This one is for the Avoidants. You know the ones who tend to be professionally and worldly successful,  but they personally “avoid getting attached emotionally to other people or situations”. It might be you. You may have decided a long time ago – for a host of reasons – that you would take full and singular responsibility to meet your own needs. No one else would ever need to do so.

This does mean you do not have needs. It doesn’t even mean you do not secretly desire someone to meet your needs. It simply means that you do not trust anyone to do so. You have what the British Psychological Society have described in their first research of this kind as “fear and longing”.

Here are three rookie mistakes you might be making and how to fix them to stop damaging your dating life.

Mistake 1 Yout need to be alone

Avoidants more than any other attachment style have a significant need to be on their own. You feel stifled if someone is invading your personal space.

In dating, this can come across as cold and distant to the other person, but even for you your need to be alone is actually self-suffocating and on some level, I believe you recognise this. This tendency is coming at a price of real connection, the ability to receive and is damaging your dating life.

Give yourself small ways to connect: texting more regularly, allocating specific times for your dating life, and find other tiny ways to connect. If you’re feeling really brave express how difficult you might be finding the whole dating process.

Mistake 2: You are suspicious of others’ intentions

Avoidants are suspicious of other peoples’ intentions. They wonder why others want to connect with them, if their intentions are dubious, and if, indeed, their desire for connection is genuine.

Sometimes, those doubts may be genuine, but more often than not you might be creating those doubts to push someone away and because you have deep fears of intimacy and getting hurt.

You probably have past emotional wounds that have not healed and you may not even be aware of them.

You have to truthfully accept that your own issues are creating problems for you as you are dating.  Self-honesty is really painful but also incredibly powerful. You can also spend time on getting clear on what constitutes ill intentions and what evidence you actually need for it. This way you know you’re not getting carried away with your own fears and can remain focused on creating a deeper connection.

Mistake 3: You have strong personal boundaries

Unlike the anxious attachment style of the people-pleaser who have no or fuzzy boundaries, your boundaries are rock solid set in stone. They ain’t budging for nobody. No one gets a peep in unless God Himself put wings on him and flies him in.

Your boundaries are actually defence mechanisms and a desperate need to protect yourself. These walls are so thick and so high that the space for intimacy and emotional connection is if not impossible, not likely.

Spend some time to get really clear on the differences between boundaries and your defence mechanisms. Boundaries are limits you have chosen based on your values. Defence mechanisms are walls that your subconscious puts up to protect you from apparent threats.

More often than these threats are not real. Ask yourself what yours are, and how you can release them? The more you release your subconscious fears, the more you can show up and damage-control your dating life.

There you have it. The three rookie mistakes you might be making in you dating life. As someone who was a hybrid people-pleaser and an Avoidant, I know you absolutely can find ways to change your dating patterns by getting clear on what your values, personal challenges and especially your deepest fears are.

I know you are fiercely independent, but it is time you recognised that there is no shame in someone meeting your needs, hopes and desires.  Use your dating life to open up and allow someone to give to you.

If you have any anxieties doing this, remember what one of my favourite authors in psychology, Amir Levine, said: “Dependency is fact; it is not a choice or a preference”. Allow yourself the freedom to lean in on someone.

Rooting for you,

Shabana xx

Be Your Own Role Model

P.S If you dont know whether you are a people-pleaser or Avoidant, I have an In-depth Guide to your Personality Style that you can download for free from my website. xx

Photo by Matheus Cenali on Unsplash