If you have been out of the dating game for a long time, making the decision to put yourself back out there takes an immense amount of courage.
Maybe you have already done some inner work to heal old wounds, to work on your own anxious attachment style, and get clear on what you want to experience with a man: closeness, deep conversation, safety, and a real, warm connection.
And then, sometimes, the dating world delivers exactly what you asked for. Or at least, it feels like it does.
This is exactly what happened to a client of mine, Claire. After several years of being single she met a man, very naturally on a train to an event. They enjoyed, what felt like at the time, a wonderful connection. She was excited about where this could lead, but the reality was she lived in Scotland and he lived in Spain.
The experience also brought up some old wounds around not feeling good enough, and not feeling 100% safe in a relationship, so Claire reached out to me for relationship anxiety coaching to help heal these old patterns.
After a few weeks she decided she was ready to put herself ‘out there’. Despite her aversion to internet dating, she was open to the possibility she could meet someone on line, so signed up for a week to Tinder.
Within less than a week she connected online with a man who seemed to match her completely. He was successful, creative, an independent professional, and a dedicated father who shared custody of his kids.
For two solid weeks, their connection was flawless. He messaged her every single day, initiated conversations, shared his creative projects, and told her how much he loved the sound of her voice. He projected a beautiful future, talking about hosting her in his garden for wine while he played the guitar, and even asking if he could join her on an upcoming holiday abroad. They felt so connected that before they even met in person, Claire felt a rare sense of safety and excitement.
She told me, maybe at long last the Universe has got this right! For two weeks she had a spring in her step, loved the sense of connection she felt to this man and was genuinely excited to see where this would lead.
When they finally met face-to-face, the chemistry was instant. He lit up the second he saw her and couldn’t take his eyes off her. Within ten minutes, his hand was protectively on the small of her back as they walked to a restaurant for lunch. Over lunch, he confessed that the moment he saw her, his internal reaction was an immediate, definitive “yes.”
As they left the restaurant, he stopped mid-sentence as they walked along the street to pull her into a deep, passionate kiss. They spent the next four hours locked in a sunlit park, barefoot in the grass, sharing close, sustained eye contact. Claire described how intimate their connection was, how tactile he was, in a good way, playing with her hair, softly stroking her arm, holding each other while they kissed softly and deeply.
Claire felt completely relaxed with him and later told me that if I’d seen them together, they looked like a couple in love, not two people who had only met for the first time.
Before parting, he took her face in both hands, kissed her deeply, and asked her to think about doing it again. They laughed together at the station, shared one last kiss, and she got on the train home.
Claire went home thinking, Finally. This is a unique, profoundly intimate connection. It was worth the wait.
Then, less than 24 hours later, she woke up to a cold, clinical text message: “I’ve had a think though and, if I’m totally honest, I don’t quite feel the kind of connection I’m looking for. I wish you all the best.”
Claire was left feeling floored. When she sent a grounded, direct reply asking him to help her understand his sudden shift, he completely vanished, leaving her message on unread.
This emotional whiplash is brutal, and it leaves thousands of self-aware women scratching their heads in absolute confusion, often thinking the problem is them.
Working with Claire, I helped her to see what was actually going on. That yes, she had attracted what she wanted into her life, how she wanted to feel when she was with a man, but that his behaviour was classic avoidant attachment.
Or in other words, he ran for the hills because the intimacy they shared was so real and deep.
What Is Avoidant Attachment Style?
To make sense of this devastating behavioral flip, we must look at attachment theory. Our attachment style is the emotional and neurological blueprint we form in early childhood based on how our primary caregivers responded to our needs and distress.
What is an avoidant attachment style? It’s an attachment blueprint (often clinically referred to as dismissive-avoidant or fearful avoidant) built entirely around a subconscious survival rule: “Dependency is dangerous. I can only rely on myself. Emotional closeness always leads to a loss of my freedom, identity, and autonomy. It’s not safe to be fully seen. Intimacy = danger of loosing myself, of being engulfed”
As infants or young children, avoidant individuals learned that their emotional needs wouldn’t be consistently met, or that their vulnerability was met with rejection, criticism, or smothering. To survive, their subconscious minds constructed a massive defensive wall.
