We’re taking our Bad Behavior to A+ to get down to the nitty gritty about our deviance. This week we asked our writers, editors and staff: What types of relationship situations or people are you often drawn to even though you know they’re bad for you and will destroy you?
You know the kind; they make you weak in the knees and then before you know it, they’ve sucker-punched your heart. The twist is we keep falling for the same trap over and over again. Who do you gravitate towards but know ultimately they’re downright no good for you?
Al(aina), Staff Writer
I am drawn to relationships that end up being codependent. I think that many black people (and I only date black people) are taught “family is the only thing you can rely on” as a sort of cultural way to shield ourselves from white supremacy. It was also popular in Christian circles when I was growing up to teach that couples should only speak to and rely on each other for emotional support. These are hard to unlearn, and as someone who naturally doesn’t find sharing my feelings with friends easy, it’s convenient to have one person who I unload everything onto. It’s a bad look. We become this insular unit where one of us (usually me) stops wanting to be social outside of the home because I can just have someone I really like come over. But eventually, it gets too uncomfortable, it becomes dangerous, I become manipulative, and probably low-key abusive. Coincidentally, I have been single for 7 years and I am always the one who gets broken up with.
Alexis, Staff Writer
S I N G E R S. The first girl I fell hard as shit for was the lead in a lot of musicals which explains why I have done five times more theatre than originally planned and also for a while believed I’d major in theatre? Anyways. You can sing? You sing to me??? It’s over. I’m done. There is nothing else I can do I’m in love with you and we’re just gonna have to deal with this. I know you’re thinking, but, Alexis, so many pretty and handsome and everywhere in between can sing? And you’re right! And do you see my problem??? As soon as someone starts humming, I just walk my ass the other way.
And like less than I used to but also, those lesbians who lean too hard in the “I gotta be like a straight man in order to properly be a lesbian” because I will be enamored by your swagger long enough to fall into the trap of “there’s probably something softer hiding underneath” and I can get to it if I wait it out instead of realizing that if you’re talking like a misogynist and acting like a misogynist, odds are, you’re an asshole. And if I don’t properly prepare myself against pet names you use to get me to believe whatever you did wasn’t really *that* bad, I will remain under this curse.
Heather Hogan, Senior Editor
Like basically every other kid who grew up with a parent who had an untreated narcissistic personality disorder and various un-dealt-with addictions, I spent the majority of my life thinking that the actions, reactions, and feelings of everyone around me were my fault/responsibility. And like basically every kid who grows up with dysfunctional family dynamics, the roles I was forced to play with my parents are the roles I gravitated toward in romantic relationships in my early adulthood. I dated people who were all about criticism and accusations, denial and projections, constant “martyrs,” and who withheld affection and communication as a form of punishment whenever I said or did anything that challenged their perception of themselves as good or right. I knew these people were bad for me, but I didn’t know exactly how or why, and I kept dating them and befriending* them over and over and over. Getting into relationships with narcissists was as easy to me as slipping into my favorite pajamas. It was just what I knew.
(*I say befriending but what I mean is getting into toxic, deeply intimate, definitely romantic, but nonsexual relationships with straight girls.)
In my mid-/late-twenties this perfect storm of things happened. I realized I’m gay, started therapy, and left church. For the first time in my life, I began trying to understand who I was and where I started and where I ended and where other people began.
In the last ten years or so, I have been the opposite of drawn to people who’ve tried to force me into repeating those patterns of my youth and early adulthood. Repelled, in fact. To a fault, though. I still haven’t really found balance with it. People who can’t or won’t self-reflect and work to get better, people who refuse to take responsibility for how their actions and inactions affect others in their orbit, people who expect an unwritten pact of silence so their fragile sense of self remains unchallenged, people who have erratic outbursts, people who do not practice active empathy — once I realize what’s going on with them (though, admittedly, it often takes a minute because of my childhood conditioning; plus, I am such an easy target for narcissists) I am completely done with them.
I don’t think that’s a good thing. I don’t think shutting myself off from anyone who displays any character trait that reminds me of my mother is the best or wisest or most compassionate way to move through the world — but it’s the only way I know how to protect myself. When I cut you out of my life, you are out of my life. Me and Mr. Darcy have social anxiety and this in common: Our good opinions once lost are lost forever! I’ve worked reaaaaaallllly hard to deconstruct my kryptonite and I don’t want to spend my one wild and precious life getting sucked into vacuums of other people’s narcissism.
