Two areas where men can get stuck in over-attachment that leads to trouble getting into a relationship: one-itis and getting over an ex.

One-itis and getting over an ex may seem like the same obstacles to getting into a new relationship. Although there are many similarities and overlapping qualities one-itis and getting over an ex are different things. One-itis is when you are stuck on one woman and become overly attached to her before any sort of relationship has really developed. When going through a breakup there is a natural element of being stuck on your ex. Though this involves being stuck on one woman like one-itis, it is different in the sense that you are recovering from having had a real attachment to this person rather than being stuck on a fantasied attachment with a woman you do not and have not had a relationship with.

For getting over an ex you want to occupy yourself with something for the first few weeks, something creative and constructive. For most situations I have found it best not to contact her during this period. Some men have trouble with this, but the cleaner the cut the faster your own personal resolution and closure will be. Giving yourself this time will allow the grief to dissipate rather than letting it be the driving force to re-establish the relationship. Use the time to reconnect with yourself, and make a sober decision about whether the relationship fits with your life and your true identity outside of the relationship. This is especially important if she is the one who broke up with you. One, it shows that you respect her decision, AND secondly it allows her to take on full personal responsibility for her decision, and face whether it is the decision she really wants for herself or whether she is genuinely having second thoughts about it. Trying to call and convince her otherwise interferes with her personal process and that will likely not bode well for you.

When you are stricken with one-itis, all of the cliches from every romantic comedy flood your reality; "She's the one and only woman for me", "I've found my soulmate", "This must be what 'love' really is!". With one-itis you likely go into any interaction with this one woman thinking that you need it to work out because in a borderline obsessive way you believe that something about her looks (read more here) or some connection you've made in your own mind tells you that she is someone you need to know. Whether the woman is regular or fine as hell, the truth is you don't know either of them. You won't know who she is in 30 minutes, you wont know who she really is in 2 months, and you probably wont even know everything about who she is 6 months from now. You don't get to know the real person for a long time. Many people believe that they are the exception to this rule, but it is just part of the deal with relationships. In this state you project everything you've ever wanted onto this woman, who is truly still a stranger more than anything. And when I say project, I mean you are taking your own feelings and desires from within and making this woman the embodiment of them. The key to remember is that all of what you are projecting onto her really exists within you. That is why it feels like you know her; because these are parts of your own feelings and desires you're putting onto her. When you make this projection in this way you then make her out to have more value for you than you have for yourself. This is a sign of low self-esteem.

It is this low self-esteem that makes you think you should care more about her than any other woman. You become fixated on her because your self-esteem depends on getting approval from her. Instead of being comfortable being yourself (which is not dependent on approval from anybody) you try to position yourself in a way you think she wants you to be. This short circuits the electricity that would come from an authentic, genuine interaction. The question, therefore, is why should you care so much about what someone you don't know thinks about you?

For one-itis you want to get out and go on more dates with more women, plain and simple. This is not to go out and be some sort of super pimp, but a way to ground you and help you understand that women are human and fallible as we all are. Putting women on a pedestal like a celebrity not only undermines that attraction toward you that will help a potential relationship move forward, it also undercuts your own sense of self-worth which is not good for you.

Credits:

http://www.danbolton.com/PhysicalAttraction

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