When it comes to attracting men, I’ve often heard women claim that “you attract who you are”. On the flip side, I've encountered women who express fatigue and skepticism toward this idea. Some women even label this idea as "spiritual narcissism."

They claim that it is narcissistic to believe that everyone you meet is somehow a reflection of you.

While I can understand this notion under certain pretenses, for the purpose of romantic attraction, I shoot down the idea that believing you attract who you are is spiritual narcissism.

In my opinion, the women who call this notion "spiritual narcissism" are often ashamed about past relationships and are reluctant to shoulder any responsibility regarding them.

But that's neither here or there...

In life, we see people who seem to pull in people who are way “out of their league”.

Additionally, we can also observe people who pull in people and we immediately think that that person can do “better”.

I’ve seen women boast about how they deserve a man at a certain caliber because they themselves have everything that they require. They believe that if you require something from someone else, you should have it as well.

And yet, on the other hand, there are women who don’t have much by material, accomplishment, or status standards, but end up with men with a lot in these areas.

Personally, I’ve invested many years pondering the notion that we attract who we are.

I’ve observed the lives and relationships of others, to see how their connections have all played out.

I’ve observed my own life and relationships thoroughly and precisely to see if the notion of attracting who we are held up, where it held up, and to clearly convey my discovery.

In this post, I want to peel away the layers so that we may all find the truth, it’s nuances, and have a greater understanding of attraction.

Everyone is a perfect match and there is some kind of equal exchange going on in the relationship for it to continue

What I’ve noticed over a decade of pondering this question is that if two people are together, they are a match. This is not to say that they are the same, but it is to say that they have complementary attributes that fall in the same category.

It doesn’t matter if they claim to be unhappy with each other, if one person seems to be the “problem”, if other people think that one of them can do “better”, or if they seem to have little in common.

As long as those two people willingly remain in an active relationship, they are a perfect match.

Why do I say this?

Because if they weren’t a match, it would be nearly impossible to get those two people to keep choosing each other every day. There’d be no interest, there’d be no pull, there’d be no toleration for the other and thus there could be no equal exchange.

Equal exchange is the energetic dance that is happening between two people that keeps them together. Their entire relationship is a perpetual dance where they fuel each other and keep the dance (relationship) going.

Equal exchange doesn’t mean that it’s a good or healthy exchange. It just means that something is being exchanged for something else and they are equal in value.

So, yes two people can be exchanging garbage to each other back and forth, consistently.

An example of this is a relationship where one partner has low self esteem and the other has an inflated ego. An equal exchange is the low self esteem partner feeding their partner’s ego and the inflated ego partner feeding the low self esteem partner’s insecurities.

This exchange, though wildly unhealthy to both parties, is equal in the sense that both parties get the evidence and guilty satisfaction they are subconsciously looking for and feel they deserve.

Another example is the need to be saved partner being with the white knight partner. If one partner is always the damsel in distress wanting to be saved and the other partner always wants to fix and save someone, they are giving each other exactly what the other wants.

To the outside world, these dynamics in relationships often look unfair. Like one partner is getting the short end of the stick, but in reality, both parties are getting fueled to continue the dance (the relationship).

If one person wasn’t getting fueled somehow, the relationship would cease to exist.

Now you may be wondering something like, “Okay Dream, well, why would someone want their insecurities fed or want to have someone completely drain them by always having to save them?”

The answer is that not many people desire these things upfront. They are often deep, dark desires that lurk in the background.

Most people have deep seated issues that need to be worked through that tend to play out in the background of their decisions, desires, and what they tolerate. For the most part, people are not consciously aware of these things or aware of why they are there in the first place.

To fully answer the question of why, we’d have to dive deep into the psychology and background of individual people. Obviously, that is not possible to do in this post for many reasons.

The point here is that humans are quite complex after all. We operate at one level of awareness when there are many things beneath the surface of who we believe we are that we have no awareness of at all.

This segues perfectly into my next point.

Who you are vs who you know yourself to be

Who you know yourself to be and who you are can be two VERY DIFFERENT things.

We often mistake who we know ourselves to be for who we are and then are surprised when we do something that is “not like us” or something we previously didn’t think we were capable of.

This all points to the truth that there is often more to us than we believe.

Who we truly are is much vaster and deeper than we tend to think.

We pull in the people we attract from the entirety of who we are, not just who we know ourselves to be.

And yes, the entirety of who you are does include all the things that are repressed, suppressed, and unresolved.

The parts of you that are not showcased to the world, that you deny, or the ones that you are unaware of are still roped into the net you’re casting and catching people with.

Based on my observations, it’s clear to me that sometimes we meet people to bring things to the surface and work them through.

As a woman, you will often meet men that have traits or characteristics in relation to something you have suppressed, repressed, or have left unresolved within yourself.

For instance, if you’ve always had an issue speaking up for yourself and never truly found your “voice”, you may end up with a man that steamrolls you and your opinion. This relationship is designed to create such a gap between what you want and what you have that you find your voice and learn to speak up for yourself.

Another example is a woman always knew she wanted to be a writer but out of pressure, decided to put that dream to the side and pursue something more “practical”. This woman may end up with a man that is a publisher.

It aggravates the gap between what this woman, deep down, knows she should be doing and what she actually is doing. This man being a publisher, publishing the writings of others, sharing his work with her, and speaking from the realm of published authors will create so much friction that it would move her forward.

Women will often end up with men that aggravate something inside of them that is begging to be resolved. Although it can get easy to get caught up in blaming the man, that often just has the woman miss the parts of her that want her attention.

These are opportunities to solve these unresolved issues and move forward. They are blessings even if they don’t feel like it.

