Are You ‘Not Good Enough’ For Him?

13 min readJun 25, 2020

I recently met a guy. And it brought back all the emotions of a relationship I had at the age of 22. One brief encounter that it took some time to recover from. I was finally starting to feel at peace with myself in these last years when I caught this feeling again.

The feelings that I am talking about can be summarised as ‘I am not good enough for him’.

So, what (most probably!) happens when we catch these feelings :

We feel that it is too good to be true. So we either unconsciously sabotage the relationship we are in by constantly worrying that there is something wrong with the person and wait nervously for this thing to unravel or we make ourselves believe in the idea that he is really perfect and they will leave us soon after realising that ‘we are not good enough’. This shows itself in our behaviour and turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy and the relationship really falls apart.

Then we sit there, our opinion about ourselves validated once again, the feeling of ‘being right’ mixes with the sadness of losing a potentially good relationship, a potentially good match. We can now look at the mirror and say ‘You see, I told you so!’.

Let’s have a look at why we might be feeling this insecure around a new partner:

Past experience

What we lived through in our past relationships have an impact on what we think about ourselves right now. This is hard to avoid but it is a must to stop defining ourselves with what happened before and expecting the next person to behave in the same way the previous people did. We have more control over the outcome of the relationship than we think we are. If our previous relationships failed always due to the same reason, it does not absolutely mean that this one will fail with the same reason. We can change the course of our relationship and have a different outcome. Unless we keep repeating ourselves.

Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay

We are not the same person anymore. We can promise ourself that we will not be repeating our old patterns anymore. And more importantly, this new person has no idea what happened in our lives before. Carrying the baggage of past relationships and being scared that it will happen again will creep into our words and behaviour and eventually push the person away from us.

We start acting self-conscious and start showing the anxious attachment style behaviours, we become so afraid of making mistakes and saying something wrong, we examine ourselves all the time and lose our natural, confident, joyful selves, we try to pretend someone that we are not and it shows. We remember the feelings that someone else made us feel and attribute these feelings to this new person who is completely unaware of what is going in our minds.

Things to remember when we fall into the habit of comparing the new person to some other people we knew before and get scared that it is going to happen again:

I am not the same person, I am evolved, I learned, I improved myself, I am more confident.

He is a new person. Their behaviour or looks might resemble the ghosts from our past but this new person chose you, wants to spend time with you and is unaware of your past relationships, unaware of what other people think of you, unaware of your insecurities and unaware of what you think about yourself so you can present your current self to this new person in a different light, in the way you want to be, the way you aspire, the way your best, secure self is, in the way how the people who love you the most see you.

Self-confidence issues

This is more about a trait you have and about the baggage you carry from further away. From your childhood, from your early interactions with the world, from school years and of course past romantic relationships.

This is more to do with how you look at the moment, how you spend your time, the 5–10 kgs you gained in the last couple of years, your job, your friends… About the things that you decided that they define you at the moment and the things you decided that define success and beauty and the gap between these two groups.

Maybe you worked hard on your confidence before, maybe you were thinking that you overcame the issues you had in the past, maybe you are at a phase of your life that you feel comfortable with your looks, feeling successful in your social and work life.

And you never felt ‘not good enough’ with the last couple of people you dated. And then, with him entering your life and having an unexplainable(!) interest towards you, you start questioning again ‘Am I good enough for him?’

This comes from comparing this person to our old flirts, to the people we hang out with and to ourselves and deciding that he is better than the people we dated before and also better than us. We compare one by one, my looks, their looks, my job, their job, my sense of humor, their sense of humor, my hobbies, their hobbies… Endless. And we cannot win. Because at this point our faulty mind had already decided that they are so much better than us and it will only focus whatever it wants to focus on. What is this seemingly perfect man doing with us? What did he find in us? What is wrong with him or did he simply just not realize yet that ‘I am not good enough’? (and more negative self-talk here such as ‘How does he not care about my “insert body part here we are self-conscious about’’ ?’, ‘When will he realize that I am ignorant about “insert subject here we think we do not know much about, the subject we are not interested in”? “When will he realize I am not as smart or as successful as him or not making as much money as he does?”)

We start to bring their attention to the things we are worried about. We start being apologetic. We do things we do not do normally. We put on makeup more, we talk more or do not talk at all, we say things such as ‘Oh I am going to lose a bit more weight, I am aware of it, working on it’, we start faking that we are interested in things we are not interested in, we post things we do not normally post on Instagram and we do not post the things which bring us pleasure but we think that he will not find amusing or interesting, we might start cooking, working out, suddenly start listening to podcasts instead of watching our favourite reality show if we think he will judge us on our normal behaviour.

We try to create this picture-perfect Instagram life in his eyes. We try to become like him. We try to become like the women he liked before.

And it collapses.

In the last week, I caught myself trying to sound more intellectual than I am and talking about what I am doing to improve myself at work in order to be impressive. I caught myself choosing the songs (which he did not listen) very carefully to send him to show my amazing music taste expecting a compliment (“omg that song you sent is now my favourite song, it has such deep lyrics”). I caught myself cleaning my house frantically before the first date (just in case we go back home) in order to leave a good impression. I caught myself saying I liked bourbon. (I like bourbon but not as much as it sounded like) and many more…

Things to remember and affirm when we are acting out of our deep-down insecurities:

I am constantly improving myself. I am smart and beautiful, I love myself and I am enjoying my daily life and this new relationship is here to make me feel better and add more to me instead of completing me or defining me.

I may not be a great cook but I am organized, planned and a good listener. I may not be interested in history like him but I am good at singing.

I do not have to be just like him. He does not want someone who is a replica of himself. I am interesting. I have things that I can teach him. He does not have my experience.

