SilentOne,
I was talking with Rabbi Dr Abraham J Twerski a number of years ago. He told me that low self esteem manifests itself in two ways (using Peanuts characters):
Charlie Brown – who has low self esteem and shows it at face value.
Lucy – who has low self esteem and uses the hard/mean outer shell to mask it
I think that the Lucy’s look for the Charlie Brown’s. And I think that (most of) the Charlie Brown’s may not be looking for Lucy’s, but they don’t reject them outright and get stuck in the relationship. Some may actually be looking for it.