The profound tragedy of an avoidant attachment style in relationships is a painful paradox: Avoidant men genuinely crave love, touch, and connection just like everyone else. In Claires case, the man wasn’t faking his behaviour in the park. His body gave an authentic, biological “yes.” He drank in her warmth because he his body felt safe, and his heart completely took the wheel.
The sudden retreat happens only after the date ends and physical separation occurs. The moment an avoidant man returns to his quiet, independent routine, the physical high fades, and his trauma-trained brain wakes up. The very depth and rarity of the intimacy he just experienced triggers his internal alarm system, reframing a beautiful, safe connection into a terrifying threat to his independence or the fear of what this intimacy means.
Signs You’re Dating a Man With an Avoidant Attachment Style
When you are caught up in the excitement of great chemistry, avoidant behaviours rarely look like red flags. High-functioning avoidant men are often highly successful, socially competent, creative, and charming. However, if you know what to look for, the traits of an avoidant attachment style are visible from the very beginning.
If you are navigating the dating pool, watch for these four critical warning signs:
1. High-Intensity Virtual Connection
Avoidant’s thrive in the initial digital phase because a phone screen carries zero real-world consequences or daily routine disruptions. If a man is highly consistent over text, flooding your phone with bods for connection, already talking about the next date before you’ve met, sending daily videos, sharing his hobbies, and projecting massive images of your future together, before he even knows you well, be careful – these are red flags.
His brain is playing a safe fantasy movie. He loves the idea of a soulmate connection, but he lacks the capacity to handle the reality of it.
Men with avoidant attachment styles move quickly, they don’t do slow burn. If you have recently met someone, the best thing you can do is slow things right down. This is especially true if your own attachment style is an anxious attachment style. Your nervous system is familiar with high intensity and chemistry and often mistakes this for real connection.
When you meet someone who is the opposite, you can view them as boring, or that there’s no spark (trust me I’ve been there!).
2. A Low Threshold for Relationship Expectations
The truth is that when it comes to online dating, many of the men in their 30’s, 40’s and 50’s online are avoidant. He may say he is looking for a long term relationship, but if he is operating from an avoidant attachment style, the same behaviours will keep playing out.
Listen closely to how a man speaks about his schedule, his independence, and his past relationships. An avoidant man will often drop preemptive disclaimers. He might state that his previous long-term marriage stopped him from doing anything he wanted, speak about “nipping a relationship in the bud quickly” the second a woman questions his availability, or explicitly warn you, “I’m not looking to be mothered… I’m very capable.”
If a man routinely frames normal relationship consistency, scheduling, or communication as “smothering” or “mothering,” his emotional threshold is incredibly low.
3. Monologues Masked as Emotional Depth
Emotionally avoidant men frequently appear deeply vulnerable because they talk extensively and passionately about their career, their hobbies, their children, and their history. It feels like depth. But notice if the conversation is a one-way street.
Ment with avoidant attachment styles often use their own world as an unconscious shield. By filling the space with their stories, they safely prevent you from asking deep questions about their relational fears, while avoiding having to explore your life and emotional needs.
Notice how much he asks about you, your life, your dreams, work or anything else. If he speaks a lot about himself, and only asks the odd question about you that’s a red flag.
4. The Sudden, Icy “Deactivating” Shutdown
A securely attached person who decides a date isn’t a long-term match handles the exit with warmth, maturity, and nuance. An avoidant individual completely flattens the emotional tone overnight. They switch instantly from warm texts, nicknames, and kisses to clinical, administrative prose (“I don’t quite feel the kind of connection I’m looking for… I wish you all the best”).
This sudden switch-off is the absolute signature of an avoidant deactivating strategy used to rewrite history and justify their escape.
Why Do Men Develop an Avoidant Attachment Style?
Why do men develop an avoidant attachment style? While adult relationship experiences can certainly aggravate it, avoidant attachment is deeply rooted in early developmental trauma and childhood conditioning.
When a young boy experiences an environment where his primary caregivers are emotionally unavailable, highly critical, or deeply enmeshed and overwhelming, he learns that expressing his feelings is either useless or dangerous. If his vulnerability is routinely met with emotional coldness, he learns to repress his needs. If his environment is hyper-controlling, he learns to equate close relationships with a complete loss of his personal identity.
