You've never heard of the "repetition compulsion"?  en.wikipedia.org/.../Repetition_compulsion  In the example you give, the woman likely is trying to repair her relationship with a remote, missing or unavailable father.  If through her love she can make the unavailable boyfriend love her, her childhood will be "fixed" or redeemed in some fashion.  (Take this from someone who spent 20 years finding really smart, really depressed women to date, and guess what his Mommy's principal qualities were.)

Keller has exactly the right answer.  Figure out why you're picking the same, unsatisfying type over and over again (if you are -- Z, I take you at face value saying you don't do this).  Then decide how you want to proceed in the future.

Is always sleeping with the first person who says "yes" a pattern? Because I've never fallen into the habit of doing anything so crude and self-destructive as that, if that's what you're trying to imply.

Everyone has patterns.

Whether or not it's possible NOT to have a pattern is perhaps a separate questions.

Because I agree you can FIND patterns virtually anywhere you look.

My favorite is the guys who say "looks aren't that important" and then you see all of their exes and think to yourself "wait a minute, they're all busty brunettes with glasses..."  

I think I have patterns.  But I think those patterns change over time...

I also don't know if it's true that there's a lot of pathologically needy women.

But I DO know that there's a lot of parents who tell there daugters if a man doesn't want to be their boyfriend/get engaged he doesn't respect them, doesn't like them and is just using them.

Coincidence?

    "types" are a kind of "pattern" I'd say.   but i think the main pattern we all have in relationships is who we are in the relationship and how we deal with the other person.  sometimes we learn and grow if we go through a bad breakup and find ourselves sad, angry, confused, or downright hating them ourselves or what the outcome was.  but we have to break our patterns to do this.  we all have patterns in life in all our relationships with friends, family, and lovers.  The one consistency in any relationship we have is ourselves.  not to say that it isn't possible to have shitty luck and be with a string of emotionally infantile partners all in a row.  life is crazy you can't understand everything.  and yes i have dated one of those guys who had all the exes that looked like pod people, all brunette and he for some reason had to tell me all about it,  and me a lowly freckled redheaded sitting duck.  i should have run in the other direction.  fast.  that wasn't his problem though, his problem i later found out is that he didn't know how to change his many patterns in relationships that were not in any way healthy. or didn't want to?  hope he does one of these days for his sake.  i am changing my bad habits before my next relationship or at least the ones i am now aware of.

  also, i think that Sophie is missing the point. when she goes on about these guys that don't give the woman what she needs i want to tell her but maybe that's not the problem maybe the problem is these women don't know what they want or need and need to find their happiness within themselves first.  i know i do.  also if you can't tell that a guy that is married or a guy that doesn't want sex isn't the right catch for you then you have bigger problems.  good examples sophie?  i think not.  to be fair to her though the world is full of crazies.

Zeit--seems to me you're quibbling over semantics.  I do believe people have patterns and types, both consciously and unconsciously.  Sometimes it's not negative.  Sometimes it is.  

I only became aware of my own in the later days of my marriage, and my first few treks into the dating world.  There were (and are but I am more aware now and know more what to look for) very specific traits and characteristics that I was drawn to.  They are bad for me in the sense that they play into issues and weaknesses of my own.  

I don't think you need to take any kind of a hit for all of men... perhaps just yourself but that's between you and any woman you're involved in.