Incredible facts
Some people believe that a person who does not love himself cannot love another person.
A person who is unable to love can be charming, beautiful and even generous. He wants to be loved, and it's not about you.
Many people believe that so-called narcissists cannot love others because they love themselves too much.
This is fundamentally wrong. Narcissists don't love themselves. They hate themselves and their ego is damaged. They demand love from others in order to feed on this love, but cannot give anything in return.
Reason 1. There are more interesting things to do
This sounds especially counterintuitive to those who view romantic relationships as incredibly valuable.
Is there really anything more exciting in the world than hugs and suffering? A survey by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service found that among British 16-18 year olds, family and education are much more important than sex and romantic relationships. 82% consider a career and higher education to be the greatest value, and not all this worldly stuff. If you are good-looking and intellectually gifted, why waste your energy on mental torment? Expertise and professionalism may be more attractive. If you want to build a rocket or make millions, then it’s understandable why you have no time for dating - you just have another leading activity. Nowhere is it written that we should devote our lives to the race for other people's genitals and spiritual unity, if there is writing, airplanes and anime.
Reason 2. Still not over the previous romance
It is very difficult to be charmed by a new person when your former passion is in front of your eyes. Here you are going to a party, and here you are being treated together for another autumn cold. The soul is torn like nylon tights on a drunk woman. You can try to meet someone on Tinder, but every swipe feels like a slight betrayal. It’s like you’re stuck between two worlds: just yesterday you were happy, but you no longer hope for a call at night.
After a breakup, it can be so scary and difficult that the psyche uses all its strength to prevent this from happening again. As soon as a curious object appears on the horizon, an alarm starts blaring in your head at the highest frequencies.
When the boundaries of contact are burned, it is very difficult to trust again: what if they leave you again or reject you, or even worse?
Data from the American Psychological Association confirms that the breakup of a relationship that could develop into marriage has a critical impact on partners and reduces adaptation to later life. The simpler and more unambiguous the relationship, the easier it is to return to the starting point, but sometimes getting used to life without a partner can take more than one year.
Reason 3. Narcissism from all angles
Why do you need someone else if you have yourself? Love comes and goes, and you are mom’s only sunshine. No attachments become meaningful or deep. You just don't feel anything and don't understand at all why your partner is upset. Tyrannize and tyrannize, not noticing your coldness and passion for your own life.
Narcissism is not so much about kissing yourself from toes to hangers, but a fundamental concentration on one’s own person. You can hate yourself, beat yourself with mental whips, but still remain a narcissist. It’s hard to indulge in groans, sighs and “Oh my God, she has such eyes!” if all the attention is given only to yourself and no one else. Check the boxes where they wrote about you in the DSM-V, the authoritative edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders:
- A person defines himself through the opinions of other people and cannot rely on his own point of view. If they like you, then you are good, if they don’t like you, then you are bad. As a result, self-esteem regularly jumps between “I’m a sad piece of shit” and “I’m the king of this world and the next president.” Mood and ability to work completely depend on these fluctuations.
- All life goals revolve around receiving admiration and recognition from others. Such a person has extremely high demands on himself, and failure to meet them is fraught with failure, and compliance gives a feeling of grandiosity.
- There is a lack of empathy, that is, the ability to understand the feelings and needs of other people is impaired. A person is empathetic only if the behavior and emotions directly concern him.
- Any relationship is superficial and based on selfish interests. Reciprocity and emotional penetration are minimal.
- A person opposes himself to others, believes that he has the exclusive right to all existing benefits, and those around him owe him, because he is fundamentally better, cooler and more beautiful. Treats "plebeians" condescendingly.
- A person is trying hard to impress others and focus all the spotlight on his incredible person.
You should sound the alarm if you have ticked the first two points plus the third or fourth. The fifth and sixth are so, personality traits and consequences. You can read about the difficult fate of narcissists and why it is so difficult for them to establish deep personal contacts in the book “Hell's Web” by Sandy Hotchkiss. How to survive in a world of narcissism."
Focus on achievements
Experts adhere to the idea that goal-oriented people, so-called careerists, tend to be incapable of love. For such individuals, what comes first is not relationships and emotions, but achievements, goals, success and results.
Direct workaholics can also be included in this category. As a rule, individuals who are immersed in work do not know how to love and relax. From their point of view, emotions and feelings can be regarded as useless, distracting and even burdensome.
According to statistics, many workaholics become such due to the desire to escape from any everyday problems and situations, due to the desire to escape from themselves, their inner feelings and unresolved internal conflicts. Often the cause of psychological discomfort is precisely unrealized love or non-reciprocal sympathy. Therefore, the inability to love in this case may be based on a banal reluctance to experience something similar.
