Are You Mad at Me?

I was thinking about attachment styles and times when I’ve been attracted to people who had an avoidant attachment style and how utterly miserable that is for someone with an anxious attachment style, and now I am wondering how many times I can write attachment style in one sentence without it being annoying. Especially since it’s the first sentence and I’d hate for you to walk away without even giving me a chance. So, do you want to hang out with me for a little while, like, just til the end of this essay? I promise it will be fun and not annoying and it won’t require too much from you! I’ll be entertaining and easygoing and not at all needy. Just breezy and charming and smart. Oh, you seem busy. Are you mad at me? Wait, I’ll be funnier, smarter and easier. I won’t have any needs at all. You can just cruise along and I’ll do all the work and when you have to go, that’s totally cool, I get it. I’m busy, too.

Great, awesome, super happy this works for you. So, I won’t have needs and I’ll just keep serious tabs on your needs, but you don’t even have to share them with me. I’ll be like a little detective and I’ll figure out what your needs are by watching your expressions and whether you’re laughing or you look bored or it seems like I’m coming on too strong because you’ve shut down again and are answering me in one-syllable grunts. If I start to sense any of that, I’ll pivot. Also, maybe you’re the one who isn’t all that interesting, did that ever occur to you? Maybe you’re a selfish self-absorbed self-obsessed narcissist. I mean, I have never seen anyone look in the mirror as much as you do, and my god do you love your selfies. Shit! I let myself get angry and that is one hundred percent against the rules because my job is to think you’re always amazing. Even as I watch you walk out the door without remembering to thank me for dinner, or even when you leave me on read. Are you mad at me? Why would you be mad at me, I haven’t done anything, have I? Whatever, you’re probably in a meeting or something, so you glanced down at your texts and saw me but you can’t respond. It’s cool. I have things to do. I’m going to go do them right now. I’m definitely not going to text back again, even if I don’t hear from you until tomorrow, or the next day. But you’re not going to wait that long, that’s silly. I’m a great person. I’m a catch, all my friends say so. Also fuck you, because who needs this shit? Aw man, I’m sorry, I got angry again. I really have to watch that.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

So look, we definitely don’t have to talk about why it’s triggering for me when I don’t hear back from you. Like, just because I grew up thinking my alcoholic mom didn’t love me, that’s my stuff to deal with, not yours. I will just manage that baggage on my own time. But, oh yes we can talk about your childhood and your fears and insecurities, I can’t believe you’re extending this tiny branch of intimacy in my direction! You have no idea how much that means to me. You cried while you talked to me about all that, and I know I showed you how loving and understanding I can be. I know I provided a safe space for you. We’re finally getting somewhere, you’re really letting me in and yes, I know what a big deal that is. It isn’t even an issue if you leave and I don’t hear from you until next weekend, I’ll just keep replaying that conversation in my head. I can chew on that for at least four or five days. Well, three, anyway. 

Last week I sent a text very breezily asking if you wanted to come over for dinner and to curl up on the couch and watch a movie. Sex was obviously implied. When you texted back maybe that didn’t bother me at all because y’know, it’s reasonable for you to need to think about it. I mean, maybe you’re stressed or you’re dealing with something I know nothing about or maybe you’re secretly banging someone on the side you absolute motherfucker. Dammit! I let myself get angry again. Maybe I need help with my rage? Or maybe this is all me. I’m too needy. I want too much. Of course it must be overwhelming that I’d like to make you dinner and cuddle with you and get naked. I have too many wants. I’m like one big embodied id with my desire for intimacy and affection and laughter and good times. I want touch and long, lingering conversation and good food and one morning a week when we can just lounge in bed with our limbs entwined, reading and laughing. I’m just too much. Are you mad at me? I’m too emotional and insecure, I’m too angry and I cry too easily, I need all these hugs and texts. 

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez  on Unsplash

Except here’s a funny thing about me. Underneath all of this insecurity and misery I actually know you can’t make me happy. You don’t have it in you. Like, it would be totally fine if you just needed your space because I need mine, too, and that’s the truth. It’s the rest of it that isn’t working for me. I don’t want you around all the time leaving your cups all over the house. The sink is in the kitchen, by the way, and the dishwasher is next to it, not sure you saw that. I don’t always want to deal with the fact that you don’t like onions, or that you want to watch another documentary about World War 2. I don’t always think your jokes are that funny, and actually you are not fabulous in bed. Oops, there I go having needs again. 

The good news, not that you asked, is that attachment styles are not set in stone. One day what’s going to happen is I’m going to wake up and realize this really isn’t fun. I’m tired of your endless crappy moods and occasional kindnesses. I don’t enjoy walking on eggshells or dancing like a monkey to try to please you, and maybe you are the one with the rage problem. I’m going to want my life back, the one I had before I started acting like an addict and deciding I was only lovable if you thought I was lovable. I’m going to realize that needs are needs, everyone has them, even you. You actually have a lot of them. I’m going to grasp that there’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting the close people in your life to treat you with respect and compassion and maybe even appreciation once in a while. You know, that it’s normal to want to feel wanted and cherished and not to be questioning yourself all day long. That maybe it would be more fun to be with someone who makes me feel good instead of desperate, and that it would be better to be alone than to deal with that. It’s too bad we weren’t able to work it out. Wait, what? Now you don’t want me to go? I really think you should talk to a therapist. I don’t regret our time together and I hope you don’t, either. We learned some things, didn’t we? We had some real laughs. You’re a good person, you have a good heart in there, it’s just you can be a dick a lot of the time. We need different things, that’s all. And it’s no good if two people are together thinking how amazing things could be if only, and the end of that sentence is, if only my partner were a completely different person.

If you’d like to meet me in real time to talk about attachment styles I’ll be here 3/8/24 at 11:15am PST or you can wait for the Come As You Are podcast version. And if you’d like to meet me in Portugal in June, I would love that so much!