Does your desire increase or decrease when your romantic interest shows less interest in you?

I have been having a day long texting conversation with a friend (M 30) about attraction and relationships, essentially. He is just getting out of a 3 year relationship with a guy who verbally reciprocated love but had a low drive to actually have sex and a low drive to actually “work” on it. My friend had a hard time calling it quits with him and the relationship lasted far longer than it should have. My friend also has a crush on a friend of his who is married, another “unavailable” person. And he seems to have some crushes on straight guys too, so more unavailable men!

Anyway, it got me thinking about differences in thought process. I myself am turned off when someone doesn’t seem interested in me. I have never “crushed hard” from afar on someone. If I was on a date and they seemed not so into me, I would be turned off. Unfortunately, this meant that guys who were slow to show interest became unattractive to me and I turned them down for a second date. For my friend it seems to mean he is perpetually “chasing” guys, never feeling the love, emotional and physical together, that he truly deserves. He thinks it is a low self esteem thing, thinking that deep down he doesn’t think he deserves it. I (48F) never really thought of my self-esteem as being the reason I get unattracted to someone who doesn’t seem into me. Also, it doesn’t seem to work the opposite , a guy who has been really “into” me cannot make me be more attracted to him.

I was wondering how other people fell on this spectrum and would love to see a discussion on it, especially from this over 30 crowd, who probably have had time to make some self observations while navigating the dating scene.

Submitted April 24, 2019 at 08:46PM

I have been having a day long texting conversation with a friend (M 30) about attraction and relationships, essentially. He is just getting out of a 3 year relationship with a guy who verbally reciprocated love but had a low drive to actually have sex and a low drive to actually “work” on it. My friend had a hard time calling it quits with him and the relationship lasted far longer than it should have. My friend also has a crush on a friend of his who is married, another “unavailable” person. And he seems to have some crushes on straight guys too, so more unavailable men!Anyway, it got me thinking about differences in thought process. I myself am turned off when someone doesn’t seem interested in me. I have never “crushed hard” from afar on someone. If I was on a date and they seemed not so into me, I would be turned off. Unfortunately, this meant that guys who were slow to show interest became unattractive to me and I turned them down for a second date. For my friend it seems to mean he is perpetually “chasing” guys, never feeling the love, emotional and physical together, that he truly deserves. He thinks it is a low self esteem thing, thinking that deep down he doesn’t think he deserves it. I (48F) never really thought of my self-esteem as being the reason I get unattracted to someone who doesn’t seem into me. Also, it doesn’t seem to work the opposite , a guy who has been really “into” me cannot make me be more attracted to him.I was wondering how other people fell on this spectrum and would love to see a discussion on it, especially from this over 30 crowd, who probably have had time to make some self observations while navigating the dating scene.