Is She Avoidant... or Just Not That Into You?

Okay, if you're a frequent listener of the Dad Starting Over podcast and you find yourself saying, "Yeah, that sounds like me," well, you don't need another podcast episode. What you need is support. The Help for Men Brotherhood is where men go when they're done pretending that they got it all handled. You know, your dead bedrooms, your divorce, your loneliness, your rebuilding life. We have private forums, frequent live Zoom meetings, one-on-one coaching, courses, all my books at no additional charge. And yes, we get together in person. Real men and real conversations. So stop doing this alone and join the Help for Men Brotherhood today at help4men.com/join. I look forward to seeing you in the next member meeting. A guy's been dating a woman for a while and he's fallen in love and he starts noticing some of those signs that say, I think she's one of those dreaded avoidant women that he's been hearing all about. Uh-oh. What does he do? Does he figure out how to work around her issues and stay attached to her? Or does he cut and run? Let's talk about it on today's episode of Dear DSO. And you could submit your own story or question at deardso.com. Fill out the form, and if your submission's a good one, I will create a video out of it for the whole world to see, or for the podcast listeners on the Dad Starting Over podcast to listen to. The Dad Starting Over podcast, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you may listen to your podcasts. And if you are watching this on YouTube, do me a big favor if you could please just pause for a moment, go down below and click on subscribe, click on like, leave a comment, share, all that good stuff, man. I would really appreciate it. That would help me out a great deal. Thank you so very much. Now on to today's submission, and this one comes from Paul. And Paul says, hey DSO, well Hey, Paul. He says, I've been seeing this woman for a few months now. And I'm honestly driving myself nuts trying to figure her out. When we're together, it's great. We have good conversations, the chemistry is there, the sex is solid, and I leave thinking, okay, this is going somewhere. But then she pulls back. She doesn't reply for hours or even a day. She cancels plans last minute. She says she's, quote, really busy or needs space. And so I try to play it cool. I give her that space, and then she'll pop back up out of nowhere, sweet, flirty, even affectionate, and it pulls me right back in. It's this push-pull cycle, and it's messing with my head. I've read about avoidant attachment styles, and she checks a lot of boxes. She's distant, hot and cold. She talks about being hurt in past relationships. She doesn't trust easily. She says things like, "I don't want to lose myself in a relationship." So part of me wants to be patient, and I'm telling myself, quote, "She's scared. She needs to feel safe. Be understanding." But the other part of me is like, quote, "Dude, she's just not that into you. Move on." The problem is I really like her. I have dated enough to know that I don't click like this with just anyone. So here I am stuck in my own head wondering if I'm being supportive or just getting strung along. How the hell do you tell the difference between a woman who's avoidant but worth the effort and one who's just keeping you around as an option? Mr. Paul, what a good one. And if you have read up on the old attachment theory stuff and have watched my videos and other people's videos and articles and everything else, I think you would realize if you kind of take a step back and look at this, you know, from the 30,000-foot view, You are playing out the quintessential textbook anxious guy avoidant woman dynamic. You are way preoccupied and over-concerned with this relationship and her, and she is not. You have framed this completely wrong. I don't know if you realize that. You have said here, let me go back to your message here and quote, how do you tell the difference between a woman who's avoidant but worth the effort, and one who's just keeping you around as an option. In other words, she doesn't really like you all that much. A secure individual, of which you are not— I know, speaking of platitudes here, but that's what I'm seeing here— a secure individual would see this situation and see this person and watch what they're doing, watch their actions, and say, "Not for me, thank you very much, have a good day." But you're Mr. Anxious. You fell in love. You're buried in like a tick, and she is playing the ol' avoidant game that usually happens in the honeymoon stage of attach-detach, attach-detach, and it keeps you going in and out, in and out. Whether you know it or not, this is a common psychological ploy, one that I don't believe she's doing, you know, purposely. It's just part of her innate makeup, but it's a common ploy that keeps a person attached. In a very unnatural, very strong