Emotionally Unavailable People?

Couple of months ago I wanted a simple, risk-free solution for an emotional affair I was…dealing with. As any reasonable person of my age would do, I did the obvious: I googled it. It didn’t take too much time to come up with lines and key-words I should google, type them in the little white box and hit ‘enter’. Nothing surprising until here. The surprise came when I scrolled down through the results…they were not what I expected, at all!

I was flooded with billions of websites talking about something I was not even aware of existed: an ‘emotionally unavailable person’ (EUP). I went through some of those sites only to discover that many, many people believe they are attracted to, or have fallen for, an EUP. After reading some theories and testimonials, I started questioning myself if EUP-ness is spreading as giddily as the Internet makes me believe it is. If yes, then our species is endangered, surely. However, I am much more tempted to believe that EUP-ness is quite rare, and a lot of people are attaching to an emotional myth to avoid looking into their own hearts and faults.

Maybe you found yourself in an EUP-like situation before. Maybe you even got annoyed reading this, bothered by the implication of you having a problem. If this is the case, I will be honest, simple and direct with you: I am implying that you may have a problem, however having a problem is wonderful in this context. Because it also means you may, as well, have a solution.

I remember, when I was younger, being very frustrated about relationships in general. So much that I once asked an old friend: “What is my problem? It seems to work for everyone else but not for me.” to which he replied smiling: “You already took the first step, recognizing you have a problem. Now you can do something about it.” I was mad for a while, I confess, but then I notice how precious was the information he provided me. So, while a website that invites you to blame another person just helps you to engage in the same repetitive behavior, a friend like mine calls your attention to points in your life you can repair. What I am trying to say here is something that you perhaps already experienced, but maybe unaware of it:

Recognizing our faults hurts, but engaging in them blindly can hurt even more.

I must say that I was happy enough that a good portion of those sites, subtly, invited the readers to think about why they got attracted to EUPs in the first place, and this is the kind of exercise that helps improvement. But still, why do they need to go around in circles and create an emotional myth to invite us to think about our own faults?

Let me try to make it more explicit: Imagine you were solving an equation and got the wrong result. Someone then pointed out “4x4=16 and not 8”. Immediately you would fix your mistake, maybe you would feel dumb for a little bit, and then you move on. But the same scenario is completely different when talking about love. Why?

The answer is no big mystery: Because we don’t see operations in ourselves as simple and direct as a mathematical one. We have an unbelievably difficult time thinking about our own existence as fluid, changeable. We think we are defined forever by our immediate parameters. So, whenever we fail, we don’t understand that this is a failure of our attempt, not of ourselves. This is why rejection is so hard to deal with, because we take the rejection of our attempts as a rejection of ourselves. As if that rejection would define us forever. When, in fact, that rejection only means we fail in one attempt and if we could identify the reason, and fix it, our next attempt might be successful. Just like failing to solve one equation does not label us as inept to solve equations.

That said, figuring out our problems is the key to fixing our next attempt. It is the fisrt step for a successful movement, and the only bit we can actually operate on. To wrap this all up, I leave here one advice that I read a long time ago* and keep in my pocket ever since:

“Draw a line around your feet. That’s it. That’s the portion of the world you are free to change. Everything else is out of your control.”

*Can’t remember where.