If dating fills you with anxiety and makes you want to crawl under a rock, you might wonder if it’s possible to approach it with a happy, carefree attitude. Perhaps you go instantly gaga for everyone you meet, second-guess yourself and struggle to let go of people who make you feel like crap. Or maybe you tend to go the other way and find yourself icily shutting down and pushing people away.
If you find dating an emotional minefield, you probably, along with fifty percent of the population, have an insecure attachment style.
Once you understand attachment, you will never look at dating the same way again. This knowledge is empowering. It allows you to take control. It enables you to understand your patterns and have insight into what goes on in other people’s heads. This makes courting less confusing and helps you not take other people’s actions personally.
(Reading about) attachment was..life-changing…everything starts to make sense. Catherine Gray
If you are currently navigated the world of dating with an insecure attachment style, you might relate to the behaviours below. Developing insight into these can help you step out of unhealthy dynamics.
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What is an attachment style?
This term refers to how you act and feel when coupling. If you are ‘secure’, you will mostly enjoy uncomplicated partnerships, whereas if you have insecure attachment, love is likely to perplex you.
Attachment psychologists state that our experiences with parent-type figures growing up dictate our patterns of relating as adults. Suppose your caregivers were busy or stressed, had health issues, or were preoccupied. These factors might have impacted their ability to be emotionally available to you, which can frighten a child. You might have developed unconscious anxiety around love and intimacy as a result.
Attachment patterns show themselves A LOT when we are flirting, hooking up and forming new connections. Knowing your style is invaluable if you struggle in this department so take a quiz to find out.
Learn the steps to take if you relate to the dating behaviours below and create a love life of happiness and ease.
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Has your phone made you obsessive?
Social media apps are designed to be addictive. They trigger the same neurocircuits in our brains as gambling and addictive substances.
For many of us, our phones are like extensions of our hands. One study suggests we touch them, on average, 2617 times a day. For heavy users, this increases to a whopping 5427.
I wouldn’t be surprised if your average anxious dater falls into this latter category.
Have you ever gotten sucked into a dark hole during some harmless WhatsApp flirting? Suddenly you’re analysing how often your love interest is online and counting the hours it takes them to read and reply to your messages. Maybe you try to match them — they take three hours to respond, so you take four.
Or you analyse your crush’s every post, like and comment on social media and scrutinise each attractive person they interact with. I’ve had clients who describe this as a form of self-torture.
Commonly people get caught up in a compulsive search for new matches on dating apps. I work with people who report waking in the early hours to check their apps. I have even spoken to friends and clients who have caught sexual partners checking them in the middle of the act itself.
How to break free
These compulsive behaviours are an attempt to alleviate anxiety. Yet, they create vicious cycles. The more you check, count, monitor and search, the more stressed you feel.
In The Joy of Being Single, Catherine Gray describes how she discovered peace by disabling the last online function on WhatsApp. Simple steps can make a big difference.
My clients have benefited from turning off phone notifications, downloading apps onto laptops instead of mobiles, limiting the number of dating sites they join, turning off electronic devices in the evenings or during workouts and having technology-free days (I challenge you to try this last one!).
Consider setting yourself rules, such as staying away from partners’ social media or not messaging your flame whilst socialising with others.
Try replacing phone time with hobbies, working out, and connecting with friends.
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Come back!!!
Psychiatrist and neuroscientist Lavine and Heller explain how our nervous systems respond to love anxiety.
When people with anxious attachment feel abandoned by a romantic interest, they respond similarly to a frightened child losing a parent.
Their bodies flood with adrenaline and cortisol, and they become overwhelmed with sorrow and fear. This response is called an activated attachment system.
When in this state, a person desperately wants reassurance and comfort. They may resort to ‘protest behaviours’ such as getting possessive or angry or pushing their partner away in a panic.
The insecurely attached person is saying to themselves: ‘cling as hard as you can to people — they are likely to abandon you; hang on to them and hurt them if they show signs of going away, then they may be less likely to do so’. Jeremy Holmes
If you are on high alert for rejection clues, you might get activated a lot, even in the dating stage. Your sweetheart ignoring a message, cancelling plans or prioritising work or friends might send you into a spin.
