“I keep dating the same type of person”
The short answer
Dating the same person repeatedly is a selection problem, not bad luck, and it usually runs on a filter applied in the first three interactions. Whatever that filter screens for, intensity, potential, a project, unavailability, gets applied before you have any real information, so the outcome is set long before the relationship reveals itself. Identifying the filter is most of the work.
Selection and retention are separate failures
Two different things go wrong and they need different fixes. Selection decides who gets through the door, and it runs on a fast, pre-verbal read. Retention decides how long they stay after you know better, and it runs on what you will tolerate. Resolving to 'be pickier' addresses only the first, which is why it has not worked, the people you would have screened out were mostly screened in during week one, before there was anything to be picky about.
Why the filter is invisible
It does not present as a preference. It presents as chemistry, a feeling of recognition, of things being easy, of someone being different from the others. That sense of recognition is the filter reporting a match against a template, and the template is about familiarity rather than quality. This is why the same type keeps feeling like an exception.
The intervention that actually moves it
Screen on something that is not a feeling, and screen before chemistry rather than after. Three criteria about behaviour, how he handles being wrong, what he does when you are ill, whether his friendships last, applied in the first month. It is unromantic and it works, because it introduces evidence into a process that currently runs entirely on state.
When it is not what you think
Having a type is normal and is not itself a problem, plenty of people are consistently drawn to the same qualities and have perfectly good relationships. This only becomes worth addressing when the outcomes repeat as well as the type. Same type, different endings, is a preference. Same type, same ending, is a pattern.
What to do about it
- 1Write down your last three significant attractions: what drew you in week one, how fast it moved, and how it ended. Three is enough for the pattern to appear.
- 2Write three screening criteria that have nothing to do with how someone makes you feel, and apply them before chemistry rather than after.
- 3Notice the feeling of recognition. "This one is different" arriving in week one is the filter reporting a match, not an observation about the person.
Find out where you actually stand
Why Do I Pick Bad Guys? Quiz
The assessment scores ten separate dimensions and tells you which two are actually driving your results, because working on all ten at once is how people give up.
Take the assessmentFree · No account needed · 3 minutes
Common questions
Does this mean I'm attracted to bad people?
No. It means your filter weights traits that are attractive early and poorly correlated with how things go later, confidence, intensity, unpredictability. Plenty of people with those traits are perfectly decent. The filter simply is not measuring for that.
Can what I'm attracted to change?
The choices change in weeks once you screen differently. The attraction itself shifts over months of repeated exposure. You do not have to wait for the feeling to change before you change the behaviour.
Related
This page is general information, not a diagnosis or clinical advice. If you are frightened of someone, or being controlled, a domestic abuse service can help, in the UK, the National Domestic Abuse Helpline is 0808 2000 247, free and 24 hours.