How to decenter men: A guide for lovergirls
Decentering men means building a life where your mood, plans, and self-worth do not revolve around dating. You can still want love – you just need to stop making romantic attention the center of your identity.
Let’s be honest about what being a lovergirl actually means. It’s not just loving love or being a hopeless romantic. It’s structuring your entire existence around romantic relationships – real or imagined.
It often looks like this:
You meet someone with potential, and suddenly they’re the main character of your life. Your mood depends on whether they texted back. Your weekend plans revolve around their availability. Your mental energy goes toward analyzing every interaction, planning future scenarios, and wondering what they’re thinking about you.
Meanwhile, the rest of your life – your goals, your friendships, your actual interests – becomes background noise. You tell yourself you’ll focus on yourself once this relationship is figured out. But there’s always another relationship to figure out, another situationship to decode, another person to revolve around.
Sound familiar?
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: making men the center of your life doesn’t actually make them stay. If anything, it does the opposite. People are attracted to people who have full lives. Who have boundaries. Who aren’t available 24/7, because they’re busy doing things that matter to them.
Decentering men isn’t about not caring about relationships – it’s about building a life that’s fulfilling regardless of your relationship status. It’s about being the main character in your own story instead of a supporting role in someone else’s.
What decentering actually means
Think of your life as a solar system. For a lot of us lovergirls, the man (or the search for a man) has become the Sun. Everything else in your life – your career, your friends, your hobbies, your mental health – orbits around him.
You skip plans because he might be free. You don’t book the trip with your friends because, what if he wants to do something that weekend? Your entire mood is dictated by the tone of his morning text, or lack thereof.
When he’s the Sun, you’re just a planet. You have no gravity of your own. And when the Sun disappears (ghosts, breaks up, pulls away), your entire world goes dark.
Decentering men means moving him out of the Sun spot. He can still be in your solar system. He can be a lovely planet that’s fun to visit. But you are the Sun. Your life, your needs, and your joy are the center of gravity.
This doesn’t mean hating men or swearing off dating. It means your baseline happiness doesn’t depend on whether he texted you good morning. Your weekend isn’t ruined if he’s busy. Your sense of self-worth isn’t determined by whether he’s prioritizing you.
Why you keep doing this
Before we get into how to change the pattern, let’s talk about why it exists in the first place.
For many of us lovergirls, this started when we were young. Think about it – if you grew up in the 2000s and early 2010s, you were probably fed a steady diet of rom-coms where the entire plot was a woman trying to get a man. The goal was always the relationship. Being single was portrayed as a temporary, undesirable state that you needed to fix.
Somewhere along the way, you internalized the message that your value comes from being chosen by a man. Because maybe romantic love was the only kind of love that felt guaranteed, so you learned to prioritize it above everything else.
Or maybe you have anxious attachment, and the idea of someone leaving feels so terrifying that you’ll do anything – including abandoning yourself – to prevent it. When you’re anxiously attached, inconsistency feels like danger. So you hyperfixate on him to monitor the threat level. You overanalyze his texts to “stay safe.” This hypervigilance takes up so much brain space that he becomes the only thing you can think about.
Sometimes, we center men because it’s easier than centering ourselves. If you focus all your energy on analyzing him, you don’t have to look at the parts of your own life that feel empty or painful. It’s a distraction. It’s easier to obsess over why he hasn’t texted back than to figure out why you hate your job or feel lonely even when you’re with friends.
Society doesn’t help. You’re bombarded with messages that romantic relationships are the ultimate goal. That being single means something’s wrong with you. That you should be willing to compromise, sacrifice, and bend over backwards to make a relationship work.
What nobody tells you is that constantly centering men in your life teaches them that your time, energy, and needs are negotiable. It signals that you’ll be there no matter how little effort they put in. And most people, consciously or not, will take what you’re willing to give.
The pattern perpetuates itself. You center a man, he takes you for granted or pulls away, you feel rejected and double down on trying to win him back, he pulls away further, the relationship ends, and you swear the next one will be different. Except the next one isn’t different, because you’re still showing up the same way.
The lovergirl’s guide to shifting gravity
Okay, now we know why we do it. But how do we stop? How do we actually change the behavior when our heart is screaming, “I just want to be loved!”?
Here’s a step-by-step guide to reclaiming your orbit, created by yours truly.
Step 1: Notice when you’re centering him
You can’t change a pattern you don’t recognize. Start paying attention to how much mental and emotional energy you’re directing toward men versus toward yourself.
How often are you thinking about him compared to thinking about your own goals or interests? When you have free time, is your first thought “Is he available?” or “What do I want to do?” When good things happen, is your immediate instinct to tell him, or do you have other people and outlets that feel equally important?
Notice when you’re rearranging your life to accommodate him. Canceling plans. Staying up late to text even though you’re exhausted. Saying yes when you want to say no because you’re afraid he’ll lose interest if you’re not constantly available.
