Growth: I'm done the book.

I'm a little disappointed with the book. It opened my eyes to a lot of things regarding attachment. I mean, I'm pretty sure I can point at every single person I know and say what type of attachment style they have.

Strangely enough, or not so strange, most of my friends have an avoidant attachment style. Except Junior, I don't know what he has but it doesn't matter he's happy with his girlfriend.

So why am I disappointed in the book? Well, I kept reading and reading but I never got any answers. The book bashed a bit on avoidants saying "If anyone was unfortunate enough to have been in a relationship with them, we hope you aren't now." Ouch book, ouch. Be fucking nice.

As I kept reading the book it went into details as to how an anxious individual can become less anxious and more secure. Talking about communication. Goes back to when I dated the Doctor and she told me I needed to text her more for her to feel validated. She was an anxious. I am avoidant so I told her to get bent. I'm an asshole. The book says if I actually had her emotional well being in mind I would have agreed to it. I guess that is why it never worked.

The book goes on and explains how secure type attachment people magically know what their partner needs emotionally. Then explains that magic is just being really good at reading non verbal cues and open communication.

The book, obviously went into way more detail than I am here. I kept reading hoping that I'd eventually get to a chapter on how avoidants can become more secure and less in the "Don't fucking touch me." behavioural column and more into the "I love you" behavioral column.

I've concluded that the authors of the book never intended for an avoidant to read it. They seem to think that avoidants are the way we are and we don't think anything is wrong with it.

Well, to be honest, I know that when someone starts getting too lovey dovey with me that I run for the hills. I say brutal things. I become a distant, non-communicative asshole. Here's the kicker though, I FUCKING HATE IT.

This last weekend I had the opportunity to have a sit down with a different ex girlfriend of mine. (by the way keeping ex-gf's around is a sign of being avoidant. As long as I have them in my life, or pine after them I'm avoiding my present opportunities or even sabotaging them. The more you know) The ex-gf I talked to and told her that I've recently figured out I have an attachment avoidant behavioural pattern looked me dead in the eyes and said, "Well, no shit." This is the Ex that I lived with for 8 months, and dated for almost 3 years.

Looking back at the relationship I see that she was an anxious type and I was avoidant. The fights we had were her trying to get me to show that I cared about her but were actually just pushing me away because I would automatically just think "We're fighting, this means we don't work."

Avoidants tend to believe in "the one" that will just work, and if anything goes wrong in a relationship they use that as an excuse to just fucking bail, like I did.

I guess I did learn a fair bit about myself and what behavioural patterns I use to avoid emotional commitments but like I said there was nothing in the book about how to overcome this shit. I still recommend that every single person should read it. Click on the picture below for details.

I'm still not entirely sure how I'm supposed to go about fixing this issue but at least now I've got my foot in the door and can work on it. I have a date this Thursday with someone new so perhaps I may be able to work on it actively instead of just in my head. I'm sure I'll write up a "Post date blinks" post after.

Till then,
Later days,
Hero.