The Attractive Single

Female, 42, Creative Director, Attractive, Single
Goal: Wants a long term relationship

“On the surface, my life looked enviable. I had a successful career as a creative director, a stylish apartment in the city, and a social calendar that was always full. Friends often told me, ‘You’re so lucky, you’re living the dream.’ I posted pictures of glamorous events, dinners with colleagues, and trips abroad. To anyone looking in, it seemed like I had everything a person could want.

But what they didn’t see was how I felt when the night ended and I came home alone. The laughter from dinners faded, the lights dimmed, and I was left with the echo of my own thoughts. I’d scroll through dating apps, half-hoping, half-dreading, and fall asleep with a knot in my chest.

Dating had become a relentless cycle. At first, there was the thrill: the butterflies before a first date, the excitement of a witty message exchange. But time after time, it ended the same way - with me feeling invisible, dismissed, or not chosen. I found myself drawn to men who were charming but unavailable, exciting but inconsistent. And when it fell apart, I always blamed myself. ‘You’re too much. You’re too old. If you were truly lovable, they wouldn’t leave.’ Each rejection confirmed the story I’d been telling myself for years - that I wasn’t enough.

Outwardly, I was confident. I could lead a room, pitch ideas to global brands, and be the life of a party. But inside, I felt fragile, as if I were balancing on glass that could shatter at any moment. I started to wonder if love was simply not meant for me.

Then I found RTT. I didn’t expect much, but I was desperate to break the cycle. In my first session, I was guided back to memories I hadn’t thought about in decades. Suddenly, I was 16 again - sitting at a school dance, watching the boy I liked choose someone else. I felt the sting of invisibility, the crushing belief that I wasn’t pretty enough, not special enough. Then another memory surfaced: being told by a relative that I was ‘too loud’ and that men didn’t like women like me.

Those words and moments had planted a seed, and I’d carried it into every relationship since. I had been trying to prove my worth for years, performing, pleasing, always terrified that I’d be abandoned. RTT helped me see that these were just old beliefs - not truths.

Through reframing, I started to speak to myself differently. I began to separate who I was from the lies I had absorbed. I was enough. I always had been and always will be. Slowly, things began to change.

Dating stopped feeling like an endless audition. I no longer shrink myself to fit what I thought someone wanted. I laugh more, I allow myself to walk away when someone disrespected me. Instead of seeing rejection as proof of unworthiness, I see it as redirection now.

It wasn’t an overnight change, but it was steady. I notice how differently I carry myself now - I look in the mirror and see someone radiant, not desperate. Friends told me I seemed calmer, lighter.

For the first time in my adult life, dating feel fun, not painful. I no longer fear being left, because I am not abandoning myself anymore. Now, at 42, I feel more alive and hopeful than I did in my twenties. Love is no longer something I beg or perform for. It’s something I know I deserve - starting from giving it to myself.

Symptom Tags:

#DatingStruggles #Rejection #LowSelfEsteem #Loneliness #NotEnough #EmotionalPain