Have you ever noticed how when you walk into a room, it’s almost as if your internal paging device is scanning the room for someone to connect to, and by default announces “This one isn’t interested in you, do it.”
While other singles come home with dating stories that were emotionally and physically intense and compelling, all you can recall are details of how often there was silence, restlessness, and awkwardness during your own dates. And you probably remember that there was one (or more) people you met in your life who would have fallen in love with you but he or she didn’t want anything to do with you or if the relationship really started, it took only a few months before the person! the one you’re so in love with doesn’t even touch you!
Emotional closeness was the theme of my weekend workshop. He had over 20 single men and women in the room. For the first ten minutes, I told them to mingle and get to know each other while I watched. I especially noticed a woman we’ll call Mindy. Mindy was constantly intruding on other people’s space, smiling and trying to start a conversation, but she politely nodded and the conversation continued as if she wasn’t there or someone talked to her for a few minutes before excusing herself. In many cases she got body language that said “back off”. Of course, most of the people in the room had some kind of relationship problem, but seeing Mindy was painful. It was like watching a needy puppy trying to snuggle up with a strange cat that didn’t want her presence.
Mindy is sleek and fit, smart and style conscious. Her image is impeccably professional and her physical appearance embodies the fantasy of many men. She is both spontaneous and fun: she was charming and a good conversationalist. She seemed open and generous. Over the course of the day, she shared with the workshop participants that she had never had a real love relationship or even one that lasted more than a year. All her relationships ended when the man left her, leaving her feeling abandoned, disoriented, sad and lost. In each case, after complaining about the affair, she tells herself that she deserved better and that the men who left her were not up to her standards. So, in her usual style, she would get an expensive makeover complete with new wardrobe and jewelry. She would then go to the local hot spots and find another man.
Like I said, she was very open about her life and talked about her relationships with her parents, which she told the group was more about politeness and courtesy than anything else. She also told us that she didn’t have very close friends because she felt that most of her friends were jealous and didn’t want to see her succeed. So she ended up completely avoiding her friends. At work she was very professional and insisted on keeping her work life very separate from her personal life. But even as she spoke, I couldn’t help but notice that Mindy was adept at creating a smokescreen, so much so that, despite her open and seemingly surrendered outward image, I felt her interactions with the group were an artificial act. . Her character seemed to lack genuine feelings and connections. Like I said, it was painful to watch.
Mindy was obviously unaware of the emotional impact she had on others, something she had seen all her life. Not only was her outer image disconnected from her inner image, but the more she “acted out,” the more disconnected her interactions with the rest of the group became.
It is a common thing that the people who crave emotional closeness are the same people who constantly distance themselves emotionally from others. We may not see ourselves as emotionally distant because emotional detachment takes different forms: manipulation, nagging, whining, seduction, falsehood, control, intrusion, avoidance, isolation, jumping to conclusions about other people’s words and actions, etc. Intimacy resistance is also displayed when people are unreasonably hostile towards others thinking that others are jealous of them and want to sabotage their efforts. This exaggeration can also take the form of assuming that the opposite sex is crazy about you and that you have the cards in the game.
As in Mindy’s case, many singles are subconsciously unaware of the impact their emotional detachment has on others. So even if they yearn so badly for someone to share, touch, hug, and cherish, they find that they are constantly being rejected, lied to, avoided, etc. Emotional distancers are often drawn to people like them, those who also have trouble letting go of their emotional defenses. This doesn’t stop at dating or sex, but is seen in all other relationships. Some people alternate between involvement and distance, breaking up and then making up again and again, or ending relationships just when they get too close. Others worry so much about activities that they are simply not available. It is a protection device. After all, one’s partner cannot make emotional demands if one is not present.
Unless you take the time to work through your cycles of self-destructive behavior, you will remain hungry for emotional intimacy. So even though you consciously yearn for closeness, sooner or later others see through your “performance” and want nothing to do with you. Usually by the second date someone has already figured that out. So you wait for the third date that never comes. Like I said, it’s painful.