Do You Hate To Be Alone?
Do You Hate To Be Alone?
Or what my friend asked me last weekend.
I went to Palm Springs last weekend to my friend’s gorgeous new house which he purchased with his boyfriend a couple months back. It does not escape me how epic it feels to be in my 30s and able to say “my friend has a house in Palm Springs.” It’s going on the market for Airbnb (check it out here) so it’s very unlikely I’ll be able to stay there for free again, but alas, I’ve really grown up!
Anyway, whilst my friends and I were in the hot tub one night playing truth or dare, my friend (on my truth) asked me a question I’ve asked myself quite a lot over the last few years:
“Cole—I don’t know how to phrase this without it sounding bad—but it seems to me you tend to date someone else pretty quickly after you breakup with someone. Do you find yourself in relationships because you hate to be alone?”
(I don’t remember how he actually said it, but you get the gist)
I can’t say I was taken aback. In fact, I was pretty unfazed by the question, even though it hit deep and was a fairly personal one in front of my closest friends, sitting close together in a hot tub. But I was prepared with my answer almost immediately.
“I think…before Max (my ex-boyfriend’s changed name), I would’ve said that I would date just about anyone. As long as they gave me attention, I’d date them. And that was because I didn’t particularly like myself very much and I didn’t really know how to be alone.
But after Max, I spent about a year on my own—almost, I mean obviously I was still going on dates, but you know, alone enough for me—and that’s when I really learned how to be by myself and be okay with that. I worked on it a lot in therapy. I sort of figured out that being on my own meant mostly just reading, and playing video games, and getting high, and hanging out with you guys. And now, after Max, I feel like I’m getting better at picking who to date. There were a lot of guys I said ‘no’ to dating over the last couple months after William (my most recent ex, whose name I’ve also changed). But I definitely do get lonely and mostly bored, and I like to date because I like to grow with someone and build something. That feels more exciting to me than just playing video games and getting high, you know? So yeah, I think I used to hate being alone, but now I’m getting better with it.”
Alright, don’t hold me to all of that verbatim being how I responded—you try remembering all the conversations you’ve had after a few High Noons and a day of drinking games! But it is the truth, and it is pretty much what I said.
My friend seemed to take that answer in stride. They all did. No rebuttals or comments, they seemed to accept that was how I felt about it at least. Whether they believed me is another story.
Which is why I wanted to write about it today.
I was watching a TikTok recently that discussed attachment theory concepts—I was way big on attachment theory just before I started dating Max—and in this video, the pseudo-therapist-coach was discussing the “dismissive avoidant.”
If you know anything about attachment theory, you know that most of it hinges on the analysis of two types of people that should never be together: anxious and avoidant. If you don’t know, then think about the last good movie you saw about a married couple that was having incredibly difficult issues, mainly because the man was having an affair and the wife couldn’t bring herself to leave him. That’s an anxious-avoidant relationship (probably). The man is avoidant, because he won’t communicate with his wife the actual problems he’s having with their relationship and instead avoids it by diving into a sexual or romantic relationship with someone else. And the woman is anxious because she worries and frets over what her husband is doing, and fails to self-sooth herself so that she, too, can communicate her needs and wants from the relationship in a way that won’t make him more avoidant.
***
There was a time when I would’ve considered myself an anxiously attached person. My first boyfriend, Zach, was not the most respectful of my feelings or love for him. We were both incredibly young, so I don’t fault him for it, as I don’t fault myself for having the capacity to look at my relationship in a mature and healthy way in order to communicate my needs, but it did do a number on me. You see, he was wildly ‘avoidant’ in the sense that he didn’t like the whole romance thing. In fact, he despised heteronormative concepts, marriage, needing someone and being beholden to someone. But he put up with me because…well, I can only guess, but from what I could tell, it was because I was one of the only people he actually enjoyed spending time with. And I think I was a very loving boyfriend, I brought him out of his shell, and I was fun to be around. I also had very little conditions for being with me. My main one was that he had to spend time with me whenever I wanted. That didn’t go over so well at the start of our relationship.
I remember once he said to me, “I just don’t want to feel like when people look at us they think of us as Zach and Cole.” Which I took to mean, “I hate your rotting guts,” and we had a fight about it, but what he actually meant was that at times, he felt smothered by me. I craved that constant validation from his attention and affection, and having lived my life being alone in my room reading books, I desperately needed the stimulation of having someone around me who cared for me. It’s probably why I dated my high school girlfriend for 2.5 years in spite of being a burgeoning gay—I needed her closeness and security, more than she needed me. And I had continued that behavior into my first gay relationship.
Only this time, I actually was head-over-heels in love. And it made me so anxious. Because to me, Zach was everything. He was smart, handsome, tall, and wildly alternative with exciting ideas about queer theory, the universe, and even Magic the Gathering. He was everything I could’ve asked for in a first boyfriend, which I hadn’t even had time to fathom since I’d only accepted my sexuality for about 2 months prior to meeting him. So he really was the blueprint. And because he was averse to talking about our love for each other, I held most of that in. He was also pretty moody, so I tended to cater my emotions to whatever he was feeling in the moment. If he was mad, I was mad. If he was annoyed, I was trying to figure out how to stop his being annoyed. And on and on. I was probably co-dependent in some ways with him.
Which isn’t to say we didn’t have a wonderful relationship. We did! It’s just that, the communication was not wonderful. The feeling like I couldn’t be myself and express all that I wanted to express to him was not wonderful. And at that time, losing him was the one thing I was not prepared to do. Our breakup wasn’t easy. It was at first—a mutually agreed upon decision based on the fact that I was graduating (he was in the year below me) and moving to LA, so the ‘long distance’ likely wasn’t going to work.
But that summer, Zach did a research internship at a psychology clinic up in Seattle. And he met some boy I don’t remember the name of, who he quickly hit it off with. I remember seeing pictures of them cuddling on a beach on Instagram, the boy in Zach’s arms as he held him from behind next to a bonfire. And when Zach returned, he told me all about this boy. And how different it felt with him. And how he thought that he might love him. Words he had only once said to me, on one of the last nights we had together before I moved away.
It broke me.
My biggest fear of not being enough for him came true. And I went into a deep spiral listening to The Blessed Unrest album by Sara Bareilles (shout out to “Little Black Dress”) and 1989 by Taylor Swift for weeks after learning all of this. It was a pretty hard summer as I came to terms with losing my first love.
As I began my adult dating life in LA after that, I think I wavered between being anxious in the way I was with Zach—hoping that whoever it was I was on a date with would just like me, love me, want to keep seeing me so that I felt validated—to being avoidant in the ways I would decidedly become later in my 20s. I can remember only one other tough rejection during that time a few years after, with a handsome, 30-something Persian lawyer who owned a duplex in Silverlake. I spent a couple months in a situationship with him where I never quite got any type of commitment or love from him in the way that I desperately wanted. He ended things and I took it pretty hard. So hard that I don’t really remember a time after that where I was so desperate to have someone’s affection that I was constantly worrying over it and actually dated them long-term. Any time those feelings came up, I would chalk it up to toxicity and end things before they started.
Which is why, now, I identify more with the avoidant side of the attachment spectrum.
***
Anyway, back to the TikTok video.
In it, the creator talks about why people who are avoidant ‘avoid’ and pull back from the relationship. And ultimately it comes down to feeling unsafe. As they start to feel emotionally close with someone, they get triggered. Because in their experience, emotional closeness means the possibility of rejection or abandonment.
For some, not all, it comes from childhood. They, like me, had childhoods where their emotions were not properly allowed to exist, so that communicating their needs, talking through conflict, and feeling safe to be vulnerable became taboo. Instead, we dealt with things alone, in our rooms, self-soothing ourselves in our independence.
I think I can remember this taking shape early in my life, this need to protect my independence. Once, my father had given me a $10 bill whilst we were at a golf course so that I could buy myself a snack at the concession stand. A family friend who we were with went with me and offered to pay for the snack herself so that I could keep the $10. But I refused. I wanted to buy it for myself. I didn’t want to need her in any way, because I had the money to pay for it myself. She was baffled (I would’ve been baffled now as a 33-year-old). But as a 7-year-old, I was 100% sure in my decision.
