Philipp Kohlhöfer: I always fall in love with the wrong woman

BRIGITTE author Philipp Kohlhöfer would like to have a relationship again. He falls in love every now and then, but somehow it never becomes anything. And he wonders why that is.

Actually, I'm a deeply conservative guy. At least when it comes to my family planning. In my ideal world I have a daughter and a wife and live happily with them until the end of my life in a house with the sun shining overhead. It's mild and bees hum happily through the flowerbeds. Everyone is always in a good mood and smiles a lot. The existence is, so to speak, a constant early summer day.

It's always the wrong woman

I really have a daughter. However, it is difficult in puberty and can not imagine living anywhere with me (beyond everyday life) because I am so embarrassed. My attempts at gardening regularly end with the greenery dying, and because I don't live in Greece but in Hamburg, the sun is another thing. In addition, my women's situation is not exactly a constant early summer day.

It's not because I didn't fall in love. Or crush. Happens. Not weekly, but every now and then. But it is never loved back. I actually do teenage things like this: check WhatsApp to see when she was last online, or curry favor with her friends. But in the end all of this is of no use, because I only ever meet women who have just come out of relationships (how can I change that? I don't have a badge on my neck). Or have a problem with closeness or with yourself.

Sometimes it occurs to them after weeks and months that they would rather have someone with long hair (that this still exists!). And one of them even lived with her ex-husband and didn't want to move out, which made things very cumbersome (he was the size of a neighborhood, and in the end it was actually quite good that it didn't work out. I don't want to be in a barrel be dissolved with acid). In any case, it never fits. It's always the wrong woman, so to speak.

Lone Cowboy Type

The wrong woman always feels flattered by my being in love, says that she doesn't want to hurt me, that it was really very nice up to this point, but thanks, no offense, the future is better not. And then I stand there, looking holes in the air and have to sweep away the pieces of my broken heart. What becomes less bad if you do it more often, because routine also sets in there. But maybe it's me too?

The other day I read that there is a "lonely cowboy" type. Apparently that is really his name, a bit silly. This guy is said to be attractive to women, but at the same time radiates that he is not up for a stable relationship. I then asked my daughter how I looked and she looked at me as if I couldn't count to three. Then she said that I didn't have all the slats on the fence and went away. The lonely cowboy is, I read, excellent for an affair (there are other guys who go in this direction, but they were even less interested in me because they sometimes had a bad childhood: I didn't. Everything was Super). So the question is: how do I turn this off?

I am very inclined to ironize things. I'm not a romantic type either. I don't want to recreate a postcard motif. And yet at the beginning of this text I told you about buzzing bees. Maybe I'm too torn inside if I can't do it within a short text?

No relationship due to fear of attachment

In any case, I always meet women who stand by the Elbe and want to see the water early in the morning with a (steaming) coffee. Probably sighing. Oh, I say then, great idea, but unfortunately I don't have time. Perhaps I should just move somewhere else, to the hinterland, then at least the Elbe will be done for. It's maddening, but I still can't bend.

Obviously, I'm not the only one. Not long ago, I took part in an online survey. The question was: do you often fall in love with the wrong men. Sure, I wasn't the target group, but it's all about feeling. 79 percent answered: "Often is good. Story of my life". But it is by no means your own fault, said the clever text that was attached to this survey. Rather, we owe the misery to our brains. Because everything that you have already experienced and partially survived is saved as safe terrain: I know, I can, I'll do it again. The brain doesn't really care whether it brings us forward.

So I can get to know a certain type of woman and receive rejections. When I recently had a beer with one of the wrong women (hope dies last. Me: totally crush. You: the guy who smooches, but that's it), she told me that it was up to me. That I unconsciously always choose those who under no circumstances want to enter into a relationship with me. "Oh what," I said. She nodded. I thought that was nonsensical, I am not to blame if I walk through the traffic light when it is green and a drunk driver catches me in full. She insisted. That's because, she said, and opened a beer for us, that you're afraid of commitment yourself. Otherwise you'd take someone who likes you (which means yes, it's not me. Thanks for that!).

Maybe I'm just waiting for something better

I didn't feel like discussing it, and when I googled what it was all about, this fear of commitment, I found it a bit annoying, and then not only was I no longer in love in a matter of seconds, but also very happy that the goblet was on passed me by. Maybe I didn't have that crush on beer after all …

And then it occurred to me: Maybe I'm just waiting for something better. Again and again. And just try to bridge the time in between, because I kind of need experience. Could be, after all, in magazines I always read the text at the very end that interests me the most. I watch the worst football games because I believe in that one great game scene that is worth 90 minutes of boredom. And when I go to eat (there are often women there too, but that's another story), I end up eating what I find most delicious about the meal. To look forward to something. But can you just apply that to your relationship life? Will I meet the woman of my life when I'm 82?

But I don't even go to the supermarket and buy myself a yogurt that I don't like just because the thought that there is an even better one makes me feel good. I always fall in love with the wrong woman. And I have no idea how to change that.

Philipp Kohlhöfer, 46, is actually a total understanding of women. As the single father of a daughter, he has to go to parents' evenings (mostly only the mothers are there), champagne breakfasts and similar women-oriented events.

Would you like to read more about the topic and exchange ideas with other women? Then have a look in the "About the Getting to Know Forum" of the BRIGITTE community past!

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BRIGITTE 21/2020