avoidant.
On being avoidant, wanting connection and struggling with what happens when it becomes real.
I have a habit of pulling away from people when they start getting too close to me.
It happens more often than I’d like to admit although I’m not entirely sure how much it bothers me. Sometimes, I wonder if I have simply grown to accustomed to keeping people at a distance. Other times, I wonder if I’ve mistaken my inability to let people in for independence.
I don’t think I am capable of genuinely, 100% caring about people. I enjoy conversations, appreciate someone’s presence and find comfort in knowing that there are people who think of me when I’m not around.
But there seems to be a limit to how close I am willing to let them get. And the moment someone begins to cross that invincible line, I start looking for a way back.
When someone starts liking me.
There is something strange about knowing that person likes you.
At first, it can be nice. I enjoy talking to them. I might look forward to their messages or find myself smiling at the thought of them. Perhaps, I even like them back. There is a certain excitement in the possibility of becoming something more than two people who happen to know each other.
Then, somewhere along the way, I realize their interest is genuine. Suddenly, things feel different.
Their messages feel a little more demanding. Their attention becomes something I don’t know how to respond to. I begin thinking about what they expect from me, what might happen if I entertain their feelings and what would I have to give if things progressed.
Nothing has necessarily changed about the person. They are still the same person I enjoyed talking to yesterday. Yet, something inside me has shifted.
I start noticing their flaws. Things that once seemed endearing become irritating. I question whether I ever liked them in the first place. I convinced myself that perhaps they just aren’t my type, that the timing isn’t right or that I simply aren’t interested enough to pursue anything.
And maybe those reasons are genuine.
That’s what makes it difficult to understand myself. Not every loss of interest is avoidance and not every desire for distance means I’m afraid of intimacy.
But sometimes, I wonder whether I genuinely don’t want someone or whether I simply don’t know what to do when someone wants me.
Sometimes, I wonder if I lose interest in the person or in the expectations that come with being wanted.
I don’t always have the answer.
I do it with friendships too.
It would be easier to blame all of this on romance if it only happened there.
But I can’t say that it doesn’t.
I struggle with emotional closeness in friendships too. I can enjoy someone’s company without necessarily wanting them to know everything about me. I can care about a friend and still find it difficult to talk about what is happening inside my head.
There are things I would rather keep to myself even when I know the person listening would probably understand.
Sometimes, I don’t know how to explain what I’m feeling. Sometimes, I know exactly what I’m feeling but don’t want to explain it. And sometimes the thought of someone knowing too much about me makes me uncomfortable in a way I cannot quite put into words.
I can be present without being entirely open.
I can laugh with people, spend time with them and participate in their lives while keeping a part of myself somewhere they cannot reach.
Perhaps this is why emotional distance can be difficult to recognize. From the outside, nothing may appear wrong. I’m still here, still talking, still capable of showing that I care.
But there’s difference between being around someone and allowing yourself to be known by them.
I think I understand that difference more than I would like to. And perhaps, the strangest thing is that I don’t necessarily dislike these people. I don’t secretly resent their existence nor do I wish they would disappear from my life.
I simply find closeness difficult. Sometimes even with people I genuinely want to keep.
The comfort of having an exit.
I’ve been wondering whether distance feels comfortable because it gives me control.
When people aren’t too close, I don’t have to think too much about what they might expect from me. I don’t have to worry as much about saying the wrong thing, explaining my feelings or figuring out what to do when someone needs more from me emotionally than I’m prepared to give.
Get GHatake’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
There is comfort in being able to leave a conversation without having to explain why, comfort in keeping certains feelings to myself, comfort in knowing that I haven’t allowed anyone to become so deeply involved in my life that their presence begins to feel unfamiliar to lose.
Maybe that is part of it or maybe I simply like having a life that feels entirely my own.
I don’t want to romanticize being distant by calling it self-sufficiency. There is a difference between enjoying your own company and consistently retreating from emotional closeness. One is a preference, the other can become a pattern.
And patterns have a way of becoming familiar that we stop questioning them.
We call ourselves independent. We say we’re not the type to get attached. We tell people we’re bad at expressing ourselves, that we’re private, that we need our space.
Sometimes, all of that is true. But I think it is worth asking ourselves whether we are choosing distance because it genuinely makes us happy or because it is the only way we know how to feel comfortable.
