Written by: Preeti Mistry, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Have you ever been in a situation where you have been dating someone and as days turn into weeks and weeks into months, you feel like you don’t really know the person or that they don’t even know you? Maybe they are always throwing themselves into their work and forget that you exist. Maybe you notice that as things seem to get serious, they tend to pull away. There seems to be this emotional disconnect and you wonder that even though you are with someone, why do you still feel alone?
Robin Williams once said “I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel alone.” And I truly believe that his words highlighted something very important that has been going on across the country. According to research that surveyed 692 Americans from the “Intimacy in America” report, “21% believe they have no one in their lives with whom they can be authentic or a hundred percent themselves, 29% are not satisfied with their abilities to open up to people who they enjoy being around”, and “46% actually admitted to sabotaging their relationships to avoid intimate connections.” In addition, a study from a 2018 Cigna study verified a similar result that “half of all Americans suffer from feelings of loneliness and two in five feel their relationships are not meaningful and that they are isolated from others.” [1]
As both these studies were done around 2018, the good news is that with the onset of the pandemic, trends show that people have started to become more intentional when it comes to dating and are starting to practice having more meaningful dialogues with prospects. However, the problem of “loneliness” won’t disappear overnight and there are many people I come across that still complain of being in relationships where their partner feels “unavailable”.
So, what do I mean by “unavailable partners”?
When people say “I notice I attract unavailable partners” that could mean a variety of different things. It could be someone who is not physically ever present (maybe like a long distance relationship or someone who travels for work a lot), someone who is working all the time and doesn’t make the time for a true relationship to build, or even someone who is already in a marriage or other committed relationship and is not available for anything more than perhaps a side fling. And then there is emotionally unavailable or in other words, someone who is basically closed off to building true connection or intimacy.
When someone in the relationship is not open to being able to share their emotions let alone feel their own emotions, we tend to feel alone or even isolated in the relationship. We feel a sense of distance even though they are right there in the room physically with us. You may wonder to yourself “does he/she even know me, or do I even know them?” And I believe it this lack of emotional availability (that can occur due to various reasons such as our upbringing or who our role models were growing up) that in part contributes to those generalized feelings of loneliness and lack of meaningful connection we see in the research. In the modern world, our tendency to glorify the concept of being individual and independent leads us to see ourselves as so separate or distinct from others, that we sometimes become unreachable and forget that part of our purpose here is to love and experience love to its fullest degree. And instead of sharing and opening up and listening to one another to understand with empathy and compassion, we shut others out.
Final Words
If you are someone who feels that you keep drawing in partners that seem unavailable or maybe even struggle with being vulnerable yourself, I invite you to join me in a free online webinar called “Breaking the Cycle of Unavailable Partners” on Saturday, July 23rd, 2022. If you could resonate with what I mentioned in this article, and you are finally ready to take some action and do something about it so that the quality of your relationships deepen and become more meaningful, then this is for you. Simply sign up here and I look forward to seeing you!
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Preeti Mistry, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Preeti Mistry is a Jay Shetty Certified Coach who focuses on single, young professionals and entrepreneurs who want to be in a healthy, meaningful, and lasting relationship. Through her 1:1 coaching service, she helps them uncover and overcome their hidden inner resistance to finding love so that they feel empowered to put their best self forward and can dare to create the love life they desire. Her chosen niche as a relationship mindset transformation coach was inspired by her own struggles in this area and by noticing that this was a common problem that plagued many she knew as well. After her own transformational journey of overcoming limiting beliefs and aligning better with her true authentic self, Preeti is on a mission to help and empower those that truly want to be in a relationship to break out of a rut, and unleash their best self in love. Preeti has had the opportunity and privilege of participating on a panel hosted by the American India Foundation SF as a relationship mindset transformation coach with the crew of the Netflix series Indian Matchmaking. She has also appeared as a guest on various podcasts talking about topics related to mindset, dating, relationships, spirituality, and manifestation. In addition, she is the founder of the Relationship Mindset club on Clubhouse which offers tremendous value and is continuing to grow. Preeti is also a general dentist, and loves to paint, travel, dance, and spend time in nature. Preeti’s purpose and vision are to help create a world where we focus more on our possibilities instead of our impossibilities so that we are more in tune with creating a life that is aligned with our deepest desires and can experience the joy and fulfillment we are meant to in this life.
Reference:
Zapata, Kimberly, “A Shocking Number of Americans Have Never Experienced Intimacy”, She Knows, February 7, 2019, https://www.sheknows.com/health-and-wellness/articles/2000219/americans-lack-intimacy/
