Confession: Pattern of Choosing the Unavailable

I was jogging trying to burn some of the energy I had. Jogging has always been a place that I could think and center my soul again if I was feeling unbalanced in life. Lately I have been jogging more than usual. Today, while jogging, I was hit with an epiphany: I have always chosen men that are unavailable to me. Whether they were unavailable in maturity, emotionally unavailable, or unavailable in circumstance. I have never dated a man that is available to me. This fact baffled me because I have never wanted anything more than to give myself completely to a man and him to me and spend the rest of my life making him happy. A man that could be my best friend and I would be his. I am a pretty independent girl- and I am not asking for a 24/7 kinda thing... in fact I am pretty sure that I would go crazy with that kind of constant attention. But just a best friend and a lover to share the rest of my life with. So-if that is what I have always wanted- why have I sabotaged my own aspirations and established a pattern of dating men that are unavailable?!

Immediately I wonder what is wrong with me? What makes me attracted to these unavailable men? What is it they all have in common?

I have never been good at putting up walls and not letting people in. I am generally open with my life. I wear my heart on my sleeve and despite my best attempts to hide what I am thinking- its inevitably written across my face with clear expression. I naturally trust people without first waiting for them to give me a reason to trust them. I feel that most good things are temporary and that I am constantly waiting for the other shoe to fall and things to end.

 A man that is unavailable is possibly a challenge for me. I want what I cant have. Although I have never had an affair, I would imagine that it could possibly be the same. I have always been the good girl that loved her some bad boy. Most of the time it was because I was able to look into his eyes and see some sort of good that was there. Im a natural optimist- so I would focus on the good that I saw in him and disregard the bad. Part of the bad I disregarded so quickly was that he was not available to me. He couldn't be my best friend, he couldn't treat me the way a woman needs to be treated, he had other non-essential priorities (hobbies, friends, etc) that he placed in front me. And most of the time I let him do this because I was so focused on that good- or maybe because his inability just hurt too much to dwell on.

So why did I allow this to happen? I now wondered what it was that I was hiding from. Could it be that a girl that had dreams and aspirations to find a commitment worth fighting for, was hiding behind the walls of others? Was it that I was too afraid of failure to allow myself a valiant try?

Whatever the reason I have decided that it needs to stop. If I want true devotion- I need to start with dating the men that can fill those shoes. I have to stop seeing the good in his eyes- and instead look at the WHOLE PICTURE. Does he have the ability to give me everything that he has got- or is there something that holds him back from me? It's time for me to stop chasing what I will never catch, and find a catch that is worth a lifetime of chasing.