Are You Attracted To Someone Who's Unavailable? How To Tell + Why It Happens

Dating in the 21st century is anything but simple, when countless dating apps, chronic ghosters, and situationships abound.

According to relationship expert and licensed therapist Ken Page, LCSW, there's one major red flag he sees come up time and time again these days when his clients are dating someone new.

Dating someone new can be exciting—and borderline intoxicating—thanks to all the feel-good hormones1 that are released when we're crushing hard. But sometimes, that excitement can keep us from seeing the big picture, and we fall into what Page calls an "attraction of deprivation."

According to Page, an attraction of deprivation often happens when a love interest is "almost available and almost interested and almost in love—but they never fully get there." He adds that this leads to an "incredibly addictive and compulsive kind of attraction," and one that we're all programmed to be sensitive to.

When you're dealing with an attraction of deprivation, the very nature of a person's emotional unavailability is what's actually fueling your desire. Dating then becomes about winning them over and getting their approval, as opposed to focusing on how they're really making you feel.

In short, Page says, if you feel like you have to work extra hard to get someone's interest or approval, "that is a serious warning sign this could very well be an attraction of deprivation."

As Page explains, "The degree to which you hyper focus on whether someone likes you is the degree to which you will self-abandon—so the task is actually to shift your focus to noticing what the 'weather' is like inside of you when you're with another person."

Checking your internal weather, so to speak, just means paying attention to how you really feel about someone, as opposed to jumping the gun to approval-seeking without even considering whether you actually like them.

Being rejected is hard, but trying to make a circle fit into a square is harder.

It can feel exhilarating to get those little breadcrumbs of validation from the object of your affection, but we shouldn't need to work overtime for a partner's approval. A healthy relationship shouldn't leave you questioning your own value or needing to prove your worth.