I don’t have the definitive answer for myself yet. I am still figuring out where my preferences end and my avoidance begins.
I don’t want to blame myself for everything.
Learning about avoidant attachment can be uncomfortable experience.
I begin recognizing myself in descriptions I might once have dismissed. I read about people who withdraw when someone gets too close, who struggle to express their needs, who feel overwhelmed by emotional intimacy and who sometimes convince themselves they don’t care when caring begins to feel like too much.
And suddenly, some of my behaviour has a name.
There can be relief in that. There can also be an uncomfortable realization that the things I have always considered part of my personality might be patterns worth examining. But I don’t want to turn every decision I make into a symptom.
Sometimes, I really don’t like someone romantically. Sometimes, a friendship no longer fits into my life the way it used to. Sometimes, I need solitude and sometimes I don’t owe anyone a deeper explanation than the one I am able to give.
I don’t think being avoidant means I have to question every boundary I set or force myself to remain in relationship that I don’t feel right. At the same time, I don’t want to use the word avoidant as a convenient explanation for every time I withdraw from someone.
Understanding myself should not become way of acusing myself from understanding others. Because even when my intentions aren’t cruel, my distance can still be confusing to someone who doesn’t understand it. Someone might interpret my silence as disinterest, my withdrawal as rejection or my inability to open up as a sign that I don’t trust them. And they might be not entirely wrong.
I can acknowledge that without deciding that there is something fundamentally wrong with me. I can recognize my patterns without treating myself as a problem that needs to be fixed. Both things can be true, I have reasons for the way I behave and I am still responsible for how I treat people.
What if I am the one creating the distance?
I think, one of the hardest things about being self-aware is realizing that understanding my behaviour doesn’t automatically change it. I can recognize a pattern, and still repeat it.
I can know that I am pulling away and still feel the urge to do so. I can understand that someone has done nothing wrong and still struggle to let them close. Awareness doesn’t always arrive with an instruction manual.
Sometimes, it simply means I can no longer pretend I haven’t noticed what I am doing. And perhaps that is where I am right now.
I am beginning to notice how quickly I retreat when someone expresss romantic interest. How easily I can find reasons to distance myself. How I can enjoy having people in my life while still struggling with the vulnerability that comes with allowing them to know me.
I don’t know if this comes from past experiences, the way I learned to relate to people or simply patterns I have developed over time. I don’t want to invent and explanation just because having one would make everything feel more understandable.
What do I know is that, there are moments when I want to be closer to someone but the moment closeness becomes possible, I begin looking for reasons not to be. And I think that contradiction deserves a little more honesty from me.
Not condemnation, not an elaborate justification… Just honesty.
Because if I keep telling myself that I don’t care, I may never have to examine why I keep creating distance in the first place. And I keep assuming that I am simply not the kind of person who gets too close to others, I may never discover whether that is genuinely who I am or simply what I have become accustomed to doing.
Maybe I don’t have to figure it all out yet.
I don’t have a beautiful conclusion about healing, vulnerability or learning to love people properly.
I am not writing this as someone who has overcome anything. I am writing this as someone who has started noticing things about herself that she doesn’t entirely understand.
Maybe, I will always need more space than other people do. Maybe I will never be the person who shares every thought or responds to every feeling with ease or finds emotional intimacy entirely natural.
But I would like to understand myself well enough to recognize when I am choosing distance it is because I want it, and when I am choosing it simply because closeness makes me uncomfortable. I would like to stop confusing the absence of emotional pressure with the absence of emotional connection.
And perhaps, one day, I will learn that letting someone get close doesn’t mean surrendering every part of myself. That I can care about someone without owing them every moment of my time. That I can be loved without having to respond perfectly to that love.
For now, I am still learning. I still like my space. Still keep things to myself, still find it difficult when people get too close and I still don’t always know what to do with someone’s feelings when they are directed at me.
But I am beginning to understand that there is a difference between being comfortable alone and being comfortable only when no one is close enough to reach me.
Maybe I don’t need to rush into changing everything about myself. Maybe I just need to stop pretending there is nothing to understand. Because I don’t think I want a life without connection.
I think I just haven’t figured out how to let connection exist without feeling the need to escape it. And for the first time, I am willing to admit that those are not the same thing.
