my weird patterns

The easy answer, You are emotionally unable…

Why is the question

I am afraid of catching feelings because I feel people fake or change and then it just hurts too much to separate. On the other hand if you don’t date someone you are too attracted to then the pain of separation is also less. Plus a lot of guys have faked love for me in long relationships while taking my real love and concern for granted pu*sy while trying to keep a goof gf. I have been in such situations and they ripped my soul apart. It has been years and now I do believe that there might be some man who is different and will be capable of genuine love but I am so scared that I just don’t feel like getting into it altogether. But I do crave intimacy so I end up dating guys that I feel will hurt much less to leave because I don’t like them that way….maybe makes me sounds pathetic… However, I wanna break this pattern. Could you suggest a few things that I can do to become more emotionally available to this guy? And suggest some things that I can talk about.

I agree with Eva, you sound like you have a fearful avoidant insecure attachment style. And Raven is right.. you can’t really become emotionally available for someone else, you need to do it for yourself and a trained expert to help guide you will make it seem easier.

I don’t recommend starting something up with someone you really like if you’re still in a mindset that you sabotage yourself out of fear, you should find someone to talk to about this first now that you know what to call the weird patterns. But if you want to try anyway, you can start by calling him like you said you would, apologize that you hadn’t called earlier but you are shy and it is hard for you to make the first move, and tell him you are interested in getting to know him better. Then you find “normal” get to know you topics… what kind of movies, music, entertainment does he like, do either of you like traveling, what are his hobbies and are any the same as yours, what does everyone do for work or school, does he have any life passions, all that kind of stuff. See what you have in common, though you don’t need to learn everything at once. Take your time at your own speed, and if he likes you then he will match your speed.

Men are initially attracted to visuals. That’s the way it is. But that doesn’t tell you anything other than he likes how you look, which is a minimum requirement for a man to be interested. Since you really don’t know him at this point, you’re jumping to conclusions and trying to read his mind about what he wants from you. You are right to not want to deal with men who just want to fool around when that’s not what you’re looking for. But you need to talk to him and get to know him before you know his intentions. If he is bringing up sex in early conversation, then you know he’s not worth your time. If he’s interested in getting to know you and wants to plan dates, that’s great! Meet up, see if you’re interested in getting to know him better, don’t jump into bed with him and don’t invest in your feelings for him immediately. Just get to know him and see if you like him as a person first.

Starting from a default position of distrust of others before you get to know them, assuming and mind-reading their intentions, and rushing into things with weak boundaries and losing yourself immediately when dating a new person instead of taking time to get to know them (or the opposite, having boundaries so strong you have a wall up) are all typical habits of the fearful avoidant personality style. But again, you should talk to a professional because recognizing and doing the opposite of those things is only a small piece of the puzzle. It’s more complicated to address your patterns, but it IS doable.

Give the free videos by Thais Gibson a try for a starting point. I haven’t seen too many good books on it… a lot of them are more focused on the other types of insecure attachment styles.

Yes, fearful avoidant is somewhat of a mix of the two styles, but it’s more complicated than just that. Gibson has a lot of videos that will help you understand it better. The problem is that when you choose whoever tries the hardest and is attracted to you at your most aloof, then they will have their own issues, or they wouldn’t chase quite so hard (they only want what they can’t have because they are emotionally unavailable themselves). So then you end up opening up to the people you can’t actually trust, as they aren’t emotionally mature men, and those are the ones that hurt you and make you feel like you were right not to trust in the first place. Not everyone is like that! But you are very right to look into your own patterns further to eventually learn to break out of them and heal. Before you do that, it is very natural for the insecure types to be attracted to each other over and over. And you don’t need any more guys who are just man-children!

That sounds good, but don’t skip the therapy step. Choosing different types of men will definitely help, but the fear and shame that drive your patterns need to be addressed too to see real change. And don’t be hard on yourself if it isn’t quick and easy, these things take some time to heal!

Thanks to Covid, there are many many online therapists…

In my unprofessional opinion, dealing with it in an insecure way is when you don’t really know what’s wrong and start looking for flimsy excuses to sabotage and get extremely critical of the other person just to make up a reason to support not understanding your own feelings. However, you do have a solid reason here that you are unsure about him. If he calls you (as it sounds like it’s his turn to make the next move), you can give it a try with one more conversation. If you still have a meh feeling that you’re able to clearly identify, go with your instinct and move on. He has already warned you he’s a bit weird and a bit of a loner… could mean he’s socially awkward / on the spectrum, or could be a warning that there’s a good reason people don’t like him (such as he’s self-absorbed) and it’s not worth pursuing.

If he doesn’t initiate speaking again, you don’t even need to worry about it.