Notice when you’re performing. Laughing at jokes that aren’t funny. Agreeing with opinions you don’t actually share. Downplaying your own needs to seem low-maintenance. These are all signs you’re centering his comfort over your authenticity.
The awareness itself doesn’t fix anything yet, but it’s the necessary first step. You need to see the pattern clearly before you can interrupt it.
Step 2: Diversify your emotional portfolio
Think about your emotional needs like a financial portfolio. If you put 100% of your investment into one volatile stock, you’re going to be a nervous wreck. If that stock crashes, you lose everything.
A lot of us treat men like that one stock. We expect them to be our best friend, our therapist, our career coach, our sexual partner, our adventure buddy, and our family. That’s too much pressure for one human being.
You need to diversify.
Emotional support comes from your best friends and your therapist. Adventure and fun come from your travel crew or your hobby groups. Intellectual stimulation comes from your colleagues, your book club, or your mentors.
When you spread your needs across a community, the man becomes a “nice to have,” not a “need to have.” If he acts up, it’s annoying, but it’s not bankrupting your entire emotional life.
Step 3: Rebuild your life outside of relationships
This is the part that feels hardest because if you’ve been centering men for years, you might not remember what you actually enjoy doing.
Start small. What did you like before relationships took over your life? What have you been saying you want to do “when you have time” but keep putting off? What makes you feel energized instead of drained?
Reconnect with friends you’ve been flaking on. Not surface-level hangouts where you spend the whole time talking about your dating life, but genuine connection where you’re present and invested in their lives too.
Find activities that genuinely interest you. Not things you think will make you seem interesting to men, but things you’d do even if you were single forever. Join a climbing gym. Take a ceramics class. Start writing. Go to concerts alone. The specific activity matters less than the fact that it’s yours.
Build a routine that doesn’t require another person. Morning walks. Cooking elaborate meals for yourself. Weekly calls with your sibling. These become the foundation of your life instead of things you do to pass time between relationships.
Take yourself on the date you wish he took you on. Go to the museum by yourself. Buy the expensive flowers for your own apartment because they look pretty, not because you’re waiting for an apology bouquet. Cook yourself a lavish dinner on a Tuesday night just because you deserve it.
When you learn to source your own romance, you stop starving for crumbs of it from men. You become full. And when you’re full, you make better decisions about who actually deserves access to you.
Step 4: Stop being perpetually available
Look at your schedule. How much of it is left open “just in case” he might want to hang out?
Do you avoid making plans on Friday nights because he might ask you out on Thursday? Do you rush through your Sunday reset because he might want to come over?
Stop holding space for people who haven’t booked it.
If he hasn’t asked you out by Wednesday, Friday is booked. Schedule the pottery class. Make plans with friends. If he texts you on Friday afternoon saying “What are you doing tonight,” the answer is “I’m busy.”
This isn’t playing hard to get. This is being hard to get because you actually have a life.
When you stop being perpetually available, two things happen:
You actually start living a cooler, more fulfilling life.
He realizes he has to step up to get on your calendar.
If he doesn’t? He just filtered himself out.
Step 5: Set actual boundaries
Lovergirls are notoriously bad at boundaries. You’re so afraid of seeming difficult or high-maintenance that you tolerate things that make you miserable.
Boundaries aren’t about punishing men or playing hard to get. They’re about protecting your energy and establishing what you will and won’t accept in relationships.
This looks like not canceling your plans unless there’s an actual emergency, not just because he suddenly has time for you.
It looks like not tolerating breadcrumbing. If someone only texts you when it’s convenient for them, only wants to hang out last-minute, only shows interest when you start pulling back – that’s not a relationship worth centering your life around.
It looks like being honest about what you need, instead of pretending you’re fine with casual when you want commitment.
Pretending doesn’t make men commit. It just makes you resentful.
It looks like walking away when someone shows you through their actions that they’re not serious about you. Not waiting around, hoping they’ll change. Not accepting crumbs because some attention feels better than none.
The uncomfortable part about boundaries is that they filter people out. When you stop accepting less than you deserve, people who were only willing to give you the bare minimum will leave.
This can feel devastating at first. But make no mistake, what this is actually doing is clearing space for people who will actually show up.
Step 6: Get comfortable with being alone
This is the part most lovergirls resist hardest. Being alone feels unbearable. You’d rather be in a mediocre relationship than be single. You jump from one relationship to the next because the gap in between feels too empty.
But here’s the thing: if you can’t be alone with yourself, you’ll tolerate anyone who’s willing to fill that void. You’ll stay in relationships that don’t serve you because being unhappy with someone feels safer than being alone.
Learning to be alone isn’t about becoming a hermit. It’s about building a relationship with yourself that’s strong enough that other people become optional instead of necessary.
