All the Good Ones Are Taken
Entry No. 001 ·
By The IF Team
Why are you attracted to people in relationships? Partly because their partner works like a public reference: someone has already looked closely at this person and said yes. Researchers call this mate-choice copying. People who are taken are also relaxed around you, because nothing is at stake. You often see them every day. And someone who cannot say yes to you cannot say no either. Put those together, and the taken ones can start to look like the only good ones left.
If you keep noticing the pattern, you are not broken, and you are not alone. It is one of the oldest complaints in dating, repeated like a small prayer of resignation: all the good ones are taken. The person who makes you laugh until it hurts is someone else’s partner. The one you can talk to for hours is wearing a ring.
None of that makes you a bad person. Feelings that cross relationship lines are normal, and admitting them is honest. The only real lines are cheating and lying. Understanding the pattern gives you more choices: loosen its hold, give single people a fairer chance and, for the one person you cannot shake, send an IF, a sealed message that opens only if you are both single one day. IF is the dating app we built for everyone, single or taken.
Mate-choice copying: someone has already said yes
Mate-choice copying is the tendency to find someone more attractive because someone else has already chosen them. It was first described in animals, and the logic is efficient. Judging a potential mate properly takes time and carries risk, so borrowing someone else’s verdict is a shortcut: if another individual has inspected this one closely and stayed, they are probably not a disaster.
Humans seem to do something similar. In one well-known experiment, people read about a potential partner and said how interested they were in pursuing them. Half were told the person was single and half that they were in a relationship. In some groups, interest jumped when the person was described as taken; in others it did not change at all. One experiment is not a law of nature, but it is a telling one.
It makes a strange kind of sense. A relationship is a visible track record. It tells you that this person can commit, that they are presumably kind enough to be kept, and that someone who knows them well still chooses them every morning. You are not only attracted to them. You are attracted to the evidence, which is why the same person can seem quite ordinary until you learn they have someone.
Why the taken ones are easier to like
They are relaxed with you, because nothing is at stake
Someone who is happily partnered is not auditioning you. They can be warm without worrying about seeming too keen. That ease is lovely, and easy to read as chemistry. Some of it is produced by the unavailability itself: the same person on a first date, with everything to gain or lose, might be far more guarded.
Uncertainty keeps them on your mind
Not knowing where you stand is sticky. In a study of uncertainty and attraction, participants looked at the profiles of people who had supposedly seen theirs. Those told it was unclear how much they were liked were the most attracted of all — more than those told they were liked a lot — apparently because the uncertainty kept them thinking about the other person. A taken person is uncertainty in human form. Every warm moment invites the question “Did that mean something?”
You see them all the time
The colleague across the desk, the friend of a friend at every birthday. Research on live conversation found that the more two same-sex strangers talked, the more they liked each other, partly because they felt more understood and more at ease. Familiarity does not check anyone’s relationship status. It simply builds with whoever happens to be nearby, and many of the people nearby are already spoken for.
Someone who cannot say yes cannot say no
There is safety in a crush that can never be tested. You feel the full warmth of wanting someone without risking a no, and the fantasy never has to survive a dull Tuesday or an argument about money. For someone who has been hurt before, that safety can be the whole point. This is the grain of truth in “you always want what you can’t have”: the out-of-reach is often less thrilling than it is safe.
Are all the good ones really taken?
Partly, and much less than it feels. Kind, reliable people ready for commitment do tend to pair off, and happy couples stay off the market for a long time. But the pool is never still. Relationships end, marriages come apart, and someone new becomes single every day. That cuts both ways: the person you like may not be taken forever either. What is lopsided is not the supply of good people. It is what you get to see of them.
You see partnered people at their best: relaxed, generous, being loved in public. You meet single people at their most guarded, often mid-scroll, when you are in the mood least likely to say yes. Researchers studying online dating found that people grew steadily more rejecting as they worked through a series of profiles, with the chance of accepting someone falling by 27 per cent on average from the first to the last. Some of the good ones are not taken at all, just judged in the worst possible conditions. If the question underneath is really why you are still single, our guide to the honest reasons people stay single picks it up from there.
Why do I always fall for people I can’t have?
One crush on someone who is taken is a coincidence. Three in a row is a pattern. If you always seem to like people who are taken, that pattern is usually doing a job for you. It might be one of these:
- It confirms an old story. If part of you already believes you are not the one people choose, every taken crush quietly proves it again.
- It keeps things intense. Longing at a distance runs hotter than the slow, ordinary work of getting to know someone who is single.
- It keeps the fantasy intact. You fill the gaps in what you know about them with whatever you most want, and a real person can struggle to compete with that.
- It keeps you unavailable too. A hopeless-feeling crush can be a way of not dating at all while still feeling as if something is happening, and sometimes the person who is not ready for a relationship is you.
The same logic runs through the wider family of people you cannot have: the one who lives on another continent, the one who has kindly told you they are not interested. The details differ. The payoff — feeling without risk — is often the same.
That does not mean a particular feeling is false. Sometimes the taken person really is someone you would be good with, and the timing is simply wrong. That is what an IF is for: say it now, sealed, and let it wait until you are both single. It is worth a closer look if your interest rises when you learn someone has a partner, or fades as soon as a single person likes you back, or if the feeling has tipped into something closer to limerence, where thoughts of one person crowd out almost everything else.
A feeling, not a plan
The attraction itself is not wrong, and you do not need to hide it. What matters is what you do next. Cheating is wrong, and so is lying, to anyone. Pressuring someone, or quietly working to end their relationship, is not the honest route either.
