10 Brutal Reasons Why ‘Emotionally Unavailable’ Is Code For ‘Just Not That Into You’

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1. There is a difference between telling someone that you don’t want a relationship, and that you’re “emotionally unavailable” for a relationship. Actually not wanting a relationship is one thing, teetering on the edge of a relationship with someone and then claiming your heart is closed is another. All it says is: “I don’t have enough emotion for you to be available to you.”

2. Everybody is “emotionally unavailable” until someone comes along who seems worth all of the hassle and vulnerability that falling in love requires. It is never the right time until it is the right person.

3. Saying you’re “emotionally unavailable” is the cheap way out of having to tell someone that you don’t feel strongly enough about them to pursue a relationship, because it’s easy. It’s an excuse that most people don’t have the ability to refute, so it works at keeping people at a comfortable distance.

4. People who are closed emotionally aren’t the hard-hearted assholes they can sometimes come off as. In reality, they are sensitive people who have been hurt and who aren’t willing to put themselves out there again. They’re not unavailable, they’re in hiding.

5. There is no such thing as being emotionally unavailable. It’s not real. A “closed heart” is just a belief you can have about yourself that influences you to behave in a way that’s “safe.” It’s a defense mechanism, not an actual state of being.

6. What is real, however, is simply not wanting a relationship – period. And if someone does not genuinely want an intimate relationship in their lives, they have no business getting themselves to the point in which they have to disclaim to someone that they “aren’t emotionally available.”

7. Most people embark on periods of self-development “in the meantime,” as in, between relationships, not as a means of avoiding relationships. Anybody who doesn’t want human connection has a bigger reason for it than just “I was hurt before and I don’t feel like doing this again, but I will sort of try to do it again with you and see whether or not I like you enough to open up.”

8. “Emotionally unavailable” also tends to be code for “low key not over my ex and sort of holding onto the hope that they maybe, one day, come back,” though that is perhaps the most brutal reality of all.

9. Anybody who is unwilling to experience emotion in your relationship is someone who is also severely cut off from themselves, and their own emotions altogether. Generally speaking, this is not someone you want to be even trying to have some kind of companionship with until they’re able to realize that their thinly veiled fear mechanism is only holding them back from real healing and love.

10. The only thing that switches someone from being unavailable to available is, literally, a mindset. If someone wants to be emotionally available, they absolutely will be. If they don’t have enough of a reason to –then they’re not worth your time. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

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