Is He Avoiding Intimacy?

Let’s face it, a lot of people avoid intimacy.  It can be messy and scary and your ego absolutely hates being vulnerable. So it will, under the best of circumstances, avoid vulnerability and intimacy.

The heart loves intimacy.  So if your heart has a loud enough say in the matter, it will override your fear-based ego and have you move towards being vulnerable.  Our hearts don’t care about being messy, they aren’t scared of intimacy.  In fact, they thrive on it.  And successful relationships can’t live without it.

But in the beginning of relationships when the fear of vulnerability or of looking foolish can be really strong, the ego will often win out.  That’s why it’s wise to take it slow and get to know a person and see how you feel when you’re with them.  But you have to spend time actually being with them and communicating with them in order to know how you feel.

We have technology that can be used to allow people to fool themselves into thinking they are reaching out and making an attempt to be in a relationship.

Texting Is The Easy Way Out

The technology I’m talking about is texting.   It can be, and is being, used by men to avoid intimacy and vulnerability. Now I’m not saying not to text, but I am saying not to mistake it as a tool to build a meaningful intimate relationship. 

Believe me, I wouldn’t be writing about this if I didn’t frequently hear about this from my clients. The problem with texting is it allows intimacy-phobic people to fool themselves into thinking they’re trying to develop or maintain an intimate relationship.

So what do you do if you’re dating a guy whose main way of connecting with you is by texting?  Don’t answer him, except to tell him you’d like to talk when he has a chance. Be light, be playful.  I don’t think you need to get serious and have a big conversation about it.

Some guys like to connect during a busy workday or when they’re traveling via text.  That’s great.  But if most of your communication is through text, you’re not building a relationship that will grow and turn magically into an intimate one.  Don’t allow him to bypass the phone where you can actually have a real conversation.

There was an ad slogan created for the Yellow Pages back in the early ’60s: “Let your fingers do the walking…” Well, it seems in today’s smart phone world, where relationships are concerned, the slogan could be “Let your fingers do the do the talking.”

A relationship can stay stuck at this low level of connection if you allow it to.  The same stuckness applied in the past if women called men all the time.  Men didn’t have to do any work when the woman did the calling.

And men actually like to do the work when they’re excited about a woman – they don’t want her to get away and they want to be with her.  That’s how you know if they’re excited, they’ll call and spend time with you.

Don’t let them get away with not being vulnerable and playing it safe.  If they’re too afraid in the beginning it isn’t going to change. Don’t you want to know up front, so you won’t waste your time?

It’s human nature to avoid what’s uncomfortable.  But the joy that comes from slowly and steadily developing intimacy by far outweighs the discomfort.  Don’t sell out on yourself or the man.

Imagine the possibilities…

© Carol Chanel