Why do we pick the wrong people?

I get a weekly astrology newsletter. Of course I do, it's part of the boo-bitchcraft. Anyways, today there was a lesson on how we can miss the forest for the trees. Talking about how sometimes, we need to fall for the wrong people in order to understand the real value of true love and friendship.
How people let us know how they really feel about us by what it is they are saying or not saying.

That got my attention.

Then I started to think, yeah that's me alright, always picking the wrong men. Which then had me thinking, nearly an excuse really, that I'm a writer I can romanticize any man.  Which, for a story is the ultimate gift, but for real life, an anchor around my neck.
But isn't that what all romance stories are based on?  Falling for the wrong guy thinking he's Mr. Right when he's really Mr. Wrong-Double Wrong? 

Let's look at my biggest influences,  Sex and the City  and all Jane Austen's works.  In SATC, all the characters have to go through horrible break ups, cheating, lies, before they are able to find the truth in the matter and their perfect mate.  The same thing happens in pretty much every novel ever written by Jane Austen, and the woman wrote them 200 years ago.
Mr. Wickham is the classic bad boy, a charming beautiful liar with gambling issues and hints at domestic violence.  Yet, all the women fall for him.

Are we not seeing the forest for the trees?  Are these stories really more a warning then anything else and we've just taken them the wrong way? Literally?

When I started this blog, it was because I had been actively dating and was aggressively disappointed and scared at times, by the guys that were coming into my life at that time. I had been blogging about it casually elsewhere on the internet, and that series of posts were my most popular. So I decided to dedicate a full blog to it. 

Then I stopped dating. Ironically.

I literally said out loud, I couldn't handle any more of the bad dates and scummy guys that were coming into my life, and just wanted the right guy. That I wouldn't date again until he came into my life.


You know the old term be careful what you wish for you just might get it... but if you've read much at all of this blog over the last few years, you've seen just how many Mr. Wrongs have come into my life. Usually by my own doing. Because I fell for them, they never fell for me.  The few times, pushed by others even when my gut told me they were a bad choice.  In the end, I'm the only one who it affected.

Which brings me back to the lesson.  When do you know that you're picking the wrong person because there is a warning that this type is not compatible with your core values/beliefs/heart and to therefore look again at what's really beside you? Or that you're picking them out of desperation?

I know what I'm truly looking for in life, it's just taken a lot of pot holes in the road to see the path isn't perfect. And when Mr. Right shows up, neither of us will hesitate.