Erin, Staff Writer
I think before I got into a long-term relationship that destroyed me mentally and emotionally and therefore going forward truly all bets are off in terms of what I’m looking for in a person or relationship, it seemed I was drawn to women whose pendulums were at that brief pause before swinging swiftly back in the other direction of wanting to date men. What was – and probably will be again – crushing about this is not the dating men part. We’re all god’s children under flags of various colors. It’s the kind of men. Just dopey, doofy men. Tragic. If a crush starts dating a hot woman, I’m like, obviously. Good for them. Of course she would. But when it’s someone whose entire instagram is them just slamming PBRs and playing video games, I ache. So, women who date terrible men seem to be my thrill and will probably lead to my ultimate demise.
Creatrix Tiara, Staff Writer
I once stayed in an abusive relationship way, way too long because we were living together, and as a foreigner (specifically an international student) I knew it was already harder for me to find a place to live on my own. I could have just kicked her out, but she was also very vulnerable (with a long history of homelessness and living off Social Security — I covered most of the rent) and I didn’t want to put her in an unsafe situation, even when she was making OUR living situation unsafe. In not wanting to be the abusive, heartless girlfriend, I over-accommodated her abuse and heartlessness.
I’ve only lived with one other partner (before her, that one was generally fine) so I don’t know if this counts as “kryptonite” per se. But it’s still hard for me to figure out how to balance wanting to be aware of structural inequalities (that lead to, say, homelessness) and wanting to protect myself from people taking advantage of me.
Molly Priddy, Staff Writer
I happen to be pretty into bossy femmes who could either really like me or they just like telling me what to do, it’s always a coin flip. Imagine a big doofus St. Bernard — me — just being bossed around by a little sassy Chihuahua — her — and you’ve got the picture. Well, make the St. Bernard totally happy to follow around the Chihuahua and end the fights it starts with other dogs or just generally back it up with sheer size, and NOW you’ve got the picture. It doesn’t usually end well for me, but I can’t help it.
Cameron, Cartoonist
I’m instinctively drawn to really dynamic, interesting people with high ambitions who don’t necessarily have time to be in a relationship. This isn’t entirely a bad thing aside from that 1) there’s a built-in expiration date and, 2) because of who I am as a person, I end up doing a lot of unreciprocated emotional labor. And that’s fine until I burn out at which point all of my own needs (that I’ve been ignoring, and Player 2 has been too busy to notice exist) collectively take a deep breath and SCREAM.
Here’s the thing. I like taking care of people and I hate when a whole lot of attention is on me. Being involved with busy people who have tunnel-vision is a great scenario for me in theory! I’m led by their example toward productivity and they enjoy small comforts like relaxing for a goddamn second. It really isn’t all bad.
What’s really fun is that having really chill, undemanding energy attracts a fair amount of very busy and emotionally unavailable people. So this situation has played itself out a few times over with varying shades of success/disaster & may continue to do so!
Archie, Cartoonist
I’ve been trying to figure out what the folks I’ve dated have in common that has made the relationships implode. And to be frank, the only real common denominator is me. I’m my own relationship kryptonite. I’m the bad influence. I’ve historically been the fuckboy in a way to combat my own anxieties and insecurities and as a way to stay aloof. I think I could try and swing it under a different guise but what’s the point. The reality is many of my past relationships (pre-therapy & before I actually started working on my coping skills) imploded because as soon as I felt a hint of insecurity, I’d fuck around or cheat first or look for some sort of physical/emotional escape or disappear in some way. And because the community is small, this would often be with my partner’s good friend/ex-lover/best friend’s ex-lover/my own ex/etc etc. I honestly think cheating can become a habit if you’re not careful and I wasn’t careful at all, with myself or with the people I was with. This is a shit way to treat people and I can’t even tell you the number of times it has come back at me or exploded in my face or I had a sit-down with an ex and listened to the ways I fucked up. It doesn’t matter if the relationship was monogamous or polyamorous and it’s very different than just wanting to sleep around with folks in an open and healthy way! I realize I wasn’t isolated in most of these relationships either-often it was that the anxieties each of us brought to the table weren’t compatible or our communication styles were just REALLY bad. So I don’t know, for the sake of honesty I guess the answer is me circa 2006-2016. And for the record: yes, I am pretty embarrassed by how long it took me to stop and be accountable for my own actions. But here I am, at the ripe age of 32, learning to be less of a shithead and cheaters: you can to!
