Avoidant Attachment Amigos — Best Friends for Never

A few months ago I wrote a piece on friendships with a person who exhibits behaviours in line with anxious attachment style. Attachment styles are learned in infancy as a way to regulate, feel safe and have our needs met, and revolve predominantly around our caregivers and their responses to our needs during the first few years of life. There are a lucky few who had very stable caregivers that constantly and consistently met the needs of the infants in question, however, for most of us that wasn’t always the case.

I would like to point out that I am not a fan of blaming the parents for everything. I like to hope that most parents, and I know it is by no means all of them, did the best they could with the resources they had at the time. And I would also like to make it a point that the most important resources were often emotional rather than physical. If we have survived this far, it is safe to assume our basic physical needs were met in order for us to survive. It is the emotional needs that are more indicative of thriving versus surviving.

And it is worth noting that how available your caregivers were to you, is likely an indication of their own attachment styles which formed well before you when they themselves were young. It is a bit of a cycle. I do not profess to be any expert on the issue, in fact, I know relatively little about it at all really. It is certainly interesting armchair psychology, and the ways it impacts our relationships with others fascinates me. Most people tend to focus on how this impacts our romantic partnerships but I am more interested in platonic pairings, and how they are equally impacted.

As I pointed out in my article a few months back about friends anxious attachment, we can be needy, smothering and demanding as this is the way we learned to get our needs met as youngsters. Maybe it is a case of the squeaky wheel getting the grease? We need lots of reassurance and chase after validation from others, insecure that any signs of distance are indicative that our friend no longer likes us and perhaps never really did. We can be exhausting. I admit it.

The people we exhaust most, are our avoidant attachment amigos. These people learned from a young age that their needs would fairly consistently not be met at all, and the best approach was to have no needs so that they couldn’t be let down, and to only depend on themselves. These individuals often appear overly confident. Unlike their anxious peers, they do not often seek validation, they have had to believe in their own worth without the support of anyone else. They are independent and the opposite of needy.

Afraid of getting hurt or let down, their strategy is to basically avoid getting attached in the first place. Nobody can leave them if they never let anyone in to begin with, right? On paper, this would make them seem highly incompatible with anxious folks. And really, they are. Yet, we tend to find ourselves drawn together. Anxious attachment types can’t resist trying to win the affections of the avoidant, because they can’t stand feeling disliked. The avoidant’s style triggers all their insecurities about being unlovable as they jump through hoops of fire to be called a friend at all. The avoidant appears to hardly notice and actually loses some respect for the anxious here. They find us annoying and smothering and far too needy.

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So why are they drawn to us then, if they hate us so much? Because we love them. And they want to be loved just like anyone else. They feel confident we wont leave them. They understand we will continue to chase them as long as they stay aloof. Which they will. It’s not to hurt us, but to save themselves because they truly believe if they showed us the love we show them, that we would then leave them. The risk is too big, the hurt too much. They need us every bit as much as we need them.

Sure, they have an easier time of it when they are with their other avoidant pals. They are all low maintenance, and basically ask or expect nothing of each other. When they do ask, and that friend shows up for them, this serves to strengthen their bond immensely given how much they hate asking or relying on others. How scary depending on someone feels and their potential for disappointment. But the thing is, they wont dare express that disappointment. If they need something, they are far more likely to depend on the anxious, because they know these are the people who will show up. They also know we will express disappointment though if they don’t show up for us in the same ways, so they spend a lot of time managing down our expectations of them and keeping us at a distance so we don’t get too comfortable asking for support.

Essentially they see themselves in the anxious. The weak helpless child, and while they understand the need, they have chosen a more powerful position in life, to be the parent who is emotionally unavailable. The person who can make choices for themselves without considering the needs of others as closely. They might be the work friend who just cuts contact when they leave, or the friend who decides to live overseas on a whim and can’t seem to understand your emotional distress if you say you will miss them. They can’t fathom that their actions impact other people because they just don’t attach to begin with. They liked you, maybe even loved you, but they will always be fine without you. They will also always be a bit lonely.

The thing is, actually, we are the really opposite sides of the same coin. We had needs that weren’t met and learned opposite coping mechanisms. One decided to discard the need while the other decided to become needier. It probably depended on what was more effective with your caregiver. The issue is that most of us are actually not anxious or avoidant 100%. I think it is probably more like a spectrum, with some leaning heavily towards avoidant and some leaning towards anxious….. but that means essentially that most of us are actually both anxious and avoidant types.

So, what impact does that have on our friendships? More on that next week?!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx