I have a friend who always gets into relationships as the one up, as he doesn't really want to commit. Over time he gets more and more attached to the girls and after about 2 years he finds himself as the one down and then they dump him. Crazy pattern repeated many times.
What's that? He goes in avoidant, then becomes secure, and then becomes anxious. He has 3 attachment styles? I don't know, I'm not sold, I think the passion trap explains relationship dynamics a lot better than attachment styles. But, I'm staying open minded... I'll think about this more.
Yeah that's interesting.
Good attachment styles tests come back as a pie chart. IIRC mine is 75% secure, 25% avoidant. I've had girls take them who are a mix of things... e.g., 50% secure, 25% avoidant, 25% disorganized. So like a girl like that you would not expect her to ever get anxious/clingy for long ever, and she typically won't.
Maybe your buddy has some mixture of avoidant + anxious, or anxious + disorganized (disorganized can look like anxious too, avoiding attachment... but they're really just a mess and simply don't know what they want). Starts out resisting commitment, then once he gets into it he doesn't want to let it go.
@nolimits,
Do you chase avoid dating avoidants ?
And if not how do you deal with them ?
At the moment I consider the best way to deal with avoidants to be the following : see them little, avoid wording that can be classified as romantic, and as soon as they start attaching give them the feeling that they have tons of space.
I've dated girls who have some manner of avoidance, yeah. Hardcore avoidants I just don't gel with at all. They do weird things like make themselves unavailable for a week or two weeks or three weeks then suddenly want to meet again. At that point I will just be like... "Why? If I'm horny, can't I just go get a new chick? If she's not going to come over within a reasonable period of time when I want her, why see her?"
I suspect you probably need to be pretty strongly avoidant yourself to want to date a hardcore avoidant. Or else be in enough scarcity that you're willing to settle for that kind of behavior
Or maybe you just want to have a huge rotation going on and girls coming over once or twice a month works perfect. Hardcore avoidants are picture perfect for big FWB rotations.
OTOH, girls with a slight avoidant streak I get on pretty well with. My approach with them is basically... anything they say about not wanting things to get serious I just lazily agree with.
Note that I make it a point to make sure girls understand early on that women are not a problem for me and I can go out and get more women basically whenever I want. At least for me I find so long as women understand that everything else is pretty straightforward.
But I will have conversations that go like this:
HER: I don't want this to get too serious. You're not really the right guy for me.
ME: Sounds good to me. [back to whatever I am doing]
[LATER THAT VERY SAME EVENING...]
HER: You're actually a pretty good guy, you know that?
ME: That's what they tell me.
HER: Who tells you that... other girls?
ME: [shrug] Lots of people.
HER: It's other girls. [snuggles up]
Basically I am just the cocky, lazy player and it allows them to relax around me. But I don't rub their noses in it. Most of the playerish stuff I say is a reaction to them doing weirdo avoidant stuff, or them trying to make amends later after a weirdo avoidant outburst.
In a sense I guess it's all operant conditioning:
Something I've noticed that a number of individuals untrained in relationship management theory tend to engage in is arbitrary (that is, seemingly random) punishment and reward inside of relationships. These sort of variable reward and punishment structures inside relationships generally lead to...
www.girlschase.com
They are discovering that every time they push me away, they feel pushed away. But not aggressively, just... lazily.
Then when they want to get close, I will be close with them.
When they start balking, I just take it in stride.
But my mentality is always just, "Relationships are nice but it would be nice to be single."
So if a chick is like, "This isn't working out! We can't date! Blah blah blah!" I will tell her "Cool with me!"
If she is like, "I don't think I can see you more than once a week," I will say, "Cool, more free time for me."
Etc. etc.
It chills them out.
Note I am not being passive-aggressive. I really do not really care when they say this stuff. I know they are just saying it because they have some weird thing where they are trying to resist my pull. But like a little moon orbiting a gas giant that pull is irresistible.
So when they do this stuff, my basic attitude is...
Don’t forward this post to any feminists. There’s a lot of animosity among men in the West toward women these days, and a lot of it, I’m quite sure, ties back to the efforts women have made to change their image. Fifty years ago in America, if you watch old television shows, women are quite...
www.girlschase.com
I would also say to me it is kind of comical. I am just there doing whatever. But you can see their minds running circles around themselves... "I like this guy! No wait, I can't get too close! OMG he doesn't care that I can't get too close? Okay that's good! No pressure! But wait, what if he gets another girl? Wow, I like this guy!"
That makes it even easier to just be like "whatever" when they say/do this stuff, because I know they are just running around in their heads.
Again, the really hardcore ones, if she just disappears for weeks at a time or something, I am just not even going to bother keeping things going with a chick like that. Just doesn't serve my needs. But the less hardcore ones typically will voice their avoidance to you to some degree, and then you are just like "Cool, sounds good!" and then they chill out.
I like going on weekends with chicks for instance. But with avoidants that is not an easy one to pull off. Because as soon as you go ‘ hey we’ve been seeing each other for almost six months, want to go to Rome this weekend? ‘ they feel like you’re going to want to marry them.
Re: weekends with chicks... I mean you could do a ski lodge or something probably. But Rome is like... super romantic. Probably top two, up there with Paris. Venice #3. So yeah, if you tell her "Let's go to Rome" her brain is going to be going, "ALERT! ALERT! PROPOSAL IMMINENT! EMERGENCY! EJECT! WHERE'S THE PEPPER SPRAY!"
I don't really do weekends with chicks... I guess I really am the lazy player, too lazy for that... but if I wanted to do them I would probably do it like this:
"Hey I want to travel. Come be my travel buddy. Where should we go? You pick a spot."
Then just let her pick it.
If I wanted to do some super romance place with her like Rome or Paris I would just get her in a habit of doing semi-regular weekend trips with me first, and once the habit's established then at some point I'd feel her out for it: "Hey, which of these should we do next... Athens, Portofino, or Rome? Got a preference?" If she doesn't pick Rome you've worked it into consideration and can always bring it up again later.
So you are just gently easing it into her consciousness, step by step, until you can finally say, "We still haven't done Rome yet. Wanna go?" and she won't hear danger signs.
(then once you get her there you can get down on one knee in front of the Colosseum and whip out an engagement ring and send her freaked out racing for Tuscany, never to agree to go on another trip with you again... lol)
Also, another thing to point out there, is you are going to spook an avoidant with that kind of language... "Hey we've been seeing each other for six months. Want to blah blah blah whatever?"
That whole framing you're using is "We've been together for X time. I think it's time for the next step in commitment. How about we Y?"
It doesn't even matter what Y is. If you tell an avoidant chick, "Hey, we've been seeing each other for six months now. How about we celebrate by getting frozen yogurt and going out to dance?" she's still going to be like, "Holy heck, he's trying to rope me down! I've gotta escape!"
I suggest you read my post here on marriage not being a big deal:
There are a lot of women for whom marriage is a BIG DEAL. This is THE day they have been dreaming about since they first started playing with Wedding Barbie at 4 years old. They already have their wedding dresses sketched out on paper, the colors of their bridesmaid's dresses planned out, the...
www.skilledseducer.com
... then just apply that same mentality to every escalation of commitment. "We can do it... not a big deal to me. We can also not do it; whatever."
Basically just if you're going to do something that TO YOU feels like an escalation of the commitment, then framed TO HER it should basically be just another day. "I need a travel buddy, wanna come along?" vs. "We've been together so long, my love; it is time for the next stage in our romantic progression." Big difference to an avoidant.
Chase
I mean same way you feel asking a girl to be your girlfriend silly is the same way I feel about will you marry me lol.