As these boys grow into adulthood, they carry a hidden core wound: they view intimacy as a zero-sum game where they must choose between being connected to someone or maintaining their freedom.
When an avoidant man goes through a long-term marriage where he feels restricted or managed, his childhood wound is confirmed. Post-divorce, he builds a quiet, independent fortress, living in a secluded routine, managing his career, and controlling his time. He fiercely guards this independence. When he meets a high-value woman that he initially feels safe with, his subconscious isn’t fighting her; it is actively fighting the childhood and marital ghosts inside his own head.
Avoidant vs. Anxious Attachment: Why You Keep Attracting Each Other
In the dating ecosystem, there is a powerful, almost magnetic pull known as the Anxious-Avoidant Trap. If you have an anxious attachment style, you are statistically highly likely to find yourself repeatedly locked into loops with avoidant men.
I am very aware of this! I had an anxious attachment style for years. But understanding the root cause of this, seeing how I behaved in relationships and understanding why, enabled me to heal. I finally understood why I kept dating the same avoidant men.
Why does this dynamic keep repeating? It comes down to a subconscious attraction to the familiar:
- The Anxious Partner’s Belief: “I must fight for love, chase reassurance, and prove I am enough to prevent abandonment.” The avoidant man’s initial hot pursuit feels like intense validation, but his subsequent withdrawal triggers their familiar compulsion to chase.
- The Avoidant Partner’s Belief: “I must protect my walls, maintain distance, and prevent anyone from consuming my autonomy.” The anxious partner’s warmth and vulnerability temporarily soothe their loneliness, but any subsequent demand for consistency triggers their need to flee.
When an avoidant man meets a warm, open, self-aware, emotionally intelligent woman, he is deeply drawn to her light. Because he cannot easily access his own deep emotions, he wants to bathe in hers.
For the first few weeks, he chases intensely. To an anxious nervous system, this high-intensity pursuit looks like genuine emotional availability. You drop your guard. But the second you step into real, physical proximity and show high value, stating clearly that you want a relationship of true depth, intimacy, time commitment and connection, the avoidant man’s survival brain panics.
He hits the self-destruct button, leaving the anxious partner holding the wreckage, spiraling into old, false wounds of unworthiness.
How to Deal With an Avoidant Partner (Without Losing Yourself)
If you find yourself in the early stages of connecting with a man who shows avoidant traits, or if you are trying to understand how to deal with an avoidant partner without destroying your own peace, you must understand the rules of emotional real estate.
The cruel irony of the avoidant dynamic is that they often run away to protect themselves from a prison you are never even going to build.
In Claires case, she lived an hour away, had her own life, a successful career and valued her own independence. She had zero desire to smother his schedule or manage his routine. He wouldn’t have had to sacrifice a single ounce of his genuine freedom.
She was aware he had his children 50% of the time and knew if they’d continue to date, she may not be able to see him as much as she would have liked, especially at the beginning, but she wanted to explore where this would lead, because she knew what she felt with him was real.
If you choose to navigate a dynamic with an avoidant individual, protect yourself with these non-negotiable boundaries:
Don’t take the pullback personally
When a man suddenly goes cold after an amazing date, the mind instantly spirals into a loop of self-doubt. You start asking yourself, “Why am I not good enough? Why isn’t he choosing me? Where did I go wrong? Was I too quick to compliment him?” Stop!.
His sudden retreat has absolutely nothing to do with your worth or whether you are “enough.” He didn’t run because you lack anything. He ran because he hit his own emotional ceiling. His survival structure kicked in and he did the only thing he’s learnt to do for decades, protect himself.
I know that for many women (including me for years) that this just doesn’t make sense logically, but we aren’t dealing with logic, we are dealing with a trauma based response, which he may not even be aware of. The sad truth is, many of these men keep repeating the same patterns of behaviour and don’t stop to question why. Their mind creates a ‘story’ that the connection isn’t quite what they are looking for, or that the relationship is missing something, some reason that to their mind seems perfectly plausible.
