Anonymous #2 17h

Lmfao not what I meant. #1 got it. It's the avoidant air, the less you want for/try for social interactions/social bonds, the harder people follow you around/pursue you. And telling people something like 'I don't date' 'I don't really go out like that' 'Sorry I'm busy like all the time' 'No', etc, ppl seem to lock-in on you like it's a big challenge

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Anonymous OP 17h

In practice, people DO NOT leave avoidants alone 😭 It's not some poor victim being trapped in a game of push-pull that I'm talking about It's ppl being drawn in by what they can't have ig? The thrill of knowing there's no expectations?

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Anonymous OP 17h

I totally get what you mean lol. You: Unavailable people can become more desirable because people want what they can’t have. Me: Sure, but attributing that entire social phenomenon to avoidant attachment and presenting avoidant attachment as a cheat code for making people obsessed with you is where you lose me.

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Anonymous OP 17h

“People do not leave avoidants alone” or are they emotionally unavailable to begin with? Lol. When normal intimacy, vulnerability, or emotional expectations start feeling like a threat to someone’s independence, of course the other person can look unusually persistent from their perspective. There’s a difference between people being obsessed with you because you’re supposedly irresistible and people trying to establish a normal reciprocal connection with someone who keeps creating distance.

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Anonymous #2 16h

Well you're absolutely correct, I mean this post was kinda a joke, not a serious proclamation of a psychological theory 😭 It's just funny to me how the people that people who seem to have the least want for social connections seem to have the most options Avoidant attachment is horrible and one shouldn't strive for it, of course. But it does end up being kind of a cheat code, the harder you try to keep people away, the harder they try to reject that

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Anonymous OP 16h

From a COMPLETELY non-scientific, non-scholarly perspective. Just from my personal experience and that of other avoidants I know. Anxious attachments do tend to sniff avoidants out in a heartbeat, and they in particular pretty aggressively hunt us. Some of them continue until we can allow them to deepen their victim complexes.

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Anonymous OP 16h

I think you might be projecting a little here lol. “Anxious attachers aggressively hunt us” makes them sound like predators and avoidants like passive victims. Anxious attachers can absolutely engage in unhealthy pursuit, but avoidants can also contribute to that dynamic through inconsistency, withdrawal, mixed signals, etc. And calling someone’s hurt a “victim complex” when avoidant behavior has genuinely impacted them is… interesting. (1/2)

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Anonymous OP 16h

A dysfunctional attachment cycle can involve both people. It’s not anxious predator vs avoidant prey. (2/2)

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Anonymous OP 16h

I agree there’s a pattern where emotional unavailability can make some people pursue harder. That was never my disagreement. I just dislike framing it as avoidants having some “cheat code” that makes people obsessed with them, when sometimes that pursuit is an attachment system being activated by inconsistency, uncertainty, or intermittent reinforcement. That’s why I said it’s not the flex you think it is lol

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Anonymous #2 12h

Yes, again, you're absolutely correct from a clinical/psychological (evidence/factual based) perspective. But anxious attachments seem to be very babied while avoidants are HARDCORE demonized. While they're actually BOTH bad and should be worked through ASAP. Just like bpd and npd. I used to have an anxious attachment style, btw. It's just often seen as avoidant=predator, anxious=poor prey. That is NOT always true.

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Anonymous OP 12h

I've been stalked and whatnot a few too many times by anxious-attachment styles to have much sympathy And I have way too much personal shame and self-hatred from back when I was an anxious to have much sympathy However, dating a dismissive avoidant for 3 years was the most excruciating shit EVER. So I also have minimal sympathy for dismissive avoidants who actively date and mess with people even on the platonic end!

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Anonymous #2 12h

At the end of the day, in practice, I'm still going to stay in the camp of yes, people do not leave avoidants alone though. There are countless reasons and mechanisms behind that varying from person to person ofc. But I'm just trying to leave everyone alone and work on myself, and people make that very hard 😭

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Anonymous OP 12h

I agree that anxious attachment shouldn’t be babied either, and crossing someone’s boundaries is unacceptable regardless of attachment style. I think we just ended up talking about something slightly different from my original point. I wasn’t arguing that anxious = victim and avoidant = villain. (1/2)

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Anonymous OP 12h

I was pushing back on the idea that people becoming ‘obsessed’ with avoidants is somehow an inherent avoidant trait, because that framing can romanticize an unhealthy dynamic. Neither side gets a free pass (2/2)

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Anonymous OP 12h

Being activated or attached does not automatically equal being obsessed. They can overlap, but framing every intense response as “obsession” gives the avoidant a little too much credit and the dynamic itself not nearly enough

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