When You Are Emotionally Unavailable, But Don’t Want to Be

You are as single as they get. You’re not seeing anyone or dating anyone seriously. You’re occasionally dating here and there, but nothing too serious or compelling ever comes your way. After spending more and more of your time and energy on a number of people, it becomes more of a disappointment with each failed spark.

You become content with taking a break from it all. Your heart needs a rest, despite it wanting to fall in love over and over again. You are fine all on your own, reflecting on each and every time you should’ve or could’ve or would’ve done something different to change your current status from “single, and hesitantly loving it.” But you’re okay because you are as free as a bird. You’ve become as available as you can be.

After all that time on your own, you become guarded. Protecting your own heart day in and day out. You have your defenses up, but you so desperately want someone to come knock them down.

The more you date, the more you withdraw. At this rate, you don’t think that there is anyone out there for you. No one has created that inner spark that you so easily had in the past with other people. You don’t even know what it is like to have a crush on someone anymore, because you just don’t feel those things anymore.

You start looking for connections in all of the wrong places. You start to think “maybe this person” or “maybe that person.” It becomes a game, and then you become a little jaded. You start to wonder whether or not love is in the cards for you, because it just doesn’t seem to be happening for you.

It seems to be happening for everyone else, sure. But not you.

You have become the “single friend.” It’s a strange, new role that you accidentally acquired and you have to say, it’s about as stereotypical as it the media makes it out to be. You see, most of your childhood friends are in some kind of relationship or married. And some may say, “Oh this is the time for you! This is the time for you to grow! You are so young!” Yes, that’s great. That’s fine. And that’s all easy for everyone to say when they have found themselves in a relationship of their own.

You are over the whole wild, single lifestyle that your “taken” friends envy you for. Empty relationships, trailed off text messages, ghosting, and hook ups have exhausted you. You are just not about that lifestyle anymore. And you are not wrong or weird for that. You are human. You are a human that wants to be respected, to feel love and intimacy.

So you wait, and you reflect. And you overthink. And you rethink. You wonder what could’ve been, or perhaps what could be with people you have already met in your life. But it doesn’t change the fact that you’re not meeting anyone. And you have to be honest with yourself and admit that it’s because of the wall.

This wall was built by a number of people over a number of years and experiences. And you just wonder how you let it get so tall. So you sit here patiently, and decided take some time for yourself to recoup. You try to take down this wall brick-by-brick. You do this so you can grow, to learn more about yourself and how you can move forward to become the person you want to be. Because you know that once you reach that point, you can be strong enough to break through that wall. You know that you’re the only one keeping yourself from finding love. You know that this time you have on your own is a crucial growing experience, even as heartbreaking and impatience-inducing it could be. You know that this state of being does not last forever. Because nothing lasts forever, right?