Why you should stop having a type

Everyone has a type. A type of person that they are attracted to, and often find themselves dating. It can be good, but it can also be bad. For a better dating life, you should consider why you should stop having a type. 

Firstly, let’s ask ourselves what having a type means. For most people, the majority of the time, having a type generally refers to physical attraction. Subconsciously though, we may also be attracted to a type of personality or lifestyle.

Our attraction to certain traits can develop in different ways. Attraction psychologist M.Farouk Radwan believes we may develop this attraction at a young age subconsciously. An example could that you find yourself attracted to people who may show physical traits of heroes you admired as a kid, such as someone who reminds you of the blue power ranger.

Other psychologists believe that we develop types over time as we experience dating. For example, if you date a girl who has brunette hair and you were really happy in that relationship, you’ll seek out brunettes more in future.

Why having a type can be bad for you

Being physically attracted to certain qualities isn’t wrong. In fact, it’s good for us to seek out good traits in our partners. However, we should be careful about how much we pigeonhole ourselves into our types. If we get it into our heads that we only like a person who looks like this, we might miss out on meeting someone really great who doesn’t fit that image.

Having a type can also be tricky if it involves race. For instance, a guy who exclusively dates Asian girls, or a girl who only dates black guys. This could lead you to start consciously dismissing people of other races out of habit. It can also cause problems if you’re dating them purely or mostly due to their race.

We should definitely be focusing more on personality rather than superficial qualities. That’s not to say you should be dating people you don’t find physically attractive. Rather we should instead be trying to broaden our spectrum of what we find attractive.

This could be just saying “Yes, I’m very attracted to women with large breasts, but small breasts are also awesome!”

Breaking the type habit

It can be really important to break bad type habits. A great example of bad type habits finding yourself constantly dating people who treat you badly. No one goes out hoping to find an abusive or hurtful relationship. But we may find ourselves constantly attracted to people who are bad for us.

Recognising that we’ve fallen into that trap is a good start. It’s helpful to sit down and figure out what traits these people give off that draws us to them. Are they exciting? Do we want the adrenaline? What is it that we are actually drawn to and why?

If you’re in that type of cycle, look at your lifestyle. The type of friends you have, the type of people you surround yourself by. All of these are factors that once realised, could help you determine why you keep choosing the wrong person.

It can be hard to break the habit.  We can’t instantly change the type of person we are attracted to. You don’t have to completely, instead, try and be more open to romantic interest from people who are outside your normal “type”.