What I Learned From Dating Emotionally Unavailable Partners

Dating emotionally unavailable partners is disappointing.

An emotionally unavailable partner is one who “creates barriers to intimacy and can make you feel unloved or unwanted.”

For trauma survivors, it’s so easy to fall victim to the lure of emotional unavailability and the addiction of chasing partners who are only 10% present. We love a project. We love being the person that gets their partner in touch with their feelings again.

I have dated four emotionally unavailable partners.

In college, I had an on-and-off year and a half relationship with a physics student J from Arizona State University that was emotionally one sided and really fucked me up. Before we dated, he told me up front that he didn’t want a girlfriend or a committed relationship, and I had so little sense of my own self worth that I agreed. I was convinced that I could “not-date” him and be the person who changed his mind. People’s minds change on their own, not because of anything you did.

People’s minds change on their own, not because of anything you did.

I spent the next year and a half trying to persuade him to choose me. The first few months were perfect. We talked for hours and wasted away summer nights. We chilled, watched movies, cuddled, and fucked. Then I began to notice a disturbing pattern.

When we were together, he was the sexiest, smartest, most charming person alive. He pulled me in like a yo-yo, gave me the passion and quality time I desired, and then would consistently drop off the map. At first, the time we spent together was so blissful that I didn’t care, but then he began “forgetting about dates.” Getting up at 6 am and working long hours. Being too exhausted to see me. Disappearing on hikes when we had agreed on weekend plans.

I was confused. Sure, he didn’t want a relationship but why wouldn’t he communicate or spend time with me like before? Was I being too clingy? Desperate for the emotional high of being with him, I excused his behavior and blamed it on how demanding his work was. His work schedule is insane. My man is busy and wants a chill relationship, and I’m bothering him with my need for time and emotional support. I need to back off and give him space — he’ll come back to me.

He never did. The relationship got worse and worse. He waxed hot and cold for the rest of the summer but I was so infatuated that I refused to accept his toxic behavior. He would spend a few hours or a night with me every two weeks and blow my mind. We hiked and camped every weekend but only with friends. Upon sight of the smallest commitment— taking me to dinner, going dancing, calling me his girlfriend — he would suddenly have plans and would see you soon, beautiful.

I ended the summer emotionally exhausted.

J returned to Arizona for the school semester, but we kept in touch and the vicious cycle repeated itself in 2016. I was seeing a very nice, cute man in my major that spring but dropped him immediately when I heard J was coming home. Why I left a potentially healthy relationship for a man who had left me emotionally wrecked the year before… is, quite honestly, still a mystery.

J used and manipulated my low self esteem for his own pleasure, only reappearing to sweep me off my feet the second I pulled away. If my old friend Keeley is reading this — You were right, and I wish that I had listened to you.

I believe J was the origin point of my pattern of dating emotionally unavailable partners. After our breakup, I became a monogamous serial dater who chased unavailable partners because I missed the addiction of that first relationship.

One year later, I became involved with a young man from the CACI internship showcase. He was a student from Delaware University pursuing his degree in computer engineering (I’m a nerd so that’s hot) and I beat him in the competition. He congratulated me and bought me a drink afterward. Two high functioning intellectuals. Meant to be, right?

We casually dated for three weeks. At the end of those three weeks, I drove two hours north to Delaware University to go see him for a few days. I thought we really had something. What I should’ve noticed, in retrospect — was the oddly willingness on his part to “see me long distance” without any regard for my emotional needs. Why haven’t we asked each other what we want from the relationship? Bah, who cares. I was too excited to have ‘snagged a good one’ to ruin my chances.

We had an amazing time. We hung out, decorated his dorm hall together, met some of his friends, listened to jazz! and got caught in a torrential downpour together at 10 pm. I remember walking admist a wet, hazy pastureland and taking his hand, so confidently, as if to say hey, I like this and you. We rung out our soaking clothes later, laughing. He requested I sleep on the floor… in a sleeping bag.

I drove home from the university on Sunday. I didn’t hear a single word from him for weeks.

When he finally did reach out to me, it was a courtesy phone call to tell me how he’d gotten out of an abusive, four year relationship weeks before we met. He was working through a boatload of emotional baggage but what was even worse… was that his ex girlfriend’s name was also Anna. He claimed his negative perception of her caused a subconscious block against me in particular. I felt cheated.

Our lunch dates, the phone calls, the weekend in Delaware? None of it was real. He had been emotionally unavailable the whole time. The signs were there — staying interested from a distance, letting me put in all the effort, no intimacy — but I missed them.

