The Hard-Earned Lesson that Being Avoidant Isn’t Cool

Being avoidant isn’t cool.

Before you jump to conclusions about what I mean, I’m referring to attachment theory. This is a psychological framework describing the different ways people give and receive love in romantic relationships. Everyone has an attachment style.

The three main styles are:

Anxious: These types crave intimacy, are often preoccupied with relationships, and are often worried about their partner’s ability to love them back. They are usually more possessive and jealous than other types, and when they are not in a relationship, they are generally unhappy. About 20% of adults fall into this type.
Secure: These types feel comfortable with intimacy, and are usually warm and loving. Attachment theory stays away from using the word “healthy,” but this is the type that I would personally describe as healthy. They are emotionally available and generally balanced. Just over 50% of adults fall into the secure style.
Avoidant: These types equate intimacy to a loss of independence, and constantly try to minimize closeness. They may be very ambitious and use their career as an excuse for why they can’t prioritize love. They can get closer to their partner, then inexplicably go distant. Eventually, they may find small problems and make them into bigger issues to seek a reason to break up. 25% of adults belong to this category.

A small percentage of the population falls into an anxious-avoidant type, which is a combination of types 1 and 3.

Attachment styles affect people in the following ways:

How they deal with conflict
Their view of intimacy and togetherness
Attitudes toward sex
Expectations from their partner and the relationship
Their ability to communicate wishes and needs

How are these styles developed?

It was originally thought that people developed their attachment styles in early childhood. An inconsistently available parent bred an anxiously attached adult later in life. A consistently available caregiver raised a child who turned out to be securely attached later on. And a distant parent developed a person with an avoidant style.

While parenting still does have an effect on attachment styles, it is now more supported that people develop the majority of their attachment style in their romantic relationships. Further, about 25% of people change their styles over time, based on their experiences in relationships. Most of them don’t realize when this change occurs.

Even those who are unaware of attachment theory are likely to notice the patterns of people in the way they view and value relationships.

I was avoidant as hell by age 18.

My parents were emotionally available and they gave me plenty of attention. However, I grew up with a disabled sibling, which can breed avoidance for the following reason: Watching your parents battle with the struggle of caring for someone with extra needs leads you to believe dependency is a bad thing. My parents also praised me for being so self-reliant and independent. They didn’t think this would subconsciously teach me to value independence above almost any other virtue. They were doing the best they could with the resources and knowledge they had available.

I also grew up in a post-feminism era, so I was raised to believe being a “strong, independent woman” who “don’t need no man” was the cool thing to do. I received this influence from teachers, aunts, uncles, television, and other forms of media.

Perhaps the most potent of culprits were my serious relationships with anxiously attached people starting at age 14. I had completed two lengthy relationships by the time I graduated high school at age 18, and both of my boyfriends had been extremely anxious. I didn’t have the vocabulary to describe this phenomenon at the time, but I had been pushed to the opposite end of the spectrum after seeing what anxious attachment could do to a relationship. And let’s not forget this all happened before my prefrontal cortex was developed, so reasoning wasn’t my strongest suit then.

So by the time I entered the real world of dating as a single 18-year-old, I had learned that…

Depending on others too much hurts them by burdening them with your needs.
Loving others makes you overly attached, anxious, and needy, which is unattractive and pushes your partner away.
It’s far “cooler” and preferable to be completely self-reliant, and to get all reward and satisfaction from a career. You have much more control over the outcome of your career than your partner.

I didn’t know I was avoidant or that attachment styles existed until I turned 26.

But not understanding the framework didn’t mean I wasn’t avoidant. I walked around unconscious of these toxic beliefs for years, and they made themselves evident in my adult relationships.

I had taught myself not to be jealous. So even when I loved my partner dearly, something that would make a secure or anxious type jealous was something I’d been trained to shrug off quickly. In fact, avoidant types tend to feel relieved when they perceive their partner checking someone else out, for instance. This is due to the reasoning of avoidant types that if their partner has wandering eyes, maybe they aren’t very invested in the relationship, which will make the eventual breakup go easier. Or perhaps it gives the avoidant type an excuse to also check other people out, and feel generally less invested themselves.

Out of five serious relationships, I always did the dumping. One relationship had several starts and stops over five years’ time. He was the person I cared about the most in the world, and I still managed to hurt him over and over again by eventually becoming disenchanted with the relationship and breaking up with him. Although we had been close friends since we were kids, by the last breakup, he was done with me for good. Rightfully so, he decided he didn’t want me in his life at any level.

And although his decision was valid, it hurt me like nothing else had before.

When you have avoidant tendencies, it doesn’t feel like you’re the one with the problem.

On the contrary, it feels like having a superpower! When you’re avoidant, you don’t suffer from jealousy. You see your friends getting hung up on exes and being worried about finding “the one.” Meanwhile, you get over breakups near instantly.

And rather than being concerned with finding “the one,” you fear finding that one. Once you discover them, you would be forced to decide between your independence and this person. At a subconscious level, you know you would pick the former, in turn hurting someone you love.