I can feel this same sense of defensiveness now in my relationships. I find myself craving my independence at exactly the moment things start to become a little too close for comfort. Meaning, there are expectations put on me from the other person. Or I start to feel emotionally vulnerable with them, like I’m giving away parts of my soul leaving it open for judgment. Or we enter into some kind of conflict, whether that be as a result of an argument or because of something to do with my own insecurities, and I feel overwhelmed by my ineptitude in being able to talk through anything negative.
This video triggered me because it was talking about how avoidants tend to deal with their relationship issues. We leave. Sure, we hem-and-ha over the decision for weeks or months, contemplating what it might mean to leave someone, how we might do it without hurting them too much, what we’ll do after. So much so that we get fully comfortable with the decision over time and finally decide to do it, in a usually not so gentle way, and then move on. Go on our way. Start living our life.
It’s dismissive. Hence the term ‘dismissive avoidant.’
Usually the other person, an anxious-attached individual, is blind-sided. They have no idea it’s coming because we neglect to bring them into that decision process. The way we could do that is by communicating exactly what it is we’re feeling. What we’re missing. What’s eating away at us. For weeks. But we don’t. I should say, I haven’t in the past. And so, it becomes easier just to leave. Because the object of my triggering emotions is the other person. If I leave the person, I leave those feelings behind (or so I think). And the cycle continues.
But this video also goes on to address how some avoidants move beyond this cycle. Most of these types of videos do that, though it’s rare for them to focus on the feelings of the avoidant because normally they’re geared towards anxious individuals looking for reassurance on the fact that they’re unhappy and need boundaries to ‘protect’ themselves from their avoidant partner. i.e. usually these videos treat the avoidant as a cheating, cold scumbag. This video was different. It sympathized with avoidants and said they tend to stop running after they hit a ‘rock bottom.’ Which for them, means losing someone really special as a result of their own actions.
I think, if I’m being honest with myself, the reason I feel like lately I’m at least a little more ready to combat these knee-jerk feelings of avoidance is because of Max. That relationship went so far south of what I was expecting, so far away from what I was trying to accomplish, that it ultimately shook me to my core. I went through the cycle I just described with Max. A few months later, I discovered I was not okay with the break-up decision and I wanted him back (also part of the cycle). Only to dangle that in front of him for a few weeks and have misgivings again, because I was scared again. And then, in an act of boundary-making, he said he wanted nothing more to do with me in a romantic sense. A whole other relationship ensued for me that was a band-aid. And I found myself alone again.
Now, I’m in another relationship. Well, it’s not a full relationship (yet), but we’ve been dating for a couple months and have agreed to be ‘exclusive.’ That scares me to write, because it means others in my circle will know that we’re exclusive, which means it’s becoming more serious and real. But I’m writing it anyway.
The challenge is, no one gives you a blueprint for how this works. They certainly don’t give you a blueprint for how to deal with attachment issues while also accounting for the trauma that was growing up ‘fake’ and protective of your personal identity due to being a closeted gay. The best you can do is muddle through it, make mistakes (horrendous ones at times), and try again the next time.
I suppose I’ve always felt like trying. Which is why my friend had to ask me that question. Why do you keep trying? Why don’t you just sit with yourself for a time? Why can’t you be happy being alone? (I know he didn’t mean it like that, I’m just riffing off how that question made me feel). To me, at least, it feels like trying again. It doesn’t feel like I’m dating just to date or not be alone. Sure, that is a benefit, and I certainly enjoy having a partner by my side rather than going it alone. But I also always date with the intention of committing to something long term. I suppose it’s part of the curse of being an ‘avoidant.’ We crave the love we’re afraid of. And so with every person that I’ve dated—which has been many since breaking up with Zach in my early twenties—I’ve always hoped they would become something more. Someone who would matter in my life. And many of them have, in wonderful ways. I’ve learned a lot from dating so consistently throughout my adult life. With every relationship, I learn something new about myself. A new response to something that triggers me, a different way to communicate, learning about what not to do. And every relationship that follows, I’m trying to be better. I’m trying to go against my instincts which is to protect myself against all odds from becoming emotionally close with someone. And it’s hard. It’s so fucking hard. But I do it anyway, because I do think there’s value in learning these skills. Ultimately, I think there’s value in having a partner. To grow with. To laugh with. To travel with. I certainly can do all those things alone, and I have. But it’s so much more fun with someone else. But I suppose that’s what most anxiously or avoidantly or whateverly attached people would say, to justify their needing someone else to have.