way. That is to heap on affection and attention and then pull it out, uh, unbeknownst to the other person. There just doesn't seem to be any reason for it, and it sends them into an anxious tailspin. And then you come back and you go, here you go, here's your dose again. You go, oh, thank you. And then you pull it back again. That in and out, you know, loading them with all kinds of in-love, love bombing kind of feelings, and then pulling it back is for some reason that taps into a part of the human psyche which makes that avoidant, erratic partner very addictive, basically, to the victim, if you want to call them that, in that scenario. So whether she knows it or not, she's really toying with you, and it's not a good thing. As you can see, you've fallen for this woman, obviously. She's obviously not for you, dude. She doesn't match up well with you, but you just can't get this woman out of your mind. And instead of saying, should I stay with this avoidant or not? You framed it as, is she just an avoidant that I need to deal with? Or is this a woman who doesn't like me? Here's the thing. If we were to sit her down, as I often say, and hook up a lie detector machine, she may very well say, or she may very well show that, oh yeah, she really likes you, dude. She likes you a lot. In fact, she's thinking of you as long-term boyfriend and beyond. Material, possibly. But what you're seeing is what she's capable of and her method of showing that. That's who she is. She's very avoidant, and she's never going to give you the, the level of affection, love, care, romance that you need. She wouldn't be enough for secure people, let's put it that way. You know, you're Mr. Anxious, but let's pretend that you are a secure individual. You would recognize, oh wow, she's just not quite right in that way. She's very up and down, in and out, and I don't have time for that shit. This is silly. And you would break it off with her. But as an anxious person, you're not quite sure of yourself. You don't like yourself an awful lot. You don't have much self-worth. Probably have a lot of shame when it comes to sex and relationships and so forth. And you've alluded to in your message here, this type of feeling that you have for a woman doesn't come along all that often. So when you have it, you want to hold on to it. But here's the thing again, uh, you're having feelings for this woman precisely because of the old in and out of the relationship, because of the heaping on the love bombing, if you will, and then pulling it back. That is what's causing you to have all these feelings. You're a victim to your anxious mindset. You're a victim to your codependence, if you want to look at it that way. You need to recognize your innate tendency to be attracted to these people and stay attached to said people. You need to recognize what it is about you that causes you to be such an anxious individual and enter into these relationships with very unhealthy individuals. Of which she is one. You two getting together is just one unhealthy person meeting another unhealthy person. You cut that shit out, break it off with her, and realize, I made a big oopsie here. And then do the very difficult work of saying, let me stay away from women for a while and figure out my shit, figure out my issues, what's going on with me. Nobody does that, and everybody should. So why don't you break the cycle of a bunch of dysfunctional human beings out there trying to match up with other dysfunctional human beings, which causes a whole bunch of dysfunction. Why don't you say, I'm going to jump off this train, I'm going to do things a little differently. I'm going to take time out, go to therapy, maybe do some coaching with somebody like Ralph Brewer Brewer Brewer or somebody else on the Help for Men team, join a men's group and talk on a day-to-day basis with other guys, you know, in our forum or in our live Zoom meetings that we have all the time, or get together in person with us. Yes, I'm talking about our private group, The Brotherhood, and you can learn more at help4men.com or jump right to the join page at help4men.com/join. We have hundreds and hundreds of men from around the world who can all very much relate to what it is that you are going through. They've been there, done that, and many of them have come out the other side as a healed man, and many of them are still working on it and they need some help along the way just like you do. So check out The Brotherhood help4men.com. Don't pursue a relationship with this woman. I know you probably are anyway. I'll see you here in about 6 months when it really blows up in your face. But, you know, I don't want to be one of those guys to say, hey, I told you so. But let me give you a preemptive I told you so. All right, brother. But I do wish you all the best. Please stay in touch. Let me know how it goes. And guys watching this, hey, we'll catch you on the next one.