Some people run from love without either wanting or meaning to.
They crave connection deeply but feel overwhelmed by it. They let people in, then push them away. They’re not cold, they’re conflicted. They long to be close, but intimacy can feel like danger. This is the paradox of a fearful avoidant: someone who wants love, but fears being hurt by it.
Fearful avoidant attachment (also called disorganised attachment) often stems from early relationships, including from childhood that were inconsistent, unsafe, or conditional. People with this pattern may have both anxious and avoidant tendencies. They might open up, then disappear. They might be warm one day, then silent the next and the next… It’s not cruelty. It’s the way they protect themselves from being hurt. And while it doesn’t make emotional whiplash easier to bear, understanding it can be the difference between feeling broken and realising: “this isn’t about me.”
I walked away once early last year. I didn’t understand what was happening. The connection between us had grown slowly over a period of months in 2023, to the extent that we would fall asleep texting and yet wake up at exactly the same time and say hi in the morning. Our first meeting made us both nervous but we got closer until one day at his, he pulled back leaving me feeling confused. I left, closing the door to “let’s carry on chatting”, no time for game playing I thought, although something within me knew he wasn’t a game player. Still, I couldn’t understand why we kept gravitating back to each other later that year, in ways that to this day neither of us can explain. There was always something unresolved, unspoken, unfinished and deeply felt.
What I didn’t know then was that I was caught in a pattern that had very little to do with my worth or behaviour and everything to do with how he felt about closeness.
It’s been a slow path. He began opening up in small ways, but the more vulnerable the moments became, the more something in him seemed to recoil. After one intense period of closeness last year, he ended up in hospital with heart concerns; I don’t know how much came from our connection, but I recall a previous bf saying that knowing we couldn’t ever be together made his heart feel like it was being squeezed. More recently, it’s been stomach issues. Stress has its own language, and his body often speaks when he shuts down.
A turning point for me in understanding this came through an unexpected conversation. I was speaking with a rugby friend’s mum last summer about “the guy I can’t forget and still adore”, and she mentioned something about avoidant attachment. It clicked. Maybe the push-pull wasn’t about rejection or game-playing. Maybe it was fear.
Over time, I started noticing the pattern by recalling things he had said in the past. A few emotionally intense days together would be followed by silence. Calls that rang in but he claimed not to be able to hear me. Times when he clearly wanted to reach out, but couldn’t quite manage it openly.
We spent NY 2024 eve “together” online chatting and early on NY’s day half joked about our resolutions, I told him that 2025 wouldn’t be my year for pistanthrophobia (the fear of trusting people). “I just googled that” he replied. That was something.
Then another gap.
Earlier this month, I reached out on his birthday saying just wishing you, no need to reply. He responded immediately with warmth and admitted he felt a “frisson” when he listened to my message. Cue a 6 hour convo, not just with words but with openess on his side. For the first time in over a year, he asked me to call, answered and we spoke for nearly an hour. He told me his heart was with me. That he adored me too. That he’d missed me. It felt like the door creaked open, not wide, but wider than before.
I’m not holding expectations; that’s not me. But I’ve kept my heart open, kept it real. And when the pace falters, I remind myself that this is not a linear road. It’s ours: messy, tender and special.
And for anyone else loving someone who seems to run when things get close, take heart. You’re not alone. It’s not about lowering your standards or waiting indefinitely. But sometimes, just knowing what you’re witnessing can lift the fog and help you understand; if they are trying to do the work to heal, then maybe you want to stay and see how things go…
Love doesn’t always look the way we expect it to. Sometimes it arrives wearing a full suit of armour, the knight inside online lifting the visor up now and then, unsure if it’s safe. But when you recognise it, you start seeing the difference between rejection and self-protection.
He’s not what I am told is “my type”, not the tall, broad-shouldered rugby hunk or former Para heli pilot, but something entirely different. The graceful cricket player with a sharp mind, a voice that makes me melt, and a way of enjoying cooking together that turns an ordinary evening into something playful and warm. Completely atypical, and yet somehow exactly right. Earlier this month, I told him he was “perfectly imperfect”, because there’s something deeply human in his contradictions.
Maybe one day, he’ll believe in himself enough to see that.
Photo by Ted Balmer
