I am an Avoidant personality type, and I just want you to leave me alone.
I’m serious.
It’s that simple.
The internet is full of anxious-attachment people insisting that y’all are the only ones who experience heartache, or hurt, or real emotions. You’re wrong. Actually, you’re just the loudest. Us avoidant types are off somewhere in the corner, hands over our ears, wishing you would just go away — and you’re shouting that we just don’t understand you and we need to try harder.
Please stop shouting. We are more sensitive than we look.
Avoidants become avoidant because somebody once hurt us. In my case, a lot of people have hurt me. People respond to me in one of two ways: they immediately think I’m the best friend they’ve never had, or they think I’m Too Much. Half the people in the first category quickly decide they were wrong, and I’m Evil. Why? Because I set reasonable boundaries, and they freak.
Anxious types are not very good with boundaries. In fact, anxious types struggle in all kinds of ways, some of which are very well disguised beneath people-pleasing and faux admiration directed towards anybody who moves.
So without further ado….here is what we Avoidant types wish you knew (but we’d never actually tell you this directly — too much intimacy!):
1. We run away when we feel hurt.
Most people on this planet had the experience growing up of at least one caregiver who was a reliable source of emotional and physical comfort. Not so for us avoidant types. In my case, for example, I had two parents who were alternately emotionally withdrawn and outright abusive. I didn’t actually have anybody in my life who was consistently trustworthy, and I didn’t have a reliable source of comfort in another human.
Therefore, when I feel sad or lonely, it does not occur to me to seek comfort in another person. Instead, I withdraw, seeking the only comfort that has ever been consistent in my life — the comfort of solitude. I turn to the beauty of the ocean or the safety of the woods to cry and grieve. Then, renewed, I return to the company of other human beings.
I would love to rely on another person for this kind of emotional connection. However, I have spent my entire life learning that humans are not trustworthy sources of affection when I need it most. I have learned that if I am vulnerable, someone else may well use this as a reason to lash out at me.
Therefore, when you hurt me, even by accident, I tend to run away. This does not mean I don’t love you or don’t want to work things out between us. Instead, it means that I have trouble managing my own emotions or knowing who to trust. Because my choices have resulted in such bad outcomes in the past, I have trouble trusting my own instincts that you are trustworthy. Instead, I prefer to wait my own emotions out in the comfort of my own loneliness. It’s not ideal, but it keeps me alive.
If you would like me to open up more, that’s great! But it will take time.
Yelling at me or taking it personally when I withdraw will not help me trust you. I want to trust you. I need your help to make that happen.
2. We need you to be nicer.
Every anxious type I’ve ever known has quickly resorted to childish tactics when I withdraw even a little bit. That includes pouting, muttering cruel “observations” to yourself, making snide comments, making overt sexualized comments about other people, or making cruel and cutting remarks.
Suggestion: if you want someone to move towards you, don’t attack them.
The fastest way to push someone away who is trying to decide whether or not they can trust you, is by proving beyond a doubt with your behavior that you are untrustworthy. If you do this, you are telling this person that you will respond to their halting attempts to set their boundaries, by lashing out.
Who wants to be around somebody who acts that way?
If others setting boundaries or pulling away emotionally triggers you, then please deal with this on your own time. Please stop blaming us for “making” you do or say these things. We are not responsible for your actions. We cannot make you do anything.
You are responsible for the things you do and say. If you do not like the effect they are having, change them-but stop blaming us for having a reaction.
3. Loyalty works both ways.
I understand that sometimes dating can evoke anxiety in even the most levelheaded of people. But here’s the thing — if you want our loyalty and fidelity, you’ve got to earn it by giving us the same.
I’ve dated soooo many guys who responded to me looking twice at another man as though it was a huge betrayal. I’ve dated guys who lashed out at me and decided I was a slut who would sleep with anybody, because I was not immediately sexually faithful the instant we started hanging out.
This kind of behavior raises giant alarm bells.
Look, we are all nervous when we first start seeing someone new who we really like and imagine a future with. We are all simultaneously hearing wedding bells, and trying to decide if their annoying habit of cracking their knuckles is something we can live with for the rest of the week, never mind the rest of our lives. It is normal to walk a tightrope between total investment and the need for distance.
It is not normal, however, to assume the other person has decided that you are The One while you are still deciding whether you might also be interested in hooking up with the cute blonde to your right.
This goes doubly true for guys. We are not objects waiting to be claimed, like baggage on a carousel. We are not trophies for “doing it right,” for successfully playing the role that masculinity has scripted for you. We are separate human beings. And I for one choose to live my life with freedom and self-respect.
That means that so long as we are “dating” and not “in a relationship,” I am going to pursue any degree of intimacy I choose with whomever I choose.
If we have a conversation together and decide to mutually surrender our right to play the field, great. Until then, my attention and my body both belong to me. I am still deciding. That is what ‘dating’ means.
If you can’t handle dating or hanging out with someone who is dating other people at the same time, then either define the relationship early and with somebody who also wants a relationship immediately, or else deal with your jealousy and insecurity issues someplace else.
In the meantime, it is not our job to coddle your feelings. You are a grown adult person. I am not Galatea, and I did not spring into being for your pleasure alone. I hope you will be grown up enough to deal with this maturely. I understand, however, if you cannot.
But let’s be clear about the difference between me cheating or being untrustworthy, and you being afraid I’ll like fucking some other person better than you, okay?
4. Finally….Quit defining your value by how you make me feel.
Am I the only one who’s met that guy? The one who treated my every smile like it was evidence of his virility? The one who presumably remembered every orgasm a woman had ever had with him as evidence that he was a good lover? This person treats every time they make you laugh as evidence she’s a friend, treats your every problem like an excuse to prove what an excellent problem-solver he is. Everything that happens to you is an opportunity for her to prove her worth….regardless of how any of this makes you feel.
No one wants to be around that person.
Sweetheart. My feelings are my own. They might have something to do with you, or they might not. They might be your responsibility to fix, or they might be totally unrelated to you. I might be smiling because I’m happy to see you, or I might be smiling because I had a great day at work. The best way to know which one is to get to know me. The worst way is to treat every instance of my pleasure as some kind of evidence that you are doing something right.
It’s obnoxious. It makes me feel like I am on display for your perusal, like my every response to you is a trigger for your positive or negative self-judgment. I can’t ever be in the moment because I know that you never are there with me.
These relationships are the loneliest kind there is, in my experience. I can never just relax and have fun, because the other person treats my joy as some kind of personal reflection on them.
People who view other people as this kind of mirror of their virtues or their faults are unpleasant to be around. They come off as controlling, manipulative, and aggressively charming. Being around them feels like being betrayed, like they’re telling a story of what’s happening in their head that is more real to them than the person standing in front of them.
I have cared about these people before. I have even loved them very deeply. But I have learned it is best for me to love them from afar.
5. And now.
Avoidant types are really not so different from anybody else in this world. We love some people and we hate some people. We like to be connected, but only in ways that feel safe and healthy. The big difference is, we are not very skilled at articulating what we feel or what we need from other people. Getting what we need has simply not been part of our purview for a very long time.
We would very much like to change this. Please help us do that.
No one loves like those of us who have been waiting our entire lives to get the chance.
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This post was previously published on Change Becomes You.
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