Rachel, Senior Editor
In a sentence: my stupid self-destructive catnip is people who become intensely emotionally attached to and dependent on me, often struggling with Issues or Trauma of some kind and who I can really throw myself into support, knowledge and devotion of, but who never do more than the perfunctory in terms of returning so that there’s never any danger of actual reciprocal emotional intimacy or risk of vulnerability for me. Obviously the kind of person who is okay with deeply opening up to and asking for intense support from a partner but doesn’t notice or care that they know very little about that partner’s inner life or return that energy is… a specific kind of person! Some would say perhaps a tad narcissistic, or at best self-centered and emotionally immature. Often, though not always, this person is a man, because this is absolutely how men are conditioned to interact with women in our culture and so it’s a really easy dynamic to find. Anyhow, this goes on with someone until eventually I finally get burned out, or until I ask for support in one (1) small thing and they don’t show up for me because duh, that’s the dynamic I’ve actively established with them for 1-5 years, and I get upset and leave. Then I usually go to some minimal amount of therapy and repeat the whole thing 1-3 years later. I should probably stay single!
Valerie Anne, Staff Writer
I know this is the cliche but I always fall for the unavailable girls. And not (necessarily) emotionally unavailable, I mean like, “omg we’re perfect for each other too bad you have a boyfriend/husband and/or ID as straight.” The first time this happened the girl told me to wait for her because she’d just been dating this guy for so long and he was her best friend and she wanted to ease him into the idea of breaking up but THEN we would TOTALLY be together because she loved me, she did. (We never even kissed because she didn’t want to cheat on him — and I mean I didn’t either but I would argue telling someone else you love them is worse than like a drunken one night stand!) Anyway I waited and spoiler alert she didn’t break up with him. In fact, they moved in together. I found out at a party we were all at where she had been weird and distant all night. She said to the group, without looking in my direction at all, that her boyfriend was picking her up because they were going to “give it a shot.” I felt like I had been stabbed in the gut. But as wary as I am of a situation similar to this now, I still find myself falling into these patterns where I am basically dating someone but without any of the physical stuff or without them admitting that we’re basically dating. Maybe it’s because I’ve never had a girlfriend, but I keep finding myself with a “work wife.” Right now, the girl who I will call Work Crush are rapidly approaching work spouse status. We’ll get lunch together almost every day, leave work together, buy each other coffee, etc. Recently we started hanging out outside of work too: she came to Pride with me, I was her plus one at a show her husband wouldn’t go with her to. Part of me is like “Yay for adult female friendships! We’re gonna be just like the Bold Type girls!” but the other part of me is like “Haaaaaave you considered an open marriage?” Because I’m not good at dating! But we have such a good soul connection and an easy comfort around each other and why can’t I have that with single queer people I’m attracted to! Is it BECAUSE she’s not a single queer person? Were the stakes so low that I just let my guard down and was able to be real and comfortable with her early on? Or do I like torturing myself by wanting what I can’t have? Am I so afraid of rejection that I only let myself admit to liking low-risk people because knowing they won’t like me back is safer than hoping they will? You know what, don’t answer that.
Stef, Vapid Fluff Editor
There are a lot of awful things I find myself falling into over and over again in my relationships (long distance, duplicitous poly situations, etc), but ohhh boy, there’s one situation that I thought I had control over and yet SURPRISE!!! In my late teens and early 20s, I spent a lot of time pining after boys in bands. I played music, I went to shows, I was involved in local punk and metal scenes and these were the kinds of guys I always ended up infatuated with. The ones I liked were always tall, skinny, tattooed, slightly androgynous, the kinds of guys who never looked less masculine in eyeliner but who always spent way too much time on their hair. Bass players, rhythm guitarists, the occasional drummer, but never the lead singer (they were an entirely different category) — all sweet and respectful while simultaneously deliciously emotionally unavailable. They also (probably) had girls in every city, which meant that they’d usually forget about me as soon as they got back in the tour van, and it took me far too many tries to learn that this arrangement was never going to work.
I was able to snap out of it somewhere around age 26. A couple of important things had changed: I no longer considered myself straight, and I now worked exclusively in live music. Dating women had taught me that clear communication was a thing I could have, and as a result I raised my standards regarding what I was looking for when I bothered to date men. I met tons of bands every single day, and over time the novelty of hot musicians had sort of worn off without my even realizing it. The handsome, scruffy bass player who’d stopped texting me back until he appeared out of nowhere to ask for a +1 for his girlfriend (I’M STILL MAD) had gotten married and moved to Texas to start a family. I still mostly dated moody creative types, writers, actors, photographers (and okay, one roadie), but rarely dipped into my own industry.