Reason 4. Large personal space
Scientists at the University of Chicago found that people with more private space feel lonelier than those with smaller intimate spaces. The evolutionary model of loneliness implies that people need to stick together: it is more profitable and safer. When a person is left alone, he experiences a feeling of loneliness - a signal for unification.
We feel sad and unpleasant, because the body gives the command to change something and quickly join the pack - this way there is a greater chance of survival.
Stimulus - reaction, and now you are with your friends at the bar.
But for some it just doesn’t work that way. Too much personal space and the feeling that the danger comes from contacts, and not from external threats, does not allow one to obey the signal of unification. So all I can do is sit at home in the evenings.
Lack of empathy
Another clearest sign of a personality disorder is a lack of empathy. It is no secret that each of us at one time or another can exhibit narcissistic or selfish tendencies. However, people tend to admit their mistakes and change their relationship strategy. A narcissist cannot do this because he does not know how to truly get close to other people, he is not familiar with the principles of mutual assistance, he does not know empathy and pity.
Reason 5. Burnout, fatigue, loans
You can't fall in love because the mortgage hasn't been paid, the professional burnout hasn't been cured and it would be nice to get a pay rise. I have neither the strength nor the desire to even go to bars, let alone enter into long-term relationships and squeeze something out of myself. It seems that at your age you need to defrost and fly a little on the wings of love - but what can we talk about when there is only a bottle of beer and a dried out slice of pizza in the refrigerator?! There is no capacity for the rest.
Overwork and emotional burnout are becoming commonplace. Moreover, worries about the future and money are still more significant than worries about one’s own loneliness. Let's pay off our debts and live!
We just won’t live. Work becomes a meaning and an end in itself. There’s somehow no time for romance if, during frivolous correspondence, urgent tasks in Bitrix24 are remembered.
Reason 6. Unprecedented perfectionism
The inability to fall in love can also be associated with high demands: for a partner to be both beautiful and smart, and also capable of empathy and love board games. The list does not fit in small handwriting on an A2 sheet.
You can fight this only by getting rid of general perfectionism, and not just one manifestation of it. But even if you manage to find a partner, despite the demands, your relationship is under threat.
The University of York found that perfectionists are more likely to enter into destructive relationships and behave maladaptively in a couple, become more attached to their partner and require unprecedented dedication.
It doesn't end well, so check yourself for perfectionism and live happily. Perhaps you just need to lower your demands on your partner.
Solution
As we said, a narcissistic egoist will never change. He will lie to you, dodge, blame and manipulate. There is only one solution: end this relationship. A normal person cannot tolerate a narcissist for more than two minutes. Where do narcissists find potential victims? The answer is simple: if in your family model one of the parents was a narcissist, then the other was a weak character. You have become a hostage to this pattern and are being patient, demonstrating a victim mentality.
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Reason 7. It's all social networks! There are exes there
The presence of exes on social networks does not increase the chances of new love. Israeli and American scientists have found that scrolling and crying in the news feed destroys budding attachments. This works both ways. You can be indignant because of your ex-partner’s obsessive selfies in Instagram stories, and you can be nervous because of the constant comparisons of yourself with his new passion. Emerging couples aged 18–24 years are especially susceptible to this. It is very difficult to love when it seems that you are unworthy of it and worse than previous partners on all fronts. Most likely, this is not true, but sometimes it is difficult to believe it.
They don't like to be nostalgic for the past
Most people enjoy remembering some sweet moments from their past life. Good and pleasant memories shared between partners are a sign of deep affection. Egoists and narcissists do not know how to be nostalgic for the past. Any sentimental feelings are incomprehensible to them. That's why they never talk about the past with a smile.
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The reasons have been sorted out. What to do?
People want to live easier and more joyfully than reality allows them. So that there is a desire to hug and cuddle - especially since books and films show how healthy and easy it is, although in real life falling in love may not be at all so romantic.
If your feelings are blocked and you can’t get out of your own cognitive distortions, regular reflection can help - keeping a diary and living through unlived feelings in psychotherapy (rather than reassuring friends and family that you “haven’t met the right person yet” or “how old are you?” ).
Inability to idealize
Oddly enough, from the point of view of psychiatry, the inability (inability) to love is literally a painful condition. In psychiatry, the inability to experience this feeling is often equated to a severe neurotic disorder. Why? For the reason that the person who seeks advice from a psychiatrist or psychotherapist has certain traits and symptoms that indicate pathology. Among which there is an inability and unwillingness to experience romantic feelings.
The very feeling of love presupposes a conditional idealization of the chosen object, be it another person or life in general, the world around us. If a person cannot or does not want to prescribe ideal traits to an object, she will not be able to truly love. The basis of such inability or reluctance, as a rule, lies fear: fear of attachment, fear of disappointment, fear of moral pain, fear of dependence, and so on. Experts note that very often people who do not know how to love are vulnerable, sensitive, anxious, suspicious and fragile.