Zero effort on his part was a huge indicator of emotional unavailability, which explained his nervousness with intimacy. He didn’t want to get close to anyone. He was also an asshole. I was hung up on him for 8 months before I finally let it go.

Thankfully, I had mostly healthy relationships for the next two years until Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 2019. That was the day I met my now ex-girlfriend, Cecelia. She was every bit Simon and Garfunkel’s heart breaker, and charming to a fault.

Cecelia was a whirlwind. She was an anxious, dissociative maniac who was very down to earth and social. She always wore black and acted masculine, which was weirdly attractive to me. When we met, she was openly bisexual and I was shyly so. She proceeded to, tease that side out of me, seducing me for months on end.

Over the months that we were friends, her emotional unavailability was unmistakable— she wasn’t over her ex girlfriend, she was bat-crazy wary of physical touch, and had a passive and emotionally illiterate relationship with her best friend. She was an emotional person, but dealt with her emotion by avoiding it.

I knew this time, that I was pursuing and being pursued by an emotionally unavailable person… but she was alluring. She was musical, poetic, dark, and spent lots of time with me. Plus, I had never dated a woman before so I ignored my needs in favor of an exciting new experience that I thought was worth my time.

In May 2019, five months after we met, we began dating. We dated for one month and it was bliss. Then, one night, I said I would drive an hour to DC just to spend 20 minutes with her on her break (she worked as a waitress at a Mexican bar). I thought it was a romantic gesture, but it triggered her commitment-shy side and she panicked. She texted me the next day saying we should break up and just be friends.

Who spends six months viciously pursuing someone only to back off when the other shows intention? She was emotionally unavailable, and yet went to great lengths for the thrill of catching me. Once she’d caught me, I was just a dead fish. My time and energy had been wasted. I swear to god, if I got all the time back I spent dating emotionally unavailable partners, I could live a second lifetime.

If I got all the time back I spent dating emotionally unavailable partners, I could live a second lifetime.

After Cecelia, I had a summer fling with a hippie from Pittsburgh, Dan, who liked cooking and jazz. Possible relationship material, right? We met online and he drove four hours to my city to meet me. I liked Dan the moment he showed up on my doorstep and couldn’t remember the last time I kissed someone in a back-bar alleyway.

Dan was independent and supportive of my budding journey with polyamory. However, a few weeks later, I found out that he wasn’t happy. He was miserable in his city, hated his job, and desperately needed to get out. He was trying to land a new job in San Jose before his work situation in Pittsburgh exploded and he was left unemployed with no backup when his lease ended.

Dan tried to be a good partner, but was burned out from dealing with a terrible workplace and juggling life decisions. This was a new type of emotionally unavailable — he was overwhelmed. He was a healthy person but had “the emotional capacity of a teaspoon” (Hermione, HP) because all his energy was being taken up by something else.

When I leaned on him heavily for emotional support regarding my recent breakup, he snapped like a twig. He was so busy dealing with his own problems that he couldn’t handle mine. I ended up driving to Pittsburgh twice to see him, the second time to apologize in person and work through a huge fight that we had. In retrospect, he was not in a good mental state to date or give his time to anyone.

Eventually, he found a new job. In California.

I was at Dan’s house one sunny, Sunday morning in late August as he finished packing. I was emotional and broke down in the bathroom that day but he was… happy ? His good mood felt sociopathic and jarring to me. I didn’t understand. Why was he so upbeat? Did he not care that he might never see me again?

He was, in truth, so burned out that he had shut everything out — including me. I think both of us were emotionally unavailable and gave each other good company, but I became available again towards the end of the summer and he did not. He used an infuriating level of optimism as a coping mechanism to avoid dealing with his emotion. When I left that day, we separated as friends and not lovers.

As I drove out of the city, dwarfed by the towering bridges that had become so familiar, Seals and Croft’s We May Never Pass This Way Again floated into the background. I turned the volume up and whispered to myself that it was probably true.

Every time I dated an emotionally unavailable partner, I was ignoring my own needs — quality time, intimacy, emotional support — but I excused their behavior to make the relationship work. I chose to date unavailable partners because I was unable to handle someone genuinely interested in dating me.

I understand now after years of therapy this pattern was me replicating the emotionally neglectful relationship with my parents and trying to force it to work to heal my childhood wound. ❤ I showered myself with so much compassion after learning this. I deserve to get my emotional needs met no matter what. I deserve an emotionally available partner.

I deserve an emotionally available partner