Dear Emotionally Unavailable Men.

Are you questioning why I would label you that?

After all, you are the men who are open to dating, open to having someone in your life…someone to hang out with, to laugh with, to be physically intimate with.

Maybe that feels like a normal relationship to you.  And it does to us women too.

But there’s a catch.

It’s all surface level.  Holidays aren’t spent together.  There’s little to no incorporating your female companion into your family life; meeting family members is limited or maybe even completely off limits.  There’s no future talk beyond planning the next date night out.

We get it; you’ve been hurt.  You trusted a woman you loved with your heart, and she broke it.  It hurt you so incredibly deep the pain is indescribable, and has changed you forever.  It’s a pain you never want to feel again, and you will forever live your life guaranteeing it won’t.

So you only feel at the surface level.

Perhaps you considered not dating at all.  But you missed the companionship of a woman, the connection, and certainly the physical touch.  And you truly did want more than physical; there was plenty of opportunity to just live a player’s life and have that need fulfilled anytime. But you wanted consistency, a friend…what you would call a relationship. But not love.

In reality, being back in the dating world was a journey you never wanted to take.  You wanted the woman back who broke your heart.

But you can’t have her back.

So the dating journey began.  And you found you could laugh again, feel again, even care again.

But not truly love again.

That brings risk.  Painful risk. Risk you refuse to take.

No biggie, right?

Wrong.

At the other end of your guarded relationship is a woman who did decide to take a risk.  To open herself up to dating again. To set aside past hurts and allow someone in to her life, her emotions, and her heart. That risk involved trusting that a man would treat her heart tenderly.

She didn’t know you weren’t capable of loving.

Dating you started out so well.  There were laughs and kisses and shared stories. Adventures. The appearance of a relationship blossoming.

But then, as time went on, she started to wonder.  She wondered why she wasn’t invited to family events.  Or that you turned down invites to join hers. Or maybe you would come occasionally, giving her a false sense that the relationship was progressing.

But that wasn’t the case.

You never intended it to be the case.

No harm no foul?

There’s a woman who exposed her heart to you, and she will never feel that in return from you.

And you know what the most frustrating aspect of that is?

As a woman who has dated you and been left feeling like she’s not enough…

I fear I’m becoming you.

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