7 Signs You’ve Dated Someone Who Was ‘Emotionally Lazy’
1. At first you assumed they were shy or had been hurt in previous relationships, so you gave them time to open up. While you waited you demonstrated that you were trustworthy and supportive — totally worthy of confiding in. But after a few months, you realized that was never going to happen. It’s not even that they’re afraid anything bad would happen if they did, they’re literally just too lazy to do the emotional work of building a connection.
2. They ever described themselves as ’emotionally unavailable’. Emotionally lazy people love to use the phrase ’emotionally unavailable’ because it makes them sound like brooding martyrs, so deep and full of secret pain no one could possibly fathom what’s below the surface. But it’s all the same thing — a deliberate choice to not support the person they are in a relationship.
3. They’ve said they aren’t an “emotional person” but it never seemed to bother then when you supported them emotionally. The only time they had a problem was when you needed them to do something. If they were the ones who were having an emotional moment, it was business as usual. They literally couldn’t see that they had emotional needs and bad days too, somehow it was only other people who put this ‘burden’ on them.
4. They try to say they just don’t feel as much as other people. They might even go so far as to say they’re more ‘rational’ than others who have ‘overly emotional’ reactions to situations. However, over time you notice they do have emotional reactions — it’s just that theirs are getting angry or frustrated versus feeling sad or affectionate. They make you feel like whatever emotions you experience are less valid than theirs.
5. Every time you struggled with your relationship you would take a deep breathe in and out and think “I already know the answer”. If someone cares, it’s obvious (and worth holding out for).
6. They claim they don’t care about anything. Which is either false or a demarcation of a totally toxic person you should avoid at all costs. No one doesn’t care about anything. That’s literally the worst thing you could ever say about yourself, and if you don’t care about such a moral failing, there’s no helping you either.
7. They make you feel crazy. The ‘crazy’ ex is the thing a lot of people like to point to without talking about what they did to cause that situation. Very, very few people go ‘crazy’ in a vacuum. ‘Crazy’ is usually the combination of an extremely emotionally unintelligent person combined with a relationship where there’s not much communication. It’s not generally a situation which spontaneously happens with two healthy people in a healthy relationship. 