How something begins tends to travel with it. A set of studies on relationships formed by “poaching” someone else’s partner found that relationships which began by luring someone away from a partner were, on average, less committed and less satisfying. That is no verdict on the person you like. It is an argument for timing: a relationship that begins once you are both single starts on its own footing, which is exactly what an IF waits for.
You can tell them. Some people would rather know, and saying it is brave. But opening up like that has risks: it puts them on the spot, it can change a friendship overnight, and it lands now, in the middle of a relationship they have chosen. You are potentially better off sending an IF, which stays sealed and opens no conversation while either of you is in a relationship, so that if the timing ever lines up, you are there to show them how much you have always liked them.
If this is about one person right now, having a crush on someone who is taken walks through your real options, and whether to wait for someone in a relationship looks at waiting without putting your life on hold.
How to break the pattern
Breaking a pattern is less about willpower than about changing what you feed it. It is not giving up on anyone; it is making room.
- Write down the last few people you fell for, when you found out they were unavailable, and whether your interest rose or fell afterwards. On paper, the pattern loses some of its mystery.
- Name the payoff. Ask what the unavailability gave you — safety, intensity, a reason not to try — and whether you could meet that need more directly.
- Find out where people stand early. The sooner you know whether someone is single, the sooner you can decide what to do with a feeling, and there are natural ways to find out if someone is single without making it weird.
- Give available people the time you give the taken ones. Familiarity builds attraction, so a single person you have met once is up against someone you have seen every day for a year. Offer a second and a third meeting before you decide there is no spark.
- Expect mutual interest to feel calmer. When someone clearly likes you back, the uncertainty that kept you hooked disappears. That quiet can feel like a lack of chemistry at first. Often it is simply what safety feels like.
- Give it somewhere to go. If one person keeps circling back, and they have not already told you no, write it in an IF and let it wait; once a feeling has been said, it no longer needs rehearsing in your head.
- Turn the volume down on the current crush: fewer one-on-one coffees, muted stories, less late-night messaging. You are not cutting anyone off, only giving the fantasy less to feed on.
If the pattern keeps repeating, or you can trace it back years, it is worth talking to someone. Repeated attraction to people who cannot choose you often has roots that are far easier to untangle with support than alone.
Where IF fits
We built IF on a simple idea: you should be able to say how you feel, whatever the timing, without anyone being lied to. Every profile card shows a self-declared status badge, single or in a relationship, so nobody has to guess or pretend: you know where someone stands, and you can say how you feel either way. If you want to give single people a fairer chance, on paid plans you can make status a Need, so people in relationships sink far down your deck. Nobody is ever hidden outright.
When you are both single, IF works like any dating app: you Like each other, and an accepted Like opens a chat. When either of you is taken, no Like, match or chat is possible, but you can still send an IF: a private, sealed message of up to 250 characters that opens only if you are both single one day. That is the release valve this pattern has always lacked: instead of carrying a feeling unsaid, or risking a confession that lands in the middle of their relationship, you say what you feel and let IF do the waiting.
If you are single and they become single, you get 24 hours to reveal it; if you do, they see who you are and what you wrote, and accepting opens a chat with your IF as its first message. If you are in a relationship yourself, you can still send one: it simply waits until you are both single. How an IF works covers the details.
It is worth knowing how it lands. If they are on IF, they will usually be told an IF is waiting, but not who sent it or what it says until it reveals. If they are not on IF yet, one sent to an email address they gave you triggers one short invitation email, without your name or your words, while one sent to a phone number or Instagram handle simply waits in case they join. IF never discloses who sent it before a reveal. However, they can still guess from context. Knowing that, the choice is yours.
Your first IF is free. Writing one takes emotional bravery, and that is the point: a pattern that kept you safe by never saying anything is broken the moment you put it into words and mean it. Then you get on with things, and if the timing ever lines up, it may lead you to where you were meant to be all along.
Questions people ask
Is it normal to be attracted to someone in a relationship?
Yes, very. Attraction responds to warmth, familiarity and attention, and none of those check relationship status first. It says nothing bad about you, and admitting it is honest. What you do with the feeling is what counts.
What is it called when you are attracted to people who are taken?
There is no diagnosis for it. Researchers use “mate-choice copying” for finding someone more attractive because others have chosen them, and “mate poaching” for actively trying to attract someone who is already in a relationship. The first is a feeling. The second is a behaviour. You may also see “symbiosexuality” online. It is used for attraction to a couple together, which is a different thing from falling for one half of it.
Can it work out with someone who was taken when you met?
It can. Relationships end, and people who met at the wrong time sometimes find each other later, with the friendship already built. What helps is the order: when you both arrive single, nobody has been pulled away from anyone, and the two of you get a fair start. So stay honest, let their relationship run its own course, and if you want them to know, put it in an IF that opens only if you are both single. Right person, wrong time? Wait for them on IF.
How do I stop falling for people who are taken?
You probably cannot switch the attraction off, and you have nothing to be ashamed of, but you can stop feeding the pattern. Find out early whether someone is single, give available people more than one chance, and expect mutual interest to feel calmer than a crush. If it keeps happening, it is worth talking to someone to help you understand why. If one person in particular is taking up the space, writing it down in an IF can be what finally lets it rest.
Not all the good ones are taken, and the ones who are may not be taken forever. Say it once in an IF, keep living your life, and be there if the timing lines up.