You are still fully capable of love. This is an extremely important point. It’s how you deal with conflict, view intimacy and closeness, and your expectations of the partnership that are determined by your attachment style. It is not your capacity to love. Avoidant types still experience true love, but they have defense mechanisms which interfere with the relationship.

Society exalts independence, exacerbating avoidant tendencies.

In other words, if you’re avoidant, society tends to praise you for being “cool.”

You’ve never been dumped? There’s a trail of heartbreak behind you, while you’ve never experienced the feeling? How badass!

You don’t get jealous? Your partner thinks about you while you only think about your ambitions and personal projects? That is so cool!

Of course, not everyone thinks this way, but non-committal types are generally depicted as “cool” in contemporary media and in the general narrative.

But the truth is, being avoidant isn’t cool.

Avoidant attachment comes from unhealed emotional scarring. It leads you to exclude yourself from meaningful relationships.

Seeking deep bonds is not a weakness — on the contrary! Deep bonds are essential to a fulfilling experience.

“Dependency is not a bad word… People are usually only as needy as their unmet needs.” – Attached

The dependency paradox

The more effectively dependent people are on one another, the more independent and daring they become. This is demonstrated in “the strange situation” test, from attachment theory research on young children and their parents.

A toddler and their trusted parental figure enter a room with toys in it. As long as the parental figure remains in the room, the child freely roams this unknown environment and plays with toys. But once the parental figure left, the child got uneasy, screamed, and cried for them to come back. And when the parental figure reentered the room, the child would calm down and resume exploring once again, completely ignoring their parent.

This is known as a “secure base.” It’s the knowledge that you’re backed by someone you can rely on with 100% certainty and turn to in times of need. A secure base is a prerequisite for a child’s ability to roam, explore, and learn.

Fast forwarding to adulthood, we go out into the world and deal with difficult situations and challenges.

“If we feel secure, the world is at our feet. We can take risks, be creative, and pursue our dreams. If we lack that sense of security — if we’re unsure whether our partner truly believes in us and supports us and will be there for us in times of need, we’ll find it much harder to maintain focus and engage in life.

“When our partners are thoroughly dependable and make us feel safe, and especially if they know how to reassure us in the hard times, we can turn our attention to all the other aspects of life that make our existence meaningful.”
Attached

“When participants feel supported by their partners, they report an increase in self esteem and a greater likelihood of achieving their goals. The inverse is true of people who don’t feel supported by their partners — in fact, they’ll be more likely to downgrade their goals.”

So one can deduce that to be secure is the best thing you can do for your partner, and having a secure partner is the best gift you can receive.

Also from Attached:

We’re biologically bred to rely on others. It started in the womb, and it ends when we die. We’ve been biologically rewarded for creating bonds with people since it used to lead to higher survival rates.

Numerous studies have shown that when you become attached to someone, the two form one physiological unit. Our partner regulates our blood pressure, heart rate, our breathing, and the levels of hormones in our blood.

Dependency is a fact — it’s not a choice or preference.

It’s still important to value your alone time.

It’s important to be calm and happy on your own, and to not be obsessive about your partner (the latter being a trait of anxious types).

However, beholding independence as the highest virtue is a dangerous sentiment, disguised as a cute badge of honor.

If you’re avoidant (or anxious), it’s not necessarily your fault. Through the events in your life and relationships, your brain developed these tendencies to protect you.

But it is still your responsibility to change if you want to. I learned about my avoidance one and a half years ago through a painstaking process. I had to question myself deeply when reflecting my actions. Why did I repeatedly hurt the person I loved? I even went to therapy to help discover the root of my issue. Those conversations, combined with reading the book Attached, opened my eyes to my problematic tendencies.

I came to terms with how I hurt people I loved, and which events in my life led me to be that way.

But the only way out is through.

Now I admire secure people with happy relationships. Ever since owning up to my avoidance, I aspired to be secure and have a loving relationship. Less than one year later, I found someone special. I still had a couple avoidant tendencies when we met, and he had a few anxious tendencies. But they were worked out through discussions and practice. Six months into our relationship, I evaluate it as incredibly happy, and both of us as securely attached.

To learn your attachment style (if you haven’t already determined it by reading this article), I recommend reading Attached and other books by psychologists on the topic. You can take a number of tests; one recommended by the book here, although I don’t find it very helpful.

I copied the most helpful questionnaire I found directly from Attached to this google doc. You can make a copy of it and fill it in for yourself. The reason I like this one best is that you can see how many tendencies you have from each category, rather than getting a survey result that spits out one of the attachment styles. Like all areas in life, your attachment style is on a spectrum. You are likely not 100% any style, but you certainly have a predominant one.

If you’re avoidant, you don’t have to be. You can change, just like I did. And trust this recovering avoidant when I tell you: secure attachment is by far the coolest style you can have.

Thanks to Chris Nagahama for the photo