Resist the urge to chase
When a man pulls the emergency brake, it is incredibly tempting, especially if you have an anxious attachment style, to start chasing. Your system goes into panic mode, and you want to flood his phone with messages, beg for explanations, or demand answers just to stop the painful whiplash.
Resist that urge with everything you’ve got. Chasing an avoidant man only gives him a reason to run faster. Put your honest perspective on the table cleanly and with total dignity, and then pull your focus and your energy completely back to your own life.
Be brutally honest about what you actually want
Look at the reality of what he is offering. There are plenty of women who would honestly rather be in a partial relationship than be on their own, and there is absolutely no judgment in that choice. But if you are dealing with an avoidant man who has no self-awareness and isn’t open to doing his inner work, you are always going to come up against a wall.
He will feed you beautiful, passionate moments, followed by icy distance. He is feeding you breadcrumbs. You have to look at your life and make a hard decision: are you willing to settle for a few crumbs, or do you want the whole bloody banquet?
How to Break the Cycle: Healing From Avoidant Attachment Relationships
To permanently break the cycle of attracting and tolerating emotionally unavailable men, you must shift your perspective away from the trauma of the rejection and look at the situation through a lens of personal empowerment.
When an experience like this ends brutally, the anxious mind asks: “Why wasn’t I enough? Why didn’t he choose me?” Healing from an avoidant relationship requires realising that this experience was never an audition you failed, it was an awakening designed to show you your own capacity for love.
When Claire returned from a previous short-lived encounter with an unavailable man, she fell into the old trap of questioning her worth. We were able to work together to heal that old identity wound. She ended up feeling grateful that she met this man, because after years of not dating, the experience allowed her to see where she was still operating from old wounds.
Then she got REALLY clear on what she wanted, and how she would feel when she was with that man, and in that relationship. I taught her how to lean into those feelings and create that sense of ‘this is done’. In a matter of weeks, she met David, and fully recognised that he was a match to how she wanted to feel. But she also saw that she got a little swept away in the two week lead up to meeting in person, so hadn’t clocked the signs.
But after this experience, she shifted her perspective. She recognised that the intense physical closeness, the intellectual depth, and the profound safety she experienced on that date were living proof that her capacity to connect is fully alive and functioning.
David wasn’t a rejection; he was a proof of concept. He was a reminder of how effortlessly she can manifest a successful, brilliant partner who will short-circuit with desire for her on a street corner and hold her gaze for hours in a park.
He was the catalyst sent to wake her heart up and show her what she was truly capable of experiencing after years offline. He delivered the cup of love, but the magic belongs permanently to the chalice she held, not to the small man who was too frightened to drink from it.
Two of the valuable lessons Claire learnt was the following;
- Shift From “Where” to “How Fast”: Avoidants populate every dating arena. Stop worrying about where you meet someone and focus entirely on slowing down the gate. Do not engage in weeks of deep text marathons or sharing your entire inner world before meeting face-to-face. Meet early, keep it low-stakes, and let him slowly prove he can consistently show up in reality before investing your heart.
- Guard Your Somatic Energy: Enjoy the mutual chemistry and the kisses, but hold a firm boundary on hours-long, deep physical lock-ins on the first few dates. An emotionally available man will respect a measured pace and feel reassured by your stability. An avoidant man’s chase-high will rapidly drop, and he will naturally fade out within a few weeks before your nervous system ever gets hooked.
When you find yourself staring at an unread text message from an unavailable man, do not shrink yourself to fit his fear. Do not try to use logic to solve an irrational, trauma-based survival response. Take the remote control of your energy back. Archive the thread, mute the notifications, and stand fully in your power.
You deserve to be with a man who can give you what you desire. Ready to find true lasting love? Contact me today and let’s talk about how I can help you experience the kind of relationship you deserve.
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Sara Maude provides Hypnotherapy for Anxiety and Trauma Therapy for professionals who are looking to break the cycle of anxiety and find freedom from the past to feel calm, confident and in control. Sara has worked privately with individuals for 14 years, held over 5,000 sessions, and is also the founder of the award-winning global workplace wellbeing training company, The Mind Solution International Ltd.