Spend intentional time alone. Not just watching Netflix to avoid feeling lonely, but actively enjoying your own company. Take yourself to dinner. Go on solo trips. Spend weekends doing exactly what you want without consulting anyone.
Notice what comes up when you’re alone. Usually it’s the uncomfortable feelings you’ve been using relationships to avoid. Boredom. Loneliness. Fear that you’re not enough. Sit with these feelings instead of immediately trying to fix them by finding someone new to focus on.
The goal isn’t to never want a relationship again. The goal is to want a relationship because it genuinely adds value to your life, not because you’re desperate to escape being alone.
Step 7: Break the phone-checking loop
When we’re centering a man, our phone becomes a slot machine. We check it constantly, hoping for the dopamine hit of a notification. Every time we check and see nothing, we get a hit of cortisol (stress). It’s a chemical rollercoaster that keeps us addicted.
You need to break the loop.
Mute the message thread you have with him if you have to. Put your phone on Do Not Disturb mode after 9pm. Leave your phone in the other room while you watch a movie.
Reclaim your nervous system. Prove to your brain that you’re safe even if you don’t know what he’s doing right this second.
What changes when you decenter men
When you actually do this work, your whole relationship dynamic shifts.
You stop chasing people who aren’t choosing you. Not because you’re playing games, but because you’re genuinely too busy living your life to chase anyone. You have other things that fulfill you, so you’re not sitting around waiting for scraps of attention.
You become more selective about who gets your time and energy. When your life is full, you naturally filter for people who add to it instead of people who drain it. You’re less likely to tolerate inconsistency, ambiguity, or half-hearted effort.
You show up more authentically because you’re no longer performing for male approval. You say what you actually think. You do what you actually want. You stop trying to be the cool girl who’s easy and low-maintenance and just be yourself.
Here’s the paradox: decentering men actually makes your relationships better. When you have your own life, you’re more interesting. You have things to talk about besides relationships and men you’re dating. You’re less likely to tolerate breadcrumbs because you have other things feeding you emotionally.
When you’re not desperate for someone to stay, they usually want to. When you have boundaries, people respect you more. When you have your own life, you’re more attractive.
But also – and this is important – you care less about whether any specific relationship works out. Not because you’re jaded, but because you know you’ll be fine either way. The relationship is a bonus, not your entire source of happiness and validation.
When it’s actually healthy to prioritize a relationship
Let’s be clear – decentering men doesn’t mean relationships should never be a priority. Healthy relationships require time, effort, and intentionality.
The difference is prioritizing a relationship because you’re building something meaningful together, not because you’re terrified of being alone. It’s choosing to spend time with someone because you genuinely enjoy their company, not because you need constant validation that they still like you.
In a healthy relationship, both people maintain their individual lives while also building a shared life together. You have your friends, your hobbies, your goals. They have theirs. And you also have things you do together.
You’re not abandoning yourself to accommodate them. You’re integrating them into a life that already feels full. That’s the key distinction.
If you find yourself canceling everything else to be available for them, if your mood is entirely dependent on how the relationship is going, if you’ve lost touch with who you are outside the relationship – those are signs you’ve slipped back into centering them in an unhealthy way.
Why this is so hard for anxious attachment
If you have anxious attachment, decentering men feels impossible. Your nervous system interprets any distance as abandonment. Focusing on yourself instead of the relationship triggers panic that they’ll lose interest and leave.
So you stay hypervigilant. You monitor their behavior for signs they’re pulling away. You make yourself constantly available to prevent them from forgetting about you. You center them because it feels like survival.
The work here is learning that relationships don’t require you to abandon yourself. That the right person won’t lose interest just because you have boundaries and a life outside of them. That your worth isn’t determined by how much you sacrifice.
This usually requires professional help to untangle. These patterns run deep, and trying to white-knuckle through them rarely works long-term.
To my lovergirls: your heart is your superpower
Being a lovergirl isn’t inherently bad. Loving deeply, caring about relationships, wanting partnership – these are good things. The problem is when romantic love becomes the only thing that matters. When you’re so focused on being chosen that you forget to choose yourself.
Your capacity to love is a gift. The fact that you care so much means you have a big, beautiful heart. Don’t kill that part of yourself. Don’t let a few mediocre men turn you into a cynic.
Decentering men is actually the most loving thing you can do for yourself and your future partner. It means that when you do choose someone, you’re choosing them out of desire, not out of deficit. You’re choosing them because they add to your already-full life, not because they are your life.
You don’t have to choose between having relationships and having yourself. You can have both. But the work starts with making yourself the priority and letting relationships be something that enhances that, not something that defines it.
Hi! I'm Jenny, an associate therapist (and recovering lovergirl) based in California ☻
I specialize in working with insecurely attached Gen Z and millennial individuals/couples who are stuck in messy dating situations and exhausting relationship cycles. If you're tired of spiraling over text messages, settling for breadcrumbs, and wondering why you keep attracting the wrong people – I can help.