Paul Brian
Let’s be honest: we all suffer from moments and periods of insecurity.
But for the guy with deeper underlying insecurity it’s an ongoing condition and unfortunately it tends to sabotage his romantic relationships.
This is a list of the real reasons why insecure guys have so much trouble forming lasting relationships.
I’m not promising this will be easy to read, because there’s zero sugar-coating here, but I am promising it will be true.
1) They’re too needy
There are good sides to being needy: it shows an earnest and passionate nature and it requires valuing somebody else.
But usually neediness goes too far and becomes a form of placing value in the hands of someone else.
That’s why insecure guys and their neediness drives off potential mates or sabotages their relationships.
They’re so needy for attention, time, intimacy and assurances that they end up backing the relationship into a corner and suffocating it.
Which brings me to the next point…
2) They crave external validation
Insecure men often have scars from childhood including lack of a strong male influence in their background.
The result is that they look to the external world and other people to validate them.
This is unattractive for psychological and biological reasons.
The evolutionary nature of human beings to instinctively seek others who are survivors; meeting someone who wants to be propped up by others is the opposite of that.
There’s definitely a place for vulnerability and admitting weakness, but looking to the external for validation is not that.
It’s an attempt to bolster a missing sense of self, and as such it leads to a lack of long-term relationships.
3) They act like too much of a simp
The term “simp” has entered the lexicon in recent years and refers to a guy who puts women on a pedestal and desperately craves their approval, attention and attraction.
It is an insult.
Insecure men often come across as simps even if they actually have very high value and lots to offer.
The reason is that because they fundamentally doubt their own worth and may lack confidence in their ability to be a quality partner, they put women on a pedestal.
The result can come across as simping.
After all: if somebody treats a woman as a celebrity, she’s going to treat them as a fan.
4) They don’t enjoy their own company
Insecure men are often plagued by a sense of incompletion.
Speaking frankly, they find their own company boring or even depressing.
They wish somebody would come along and brighten up their life or make it interesting and full of life.
The irony is that this desire to be completed often leads to years of being less completed.
That’s because the neediness and passivity bred by this kind of mentality is unattractive to potential mates and frustrating to those who do date insecure men.
This ties into the next point.
5) They seek completion in partners
Interdependence and caring a lot about a partner is a great thing and signifies emotional maturity and the ability to form deep pair bonds.
But seeking completion in a partner is a form of codependency that never ends well.
Because they don’t enjoy their own company much and doubt their own value, insecure guys tend to seek completion in partners.
This leads to disillusionment and many other issues.
One of them is the following:
6) They try to change who they are to attract somebody
Because they want so badly to be “completed” by a partner, the insecure guy will trim himself and “adjust” his views and personality to try to attract a woman.
The result? Complete lack of attraction.
This again ties into evolutionary psychology and biology
7) They doubt their own worth too easily
Insecure guys tend to have this self-sabotaging inner monolog running that kicks in whenever there’s an opportunity for self-doubt.
Frustrations at work, misunderstandings with a partner, health concerns or whatever is happening can throw them into a tailspin:
“Is this my fault?”
This is part of why many insecure guys are also stereotypical “nice guys:” they want to ensure that they’re as perfect as possible so that their worth is seen by others.
The result? Their worth is doubted by others.
It’s quite a vicious cycle, and it’s part of why it’s true that the more you care about how you come across the less attractive you are!
8) They feel inferior around other men
This sense of wondering what others think and doubting worth plagues insecure guys incessantly.
A side effect is that they often feel inferior around other men.
“Is that guy better looking than me?”
“Does that man get more attention than me because he’s a CEO?”
And so on…
The result is that this becomes a self-reinforcing loop of feeling inadequate because the anxiety of not being good enough starts to become an obsession.
9) They become jealous for trivial reasons
An effect of feeling like other men may be better than them is that insecure guys get jealous.
No woman wants to be with a guy who’s wracked by jealousy.
It’s unattractive and just plain annoying.
Plus it shows a kind of anxiety that’s the opposite of confident and charismatic.
Whereas a confident guy will look at “competition” with musing disinterest, an insecure guy looks at it as a life-or-death struggle.
The confident man, by contrast, knows that even if his girlfriend or wife leaves him it speaks to her value and proves she was never the one in the first place.
This may seem very harsh and a little cold, but it’s really how ultra confident men think.
10) They outsource relationship decisions
We all ask advice when we’re in a relationship and that’s entirely normal even for the most secure and confident man.
Sometimes a second opinion is useful and helpful.
But insecure guys do it more than most and even outsource relationship decisions.
They will let family or friends tell them who to date or who to break up with and will be heavily influenced by the opinions of other people on their relationships (even strangers on social media!)
This makes their partner lose faith in this guy’s ability to judge for himself what he wants in his life and whether he truly loves her or not.
11) They outsource life decisions to their partner
We all have trouble making decisions at times, especially major life decisions.
Talking about them with a partner is normal, especially if these decisions involve them.
But insecure men take it one step too far:
They often outsource big decisions altogether.
“Well, what do you want?” they will ask their partner.
Or:
“Well, I’ll be happy with whatever decision you make.”
This could be about things as important as where to move or job decisions and more.
The result of a guy hinging his decisions on his mate is that his partner loses both respect and attraction for him.
12) They overshare with their partner
Insecure guys take vulnerability and take it way too far.
They overshare everything with their partner and go over their doubts, indecisions, traumas and issues.
They often do this early in a relationship as well, which is even worse.
The result, frankly, is often a feeling by their partner that this guy is just more of a burden than a blessing and that the relationship is going to be a massive headache.
Whether or not that estimation is warranted is really irrelevant, because it’s what any high-quality woman who values herself is going to decide around a man who speaks to her as if she’s a friend or therapist instead of his partner.
This ties into the final point about why insecure guys have so much trouble maintaining relationships…
13) They have a tendency to become codependent
Insecure guys slip into codependency very easily.
They usually play the “victim” role and look for a “savior.”
This is a person who will come and make their life interesting, full of love and excitement.
The result is that they either attract women who are stuck in that savior role and unhappy with themselves…
Or they have short-term relationships with women who soon realize that the guy is becoming a victim and trying to manipulate them into sympathy or serving him.
It doesn’t work!
The bottom line about insecure men
The bottom line about insecure men is that they are sabotaged by their own doubt.
It’s not that they are bad looking or even have particularly big defects.
It’s often an early childhood wound or insufficiency that made them doubt their value on a deep level which continues to plague the insecure man.
This is something that can only be overcome through hard work, sweat and tears: by facing this fear of deficiency head-on conquering it through concerted effort and faith.