What do you do in these painful situations? You might:
- Excessively call and message
- block, or ignore your love interest in the hope of provoking them and protecting yourself
- make them jealous by flirting or hooking up with others
- line up other matches to prove you have options
- play games and manipulate.
These are generally misguided attempts to comfort yourself and fire up your partner so that you can reestablish your connection.
How to get back self-control
Rather than responding on auto-pilot, become mindful of your reactions. How are you feeling? What has your date done to upset you? Could their behaviour be interpreted differently?
Learn to comfort yourself in moments of sadness and rejection rather than acting out. Once calmer, you can consciously choose your response.
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Losing sight of which way is up
If you have an anxious or disorganised attachment style, confusion and emotional turmoil in relationships might feel normal. You might even think it’s what you deserve.
For many of us, “red flags” aren’t red flags at all. They’re the familiar. Nicole LePera, Holistic Psychologist
Whatsmore, Lavine and Heller explain how the flood of anxiety triggered by fraught romantic interactions, coupled with the euphoria and relief that one experiences when the partnership is repaired, can be exhilarating. They explain how one can learn to interpret fear as exciting and stability as boring.
If this is you, you might unconsciously seek out unstable explosive partnerships. When flirting and forming new connections, you may find yourself drawn to people who leave you second-guessing.
Heightened emotions make it challenging to trust your instinct. You might wonder what is reasonable and fear you are needy, temperamental or paranoid.
This painful self-questioning can be magnified with partners who hold back emotionally, avoid commitment or disregard your needs.
How to find your way
Read about attachment styles, map out your romantic patterns, and become mindful of your reactions and interactions.
Split some paper into columns and dedicate each to a past partner or date. Write about how they made you feel, how your emotions developed, the nature of any conflict you had and how the courtship ended.
Read back across the columns. Do patterns emerge?
Now ask yourself what you want and need from someone you are seeing:
- How often would you like to communicate?
- How frequently do you want to meet up?
- At what point does exclusivity become vital?
- What makes you feel appreciated? Or disrespected?
- What have you felt uncomfortable with in the past that you will no longer tolerate?
Write this down and refer back to it in moments of self-doubt. Start expressing it to others. Without an apology!
Rather than getting caught up in what is right and wrong, focus on what you need to be happy. Do you want emotional closeness and reassurance? Own it!! If the person you are seeing cannot provide this, they may be a poor match for you.
It is disorientating to try and squash yourself into a template designed around somebody else’s needs. If you do this, you risk losing sight of yourself.
Ask friends for advice on dating dilemmas. A fresh perspective can be a blessing.
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“You’re gonna catch a cold from the ice inside your soul”
Does it feel like partners steal your independence? Maybe other people’s emotions suffocate you. The more they want, the more you pull away.
If you have an avoidant attachment style, you may be perceived as cold or distant. You might refer to yourself as having high standards. Other people might think they have to prove themselves to you.
Maybe this describes you, or you may have dated people like this.
Rather than a healthy desire for independence, these behaviours are driven by fear. Avoidant people want love and connection, yet on a deep level, it feels unfamiliar and unsafe, so they unconsciously find ways to keep it out of their lives.
Behind the mask of indifference is bottomless misery and behind apparent callousness, despair. Bowlby
If you have this style of attachment, you might:
- say you are in the market for romance but never put yourself out there
- get easily annoyed by others
- find reasons why potential partners are unsuitable
- claim you are in the wrong headspace for commitment
- Enjoy the thrill of the chase yet lose interest when your affections are returned.
Often people with this attachment style find themselves desperately pining after others only after there is no longer any potential for a relationship. This is because once the threat of intimacy is removed, their desire for connection can safely emerge.
How to move through avoidance
Look for patterns in your thoughts, feeling and actions. Courageously dig into these by reading up on avoidant attachment and ways to tolerate it. Self-awareness is the key to change.
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Final thought
As prominent Relationship Therapist Esther Perel says:
Love by its very nature is not secure.
Relationships are imperfect. Romance is tricky. The challenge is finding ways to bear this fact.
Love coach Christina Sian McMahon maintains dating can be a joyful and healing experience if done mindfully. Map your patterns. Pause when anxiety takes over. Journal. Talk to friends. Tell dates and partners what you want and need. Remind yourself what you are worth. You are a fantastic person, whatever your attachment style. Have fun.
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This post was previously published on Hello, Love.
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