mean, to choose yourself? It’s pretty simple: to ask, “If I chose me, what would I do? If I was standing up for me, what would I do? If I loved me, what would I do? If I stopped repeating the same patterns I always find myself in, what would I do?”

And then you do it. It’s pretty easy, right?