Women Who Are Dating
You keep meeting people who cannot quite reach you, and you keep trying harder.
For women who keep landing in the same dynamic with emotionally unavailable partners and want to understand why. Attachment-focused, and welcoming to queer women.
Overview
Where this usually starts
The pattern is familiar enough that you can usually see it while it is happening. Someone is interesting and slightly out of reach. You become more attentive, more accommodating, more skilled at reading small changes in tone. The less they give, the more precisely you calibrate. Then it ends, and the story you tell yourself is about them, and the next one arrives with a different face and the same shape.
That shape is attachment, not bad luck and not a flaw in your judgment. Anxious pursuit and avoidant withdrawal fit together so well that they can feel like chemistry. The work here is learning to feel the difference between the pull of something familiar and the pull of something good, which is a skill, and which almost nobody has been taught.
At a Glance
- Shelley Davidescu, LMFT, 17 years in practice
- In person in Bankers Hill, San Diego
- Telehealth Monday through Friday across California
- Free 15-minute consultation
Individual sessions are $210, or $325 for 90 minutes. Couples sessions are $225, or $345 for 90 minutes.
Full fees and policiesDoes This Sound Familiar?
The specifics, not a symptom list
Open any line to see how I would think about it with you.
Open any line that feels familiar.
Fit
Who this is for, and who it is not
It is worth knowing before you book, so neither of us spends four sessions finding out.
A Good Fit
- You have noticed a repeating pattern in who you choose and you are ready to look at your part in it.
- You want attachment-focused work rather than dating tactics or advice about your profile.
- You are dating after a divorce, a long relationship, or a long pause, and want a place to sort out who you are now.
- You are a queer woman looking for a therapist who will not treat that as the topic unless you want it to be.
Not the Right Fit
- If you need crisis or inpatient-level care, or care that requires psychiatric management, this is not the right setting.
- I am not a matchmaker or a dating coach. I will not review your profile, script your messages, or tell you whether to text him/her/them back.
- If you want to talk only about what the other person did wrong and not at all about the pattern, we will get stuck quickly.
If you are in crisis, call or text 988. If I am not the right clinician for what you are carrying, I will say so and help you find someone who is.
What We Work On
Three things, in order
Your attachment pattern, in specifics
Not a quiz result. We map what you actually do when someone pulls away, hour by hour, and where that response was learned. Once it has a shape you can see, it stops running the show quietly.
The nervous system on a Sunday night
Waiting for a reply is a physical experience. We build tools for the wait so that your next move comes from a settled place instead of from the spike.
What you actually want
Many people arrive with a list of what they will accept and no clear picture of what they want. We build the second one, and it usually changes what the first one looks like.
Questions
Answered plainly
Anything not covered here is worth asking on the free 15-minute consult.
Related Reading
Do you work with queer women?
Yes. Same work, no explaining the basics of your life to me before we can start. If your dating context includes things a straight framework does not cover, we will address them directly.
I am not in a relationship. Is this individual therapy?
Yes. This is individual work at $210 per session, or $325 for 90 minutes.
Is this about fixing me so someone will pick me?
No, and I would push back on that framing early. The goal is that you can tell the difference between what is familiar and what is good, and choose from there.
How is this different from just talking to my friends?
Your friends know the current story. I am watching for the pattern across stories, and I will name it when it repeats, which friends generally will not do more than once.
Can we do this over video?
Yes. Telehealth runs Monday through Friday anywhere in California. In-person availability in Bankers Hill is limited, one Sunday a month.
Free 15-Minute Consult
Fifteen minutes to find out whether this is the right work.
Tell me what is actually going on. I will tell you honestly how I would approach it, and whether I am the right person for it.
In person in San Diego, and by telehealth across California.