He also does not want a replica of the people he dated before. If they wanted that, they would have stayed in that relationship.

He liked me as far as he was able to get to know me. He likes how I looked. He likes how I talk. I do not have anything to worry about at the moment.

While I am being my authentic self, if he does not like what he discovers in future, then instead of making him like me or instead of changing myself, I will be finding a more compatible match later on without compromising my core values.

This is not an interview, a romantic relationship is a two-way street. He is trying to impress me as well. He is a person who had failed relationships as well. And I will be also one of the decision-makers if we decide not to proceed further in the relationship based on what happens and what we want out of a relationship.

He is unaware of what I am thinking about myself and about him. I should not be mind-reading. I should not be overthinking, I should not be assuming that what I think about myself from time to time is also what he thinks about me.

Fear of rejection

Fear of rejection still hurts even if we got rejected many times. It is still a feeling very difficult to get used to unless we change our thinking around it. Even though when we were thinking we do not have any fear of rejection anymore, when our brain decides that ‘stakes are high’, we again get the same fear and realize that we were not of course completely done with it, it was simply because of the fact that we did not put as much importance to the previous trials.

We might not get hurt anymore from getting rejected after asking someone for their phone number in the bar, we might not get hurt anymore by the random job application we did without much expectation but we might still get hurt when we get rejected by that ‘dream job’ we applied after carefully reading through the job description and deciding that it would be a perfect match, spending hours to get prepared for the interview and slept many nights imagining our new responsibilities, new office and new colleagues as we were going through the interview process.

So who decides when the ‘stakes are high’? What does it mean?

And what can we change about our thinking and try not to let our imagination go wild and create disappointment if that ‘thing’ does not happen?

Putting them on a pedestal

So the question is, can you really be sure that this job (that you have this huge fear about being denied from) would be your dream job after reading the job description and checking the financials of the company and the ratings & reviews on Glassdoor? Challenge yourself further: Do you know the hiring manager? Do you know why the previous employees left? Do you know if there will be upwards career development opportunities or is it a dead-end job? Do you know if you will be really doing the cool things they mentioned in the description? What about work-life balance? Maybe a toxic team member who will try to steal your ideas?

Similarly, how can you decide that this person is perfect by scrolling through their social media and having a few dates with them? Everyone will be showing their best selves in the first dates. Even the most transparent people are more lively, happier, looking better and keeping some things to themselves. Why would this perfect man or woman who could get anyone they want(!) still swiping on Tinder then? How could you decide that the ‘stakes are high’ and decide to be insecure and have ‘fear of rejection’ all of a sudden after getting better at loving yourselves for years? What could really happen if you do not get this job? What could happen if this person does not want you back? What could happen if this person starts dating someone else?

If you just focus on yourself and your goals, if you just love yourself and try to do your current job/life in the best way possible, if you just do you in the best way possible, would not the worst-case scenario only be not having this person or the job or the opportunity that we do not know fully in our lives anymore? If we had created a life already okay without them?

What happens if we do not have any expectations; if we just enjoy it as it goes?

Investing/planning/dreaming too early/too much

We love dreaming and dreaming is good.

If we do not have dreams, we cannot go much further. They keep us moving ahead, keep us inspired, keep us motivated.

However, if you start dreaming (investing mentally) too early in the relationship, it will create bigger disappointment. It is like investing all our money to a company we do not know much about, that we did not do research, we do not know the history of. It is like searching for apartments in a new city that you want to relocate if you get a job offer, loving one of the flats and start looking at furniture afterwards which will fit into that apartment. You did not get the offer, you do not know if that flat will be available if you can move to that city and you do not know if that couch will be available if you get that apartment. It is planning, dreaming and investing too soon without having all the information, without letting the life unfold and then taking the decisions step by step.

I found myself imagining introducing him to my friends after one date. I found myself imagining going on a holiday with him after one date. I found myself imagining taking him to my hometown after one date. I started worrying about his cat allergy and decided we can always have a dog instead of a cat after one date.

And I stopped, and took a breath, and counted to 10, and did all the other things you are supposed to do when you realize that you are doing something wrong and I then also decided to write this piece.

I wrote this (my first post) on Medium as a way of self-help.

I was journaling through my teenage years which helped me discover and help myself big time. I stopped after I started working and trying to get back to writing on Medium nowadays. And yeah I met a guy recently which I thought as ‘perfect’ and I started feeling so insecure and this caused me to act foolishly around him. I was checking his ‘last seen’ constantly, worrying about the number of girls (the competitors!) he is chatting to while he is online. Being scared of him not wanting me anymore after getting to know me.

I was examining my words instead of being natural in an attempt to sound charming and smart. I was forgetting my self-worth, neglecting my self-love habits, acting out of insecurity and spiralling into negative thinking patterns just after one date. Then I wanted to write. And it helped. Again. I calmed myself down.

In summary:

Remember you are worthy of love and remember you love yourself.

Keep doing the things you enjoy doing, keep working towards your goals which will make you feel good and confident. Exercise, meditate, study, keep working hard, whatever it is that you had decided to do before the new person entered your life. If your goal was to lose weight, do not fall into the comfort of eating/drinking and watching Netflix nonstop when you start dating. If your goal was to write on Medium or build your own website, or to try your hand in designing and selling your own jewellery, keep spending time on it. Keep seeing your friends. Balance the time you spend with your date, the time you spend with your friends and the time you work on yourself.

Try to remember no one is perfect. You just do not know them that well. Nothing will be the end of the world. Your partner likes you, that is why he is with you in the first place. Your date is attracted to you, if he was not attracted to you, he would not be asking for the second date for sure. Stop comparing yourself to others. You, as much as everyone else, have a thing to say, and you share your own good with the world and with your partner.