We enter the dating world armed with preferences, those quiet inclinations that draw us toward certain kinds of people. There’s a natural human tendency to seek familiarity or shared values. But somewhere along the line, a shadow can creep in, twisting healthy attraction into something more rigid and ultimately dehumanizing. This often manifests in two seemingly opposite, yet intimately connected, behaviors: the fetishizing of specific women and the systematic avoidance of others. Both are sides of the same coin, a coin that pays out in fantasy and pays for with genuine connection.
Fetishizing in dating is not merely a strong preference. It is the reduction of a whole person to a single attribute—her race, her profession, her body type, a perceived personality trait. It is the belief that this attribute contains her entire essence and purpose in relation to you. She becomes not a complex individual, but an “Asian woman,” a “nurse,” a “manic pixie dream girl,” a “trophy.” The pursuit is not for her, but for the idea of her, a curated fantasy that promises to fulfill a specific need or narrative in your own life. The humanity of the person wearing the label becomes secondary to the excitement of the label itself. Conversations become confirmations of the fantasy, and any deviation from the script causes friction. The relationship exists on a surface, satisfying a craving but starving the soul of both people involved.
If fetishizing is an obsessive pull toward a caricature, avoidance is its repulsive counterpart. It is the wholesale dismissal of an entire category of women based on that same reductionist logic. Perhaps you’ve heard it, or even thought it: “I never date artists,” or “I could never be with someone from that background,” or “Women with strong opinions are too much work.” Avoidance builds walls where bridges could be. It often stems from a single negative experience, a stereotype absorbed from media, or an unexamined insecurity projected outward. By avoiding a “type,” you create a false sense of safety and control, a streamlined dating pool that feels manageable. But in this management, you rob yourself of profound and surprising connections. You judge a book by its cover, and in doing so, never discover the story inside.
What makes these patterns so corrosive is that they both refuse to see the person in front of you. Whether you are placing someone on a pedestal built from your fantasies or excluding her from consideration based on your fears, you are engaging with a fiction, not a flesh-and-blood human. The fetishizer sees only the attribute he desires; the avoider sees only the attribute he fears. Neither sees the full constellation of experiences, dreams, contradictions, and strengths that make a person who they are. This is the great tragedy—it shortcuts the very discovery that makes dating meaningful.
Moving beyond these patterns requires a conscious return to curiosity. It asks us to interrogate our own “types” and “never-agains.” Where did that preference truly come from? Does it hold space for exception, for individuality? It requires us to approach each new person as a universe unto herself, not a checkbox on a list or a walking stereotype. It means listening to her story, not just hearing what confirms your preconceptions.
True connection is found in the specific, not the categorical. It flourishes in the nuanced space between your expectations and her reality. It’s found in the lawyer who is also a poet, the single mother who is also an adventurer, the quiet woman who holds revolutionary ideas. When we let go of the need to fetishize or avoid, we open ourselves to the messy, unpredictable, and breathtaking possibility of being surprised by someone. We open ourselves to the chance of being seen, truly seen, in return. And that is a story worth writing together, one honest conversation at a time.
