A reader who identified as anxious learned about attachment styles and discovered a long-standing pattern of being drawn to avoidant partners. The Experience in Close Relationships test measured near-even secure and anxious tendencies, with anxious slightly ahead. The reader examined unconscious signals that attracted avoidants and deliberately replaced them with cues likely to attract secure partners. The process began with rewriting a Hinge profile with the help of ChatGPT. The profile change produced fewer matches and dates, but also reduced dating-related anxiety and created a clearer approach to seeking more emotionally available partners.
Earlier this year, reading a dating psychology book was the wake-up call I didn't know I needed. I'd heard of attachment styles before and had self-identified as anxious. But it wasn't until a friend recommended "Attached," a 15-year-old book on the subject, that I began to understand the importance. In the book, authors Amir Levine and Rachel Heller outline three main attachment styles - secure, anxious, and avoidant - and explain how recognizing your own can help you choose better partners.
It prompted me to reflect on my relationship history, clarifying that, since my 20s until forever, I've been drawn to avoidants 95% of the time - emotionally unavailable men who kept me at arm's length. The physics professor who told me how terrible it was that he thought he was falling in love with me; the tour guide with a list of wifely criteria I had to fulfill; and the cyclist who said, "I like you too, but you will never hear me say it."
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