And then I met L.
L was a gorgeous lead singer with impeccable style, a bleached blonde firecracker who played a lime green 1963 Fender Jazzmaster on stage and always wore platform heels. A cursory scan of her Instagram revealed that she didn’t appear to own a single item of clothing that covered her thighs. The night I first met her in a dimly lit Lower East Side bar, she handed me a shot and a beer before we’d even exchanged words – before I could even tell her I don’t like beer. I took a sip anyway. I would go on to drink a lot of beers around her, and I never looked back. When I bragged about her to my friends, I sighed that the hottest thing about her was her impressive collection of vintage Fender guitars, and I couldn’t believe her band was good! The band is never good! She was a night owl, a party animal, effervescent and funny and very direct about her interest in me. I was hooked.
There were nights where I’d come to see her perform and she’d know everyone in the room. I’d stand off to the side and awkwardly make small talk with relative strangers, knowing she was working and this was part of the deal. Sometimes she’d end up talking to a man, and I’d see that man laughing at her jokes, subtly touching her hip. This was also (unfortunately) sometimes part of the deal, being a woman in music; we talked about that together often. Knowing that didn’t help. She’d kiss me in dive bars, but she’d bail on dinner plans and it would REALLY hurt my feelings. I wondered why I felt such a familiar sense of confusion.
“Oh fuck,” I realized, far too late. “How’d I end up doing this again?!?! She’s such a boy in a band.” L and I are super close friends now – which was absolutely the right move! She’s so great! – but I can’t believe I still haven’t learned not to swoon over musicians.
That said, I’m a musician too, and I spend every single one of my sets praying secretly that someone else has the same problem I do.
Vanessa Friedman, Community Editor
I love taking care of people. I don’t know if it’s because it’s coded into my DNA or because I was raised and socialized as a girl or because I have mommi vibes or what, but I love it. I’m a nanny, I’m a kitchen top, I’m the friend who will text you back immediately with a lot of validation and heart emojis if you’re having a hard time. I’m the community editor of Autostraddle! I’m down for that sweet sweet emotional labor (and for the record, I think it’s bizarre and irritating when folks act like being a decent fucking human being to your friends and acquaintances is *emotional labor* but that’s not what I’m talking about here, I’m talking about the real heavy lifting) – not because I feel obligated, but because I genuinely want to help you. I do. It feels nice and is often reciprocal and is the way I know how to best show how deeply I care.
But uh…the thing about really being down to caretake people, is that you wind up with a lot of humans in your life who need a lot of caretaking! When I initially started answering this question I was just talking about my type, or rather, types – I am a little bit predictable, but I’m also attracted to a huge variety of babes. Fat non-binary writer? Yes please. Boyish butch who wants to grow things and live in the woods? Yep! Femmes in floral print? Yeah! Literally anyone who grew up in Alaska and has Daddy Issues? YES HI HELLO. But as I delved into the types of humans who make me tick, I realized I was evading the main question: who are the folks I’m drawn to even though I know they’re bad for me?
And that’s how I landed on the problem within myself, which is the caretaking piece. I don’t think any of the babes I’ve fallen for have been inherently bad for me (well okay, maybe one or two, but I’m trying to be generous and compassionate here) but I do think the relationship dynamic I frequently find myself in is bad for me (and for the other people involved, tbh!), and I have to admit that is very much My Own Shit To Work Out.
See, I say that I want an independent babe who can keep up with me, and sometimes I get that and sometimes I don’t. But when I go out of my way to caretake – cook all the meals, act as a therapist, make all the social arrangements, minimize and compartmentalize my own needs and feelings so that my partner can feel comfortable – I create a dynamic wherein the other person begins to rely on me whether they plan to or not. This can work for a while, and even feels good – but then it implodes. I begin to feel resentful. My partner doesn’t understand why I no longer wanna do all the things they got used to me doing. It’s a big mess.
I really, really, really want to work on breaking this habit and not letting this relationship dynamic repeat itself, because I think it feels just as bad for the other person as it does for me, and it feels really bad for me! If anyone has any pro tips on breaking similar habits, I’d love to hear them in the comments. My main strategy right now to avoid this in the future is to be single for forever, so uh, if you’re in the New York area and you wanna casually make out this fall with no expectation of any kind of caretaking, let me know! (Kidding.) (Kind of.) 