What you tolerate reveals a lot about who you are

This will ruffle feathers and if that’s the price of filling in this much needed gap, so be it.

Another part of who you are is what you tolerate.

Once you get to a level of self assured-ness, you remove yourself or severely limit your time with people and situations that you don’t desire, think are unhealthy or harmful, find conflicting with your desired lifestyle, beliefs, values, etc.

If you keep yourself around things that you don’t desire, think are unhealthy or harmful, or find conflicting with your desired lifestyle, you have to ask yourself why that is.

That behavior is revealing in itself. It is revealing a part of you that you are somewhat unaware of or deeply suppressing.

People like to call the act of questioning why someone tolerates mistreatment or bad behavior as victim blaming. But this is exactly the type of thinking that keeps women repeating the same stories with different men.

You must be willing to ask yourself what is hiding behind your persistence to tolerate (insert non-ideal behavior).

Sometimes, the answers we uncover can be convoluted and uncomfortable, requiring radical honesty with ourselves and an ability to hold multiple truths at once.

For instance, in a relationship with a man, a woman might seek to prove that she is lovable because she never truly felt loved and she doesn’t even love herself.

Except she stays with a man that doesn’t love her to reinforce her self perception that she is unlovable.

Stay with me here…

By doing this, she avoids facing unknown disappointment and maintains a predictable life.

She keeps herself in relationships with men who don't love her, avoiding the unfamiliar challenges of being loved by someone who genuinely cares for her.

This allows her to continue placing the responsibility of loving herself on others, avoiding self-love and personal growth. This way she never has to change, always has someone to blame, and she can stay the same.

Subconsciously this seems easier, more familiar, and safer to her than learning to love herself and choosing a man that actually loves her.

Do you see how convoluted this is? We aren’t aware of all of this upfront but this is exactly what is running in the background.

And because of this, any man she chooses to continue to be in a relationship with is the perfect match for her.

Not only because energetically, he’s feeding her exactly what she’s subconsciously wanting and vice versa but also because through him, she may finally be aggravated enough to start loving herself and choosing better for herself.

The strong, underlying stories we believe in

Another part of who we are includes the strong, underlying stories we believe about ourselves, our lives, and our world. If a deeply rooted story holds more sway than any competing beliefs, it will inevitably shape the course of our lives.

In other words, if you deeply believe, in your heart, that something will occur and this belief is stronger than other beliefs that would conflict or contradict it, you can be sure that you will be calling in that reality.

What's intriguing is that at times, these strong, underlying stories unfold precisely because of other, often conflicting, stories or beliefs.

These conflicting or contradictory stories or beliefs serve as a conduit, paving the way for the realization of the underlying story.

I've witnessed this pattern unfold repeatedly in my own life.

Despite grappling with moments of low self-esteem, heartache, and disillusionment, I steadfastly held onto the story that I would be in a deeply loving relationship with a man who understood me like no other, had resources for us both, and would possess a life vision similar to mine.

I still believed this even through my phases of low self esteem, heartbreak, disappointment, and all the beliefs and stories that formed out of it.

This story was stronger than all of that.

And so yes, I did have issues that needed to be resolved and I did subconsciously seek out relationships that would bring them to the forefront… but this is exactly what led to the underlying story playing out.

For me, it felt like destiny. The story that seemed etched into my very being was bound to unfold sooner or later.

As it turns out, my intuition was correct, and I am now living out the story I fervently believed in.

What I didn't realize going through it all was that the events, stories, beliefs, and experiences that initially appeared contradictory to the love I desired were, in fact, the very catalysts that led me to it.

Our Core Essence

The last part of who we are that I’d like to talk about is our core essence.

I believe life is a purification process with experiences being vehicles that help us release and remove what doesn’t truly belong to our pure being.

When you allow your core essence to be felt and experienced, this is what attracts people to you that just understand you on a deep, soul level.

In a romantic sense, you begin to attract men who just get you and feel familiar to you.

Living in a distorted world can veer you away from your core essence, but I maintain that life is intricately designed to guide us back.

This re-connection can manifest briefly, over seasons, or for extended periods.

The space between being weighed down by the world and being as light as possible so that our core essence is felt is vast.

Aligning ourselves with what excites us, immersing in what captivates us, engaging in what irresistibly pulls us in, and cultivating a mind and heart filled with liberating truths—this is when our core essence naturally flows.

It materializes through deep work, creating art, having a conversation, or simply being and living out as ourselves.

This core essence has a magnetic pull, drawing people toward you.

I've keenly observed this phenomenon in my online work. Whenever I've delved deeply into my craft, pushing my capabilities to the maximum, I've effortlessly attracted clients, customers, viewers, or readers who wholeheartedly comprehend me.

It's a remarkable phenomenon.

In conclusion, we attract who we ARE NOT just who we know ourselves to be.

Numerous layers operate beneath the surface of our self-perception—some we're conscious of, others we're partially aware of, and some we remain oblivious to.

From my perspective, all these layers play a role in the kind of connections we invite into our lives.

I understand that this concept might be disconcerting to some, potentially prompting self-blame or outright dismissal of what I've presented here. Both reactions, in my opinion, are misplaced, though I empathize with the thought process behind them.

Ultimately, you have the power to embrace or reject the ideas I've shared here.

There's no need to agonize over this matter. Things tend to always work out as they should.

This post is just to offer you my observation on this complex and highly nuanced topic.

As for me, my observation has led me to a place where I feel thankful for everyone I’ve ever known.

To me, everyone you’ve gotten the chance to know is a beautiful mosaic making up who you are and who you’ve been.

The experiences may not have all been pleasant, but there is certainly beauty to it all.

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