You’re obviously wondering why you want someone who doesn’t want you. We have 7 good explanations for this, which when you understand, can help you emotionally free yourself from that person.
Before reading about why you’re obsessed with someone who doesn’t want you, read about how you became that way.
Think about all these reasons well. Because you may unconsciously have one of the above motives for wanting someone who doesn’t want you. But when we understand our motives, we usually don’t have to follow them anymore.
The Person Who Rejects Us Sends Us a Message That We’re Not Worthy of Them
It could be a reason why you want someone who doesn’t want you.
By rejecting us, they tell us our qualities aren’t suitable for them to choose us. At the very least, we have more negative than positive qualities. But overall, when they look at us, they assess that we’re not something they want. We’re not attractive enough, interesting enough, smart enough, fun enough, etc.
That person is special to us. If someone special tells us that we’re not good enough for them, it’s tough because it’s the opinion of a special person.
Of course, it would be much easier if someone less special told us they didn’t like us. However, it’s tragic when it comes from someone so special to us. The object of our adoration has rejected us.
Because of this, the difference between us is significant.
- We put them high in our heads and can’t knock them down.
- Because of us, they have a high opinion of themselves.
- They’ve lowered us both in their heads and ours.
If you imagine a zero, we suddenly find ourselves at -20 while that person is at +20. The gap that has formed between us is significant.
If we know people even a little, we know that they need to win. Not because it’s so much fun, but because it’s human nature. The winner gets the best things. They have greater benefits and the greatest chances of survival.
That’s why, when someone tells us that we’re not valuable to them (we are -20), we need to prove otherwise. “Winning” by proving ourselves to that person becomes the most important thing.
And if we know what a big difference we must overcome, it’s a big job.
In this way, of course, we begin to invest even more resources in that person. We start thinking about them even more, or maybe giving them even more (attention, gifts, etc.). Of course, with each new investment, the value of the person in front of us grows.
A potentially good answer on how to overcome this can be found here: How to stop obsessing over someone
Proving to Others To Appease the Ego
Typical reason why you want someone who doesn’t want you.
Our ego cannot tolerate someone having a negative opinion of us. The primary task of our ego is to maintain a positive image of ourselves, both for others and for ourselves. Therefore, the ego uses all possible means to uphold that image. Hence, this could be termed irrational. Any criteria for proving our worth are lost; what matters is simply proving that we are worthy (of course, here we are dealing with a person we have deemed very important).
These must be regarded as two separate instances:
- the attempt to prove ourselves worthy, and
- whom we are trying to prove ourselves to.
When we consider these separately, we will see that these two things often do not have to align.
We might strongly desire to prove ourselves to someone who, by all criteria, is insignificant. And we may not care how someone who is excellent by all criteria views us.
It is important to consider these separately to be more objective and to refrain from declaring people special just because we are trying to prove ourselves to them.
The attempt to prove oneself has nothing to do with their uniqueness. It is our internal matter.
The Best Way To Make Someone Regret Leaving You
What We Invest in Becomes Significant
Which leads us to another instance.
If we’ve invested a lot of our resources (time, energy, or money) in something, we don’t give up on that project. Imagine you’ve opened a kiosk. And you’ve invested several years of effort and work into it. You’ve put a lot of money and time into that project. It would be very difficult for you to give up on that project because you hope it will work out if you just invest a little more.
People don’t like to waste their resources in vain. Our resources are valuable to us. So if we spend them, we don’t want to abandon them.
That’s why people are more inclined to invest even more in a person rather than leave them when it seems that the relationship brings nothing. Everyone hopes for a return on their investment.
We absolutely do not want to give up our investment. We don’t want to let go person in whom we have invested time, money, energy, etc.
But do you know the rule from economics that a good investor knows when to leave his investment, so that he would not be at an even bigger loss?
Lack of Information About That Person
A lack of negative information leaves us with an open field to put whatever we want in those blank spaces.
The assumption here is that we don’t know that person well enough. Or that we were so obsessed with them and their wonder that we didn’t have time to learn bad things about them.
So we don’t know them well enough to know that they gossip a lot about other people, that they don’t maintain good personal hygiene, that they’re lazy, or something else.
That’s why we practically have nothing to hold onto. We have only positive things about them in our heads, and we haven’t been able to find out the negative ones. We are practically unable to say, “I like this person, but they’re lazy,” for example.
We don’t know that person well, so there is a lot of room for idealization.
2 Psychological Reasons Behind Obsession After Rejection
Another option, of course, is that:
We Know Them Well, But We’ve Idealized Them
So whatever they do, they’ll still be exceptional to us.
The minor flaws we see are all part of their charm; they won’t affect our life together, they’ll change it with us, etc.
If we already love or like someone, we’ll add positive qualities to them. If we don’t like someone, we’ll add negative attributes to them. This has to do with the need to confirm our personal opinions of people.
Once again, for our ego reasons, we have to prove to ourselves that we are right. Therefore, if we have chosen a person, we will do everything we can to prove to ourselves that we were not wrong about him or her. If necessary, we will add attributes to them that they do not possess. Also, we are always looking for confirmations for our opinions, so we will only look at them and ignore things that don’t match our opinion.
We Embellish All Their Negative Traits or Attribute Them to Their Charm
If someone doesn’t behave well, it’s not because he’s bad, but because he’s confused/had a hard day/dad didn’t love them…
Idealization works like that. It ignores all negative characteristics of a person and uses various mechanisms to maintain positive characteristics.
Statements like: He did not mean it that way. She did it by accident. So what?! They have these other remarkable qualities… They serve to keep the person ideal. Even though it doesn’t benefit us, it does. Read more about it here.
Why Does It Sting the Most When Our Partner Chooses Someone New Over Us?
The Distrust Toward Other People Arises
Because of that one person, distrust can be born toward everyone else. If we’ve invested our energy/time/money/resources/knowledge/etc. in that person, and they don’t want us, why would anyone else want us?
The assumption is that we’ve presented ourselves to that person in our best light, and they’ve assessed that as not good enough. Our best wasn’t good enough for that person.
Because of this, it’s hard to think that someone else will want something from us when our best wasn’t good enough the first time.
Because of them, everyone else can fall away, and they can be retained in our lives as the rarest and best thing we have (or at least fantasize about). That person remains unique and important, and that’s why we stick with them.
Obviously, the solution would be to see that we are somehow “deceived” and that the fact that this person does not want us does not mean that others will not want us or that we are not worthy.
We don’t trust people anymore, so we have to stay attached to that person.
In the texts listed below, you can read more about how to overcome excessive attachment to someone.
Love you. Dee