***
There’s a book I read once that always sticks out to me whenever I’m thinking about the right or wrong way to deal with your own trauma while dating. In Normal People—which is also a hit Hulu series with the incredibly sexy and woke actor, Paul Mescal (yum)—Marianne comes from a home with an abusive father and, subsequently, a cold mother and burgeoning abusive older brother. Because of this, she believes herself to be unworthy of a respectable kind of love. She meets Connell early in life, as a high school student, before she’s had the chance to develop any sort of mental fortitude or life lessons or skills in communication. And they fall in love. Briefly, but passionately. Later, after high school, they develop a relationship that starts off as friends but becomes the real deal. And even later, towards the end of university, they’re on-again-off-again until (SPOILER ALERT) they finally are on the same page and commit to each other in a relationship. Part of their dynamic is that Marianne is so inexorably connected to him, she needs him in ways he doesn’t need her (at least, not all the time). And that power over her scares him. She gives that power to every man she dates, but he’s unique in being aware of it and scared of it because he does not wish to dominate her (unlike other men).
But over time, he understands that power and chooses not to use it for harm, but for love. He loves her in ways she’s never been loved before. And she gives herself to him the same way she gives herself to other more abusive partners, but it ends up okay, because he respects her and cares for her.
There’s a quote that stands out to me, from the perspective of Marianne:
“How strange to feel herself so completely under the control of another person, but also how ordinary. No one can be independent of other people completely, so why not give up the attempt, she thought, go running in the other direction, depend on people for everything, allow them to depend on you, why not. She knows he loves her, she doesn’t wonder about that anymore.” (Normal People, Hogarth, p. 269)
And, in the end, Connell gives Marianne a gift:
“But for her the pain of loneliness will be nothing to the pain that she used to feel, of being unworthy. He brought her goodness like a gift and now it belongs to her. Meanwhile his life opens out before him in all directions at once. They’ve done a lot of good for each other. Really, she thinks, really. People can really change one another.” (Normal People, Hogarth, p. 273)
This touched me because basically what Sally Rooney (my favorite author right now, and the author of this book) is saying through Marianne and Connell is that yes, people can be damaged, and yes, that means they exhibit certain unhealthy behaviors because they don’t know any different. But sometimes that’s okay, because the other person can treat them well. Can give them love. So, Marianne decides why not be dependent on someone? Why wait until she’s fully healed before dating someone? Why not continue to lean in to needing someone? And because she tries that with Connell, she learns something about herself. She learns that she is worthy, because he treats her as being worthy.
And I just think that’s beautiful. So much of self-help language out there tends to blame the victim—even in Al-Anon, which I have experience with, the idea is that you are damaged and you are responsible for not acting in ways that are correlated with that damage. When you end up in situations where bad things happen, it’s partly your fault. But Normal People is refreshing because it says, well fuck that. If you feel like you need to be with someone, be with someone. Be dependent on them. Let them control you. But just let it be the right person. One who won’t use it against you, but will use it to show you that you are loved.
So, I guess, I see a lot of myself in Marianne. And in spite of knowing that I probably shouldn’t date so quickly after ending a relationship, every time I choose to it’s because that’s just how I am. And the hope is that each time I’m picking someone a little better for myself, a little more of a match. And each time I’m trying to be a little different, a little better at communication and managing my own traumas and giving myself as much as possible so that we can see if something is there, if we can be vulnerable with each other and become partners.
That’s always my hope.