Dating with anxious attachment style

Train yourself to practice restraint, don't dive in with both feet immediately. For instance instead of giving in to the impulse to text, check social media etc etc take a walk to the local shops or choose something that occupies your mind.

You don't come across as a psycho by the way.

You sound well put together but your issue seems to be that to some extent you've geared your life towards dating. The way you describe yourself is very telling in that regard, all of your attributes are highly desirable in a partner but in isolation will lead to a level of infatuation from the offset that is hard to dismiss. Dating should be a parallel sideshow to the real thing which is your life, once you have it together and are dating someone casually your real, personal life (and by this I mean hobbies, career, friends, activities etc.) and the person you are dating should start to mould together organically with a natural and healthy upward trajectory. Some people bypass this element by dating someone from their locality, university, working life or social circle - whether or not this is better in the long term I do not know.

I’ve spent the better part of the last year working on this, and trying to spread the word as much as possible too because once you learn about it it’s game-changing!

For a start, while well-meaning, ‘distract yourself’ is not good for someone with anxiety. You can go to the shops or walk for days, but when you return from that walk, then you’re right back where you started. You have to learn to separate your anxiety from the problem at hand and deal with it on its own, it’s not something you can outrun. Unless someone is going to die, there are very few problems that can’t wait until you’ve calmed the F down and can deal with it from a position of strength. Mindfulness, in particular the Headspace app, is great for learning how to do this. Learn to do this and you’re 60% of the way there.

The book ‘Attached’ is an amazing book to read for those wanting to learn more. You’ll see your experiences are totally normal and shared by millions, as well as coping mechanisms for dealing with them. People will say ‘change yourself’ as, again, well-meaning but totally ineffective advice. This stuff is embedded in you since childhood, there’s no quick fix because you’ve likely never lived any other way and can’t just restore yourself to factory settings. So instead the solution is to learn more, be conscious of it in your dealings and you can slowly move to a more secure base in time. Most importantly, though, learn to look for people who fulfil your needs and learn what exactly those needs are (for anxious attachment style it’s usually along the lines of reliable, secure, reassuring etc).

If there is a god, one of the cruelest pranks he gave us was making anxious and avoidant people naturally attracted to each other. Learn to spot avoidants (the book is really, really good for this) ahead of time, try identify it even with randomers, and in time you’ll re-train yourself not to be attracted to them because you’ve likely experienced what happens when you are. If you’re brutally honest with yourself and learn as you go, in time your attraction will naturally shift more towards people who can make you happy and away from those who can’t.

It’s a long and not particularly easy road, but one worth walking. For what it’s worth, try not to see previous experience as wasted time to become discouraged by how far you have to come. You’ve almost definitely learned valuable life lessons that’ll help you deal with situations and, when you implement these, these lessons will all ensure your long-term happiness.

I think this is a lot more common than anyone thinks. It may well be down to an attachment style learned earlier on in life, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to pathologise and set yourself the monumental task of fundamentally changing what you've identified as an embedded personality trait.

I think Lola's advice is pretty solid. Diversify the dating pool and distract yourself with a busy, productive, happy life! I find I'm a lot more prone to over-investing and obsessing over someone when there's not much else happening for me socially and when I'm working from a "scarcity" dating mindset i.e "if it doesn't work with this guy what am I gonna do??"

You need to get out of this "sell" mode you're in and change it to a "buy" mode - as cheesy as that sounds. Why should you hang around waiting for some girl you barely know to give you the nod of approval and decide that she wants to be with you? The mindset should be - you've got lots to offer and does SHE fit the bill, rather than the other way around. It's a lot easier then to take a "let's wait and see" approach when you're dating someone and not see them as the be all and end all. It's a lot easierto do that when you 1. are busy doing things that make you feel good about yourself and 2. feel you have many options.

CBT and Mindfulness can be quite useful too, it's a lot of work though and take a LOT of time and practice to see results and you really need to be fitting them into your everyday life if you want to see results.

Hi OP,

There is nothing to change, and nothing that you need to change. You just have some insecure thinking about this, but you don't need to label it - there is nothing to label!

If you are seeing that you invest a LOT into someone new who you like, then you are already streets ahead of someone who does this but doesn't realise it, and who may then scare someone off.

Your happiness / contentment doesn't lie outside you, or in someone else. If you believe that it does, you may get what you're getting, which is insecurity or anxiousness about things going somewhere.

If you get that it doesn't, then you can see that you can just go on dates and enjoy the other person's company, without feeling that pressure.

Then, if it goes somewhere, great. If not, there are lots of other fish!

I think it's hard to make any kind of relationship work unless you view yourself as much of a catch as the other party involved, or at least somewhere in the same ball park!

^^^

Spot on post. OP there’s your answer, just sub in your own needs (which may be quite similar).

Read that ‘Attached’ book man. It’ll explain literally everything you’re talking about here and is a handy enough read you can fly through too.

Can this book be downloaded as a PDF online? I think I really need to read this book but I'm just barely making ends meet at the moment and can't afford it right now.

I checked my local library and they don't have it, so would appreciate if anyone knows if where it can be downloaded online.

Thanks.

It’s good that you’re conscious of that, that’s the first step, and that part of the book resonated heavily with me too. But it also explains how it’s not love you’re feeling but your attachment style is ‘activated’, so it feels like love because that’s what you’ve come to know as ‘exciting’. Get your head around the fact that it’s unhealthy and results in you getting hurt and you won’t feel that pull, I speak there from personal experience. Now avoidants strike me as boring and damaged. The alternative is ignoring it and keep pushing until you get very seriously hurt. But really, do you need to putting your hand on a hob to know that it’s bad?

Look you can’t force yourself to be attracted and interested to the ‘boring’ girl, there’s no point and she wouldn’t want that either in the grand scheme. So I’d suggest stop trying to fix it (because guess which attachment style are the fixers? ) and just live and commit to it as an ongoing process.