When I go on TikTok to find good content to share on X, the most common videos I see are "How [......] with an avoidant". Sometimes, when the hook sinks in, I will listen to it a bit further. In all honesty, this is an AVN-level award in terms of coping.

However, this illustrates one key point: people tend to reward this type of content, particularly young females, due to TikTok's demographics. Avoidant is the all-encompassing term to describe people who don't want you, while offering some level of academic skull juice justification.

On the other hand, when someone calls themselves avoidant, it is their politically correct way to say they are emotionally busted.

It is excellent because it serves the dual purpose of deflecting accountability, keeping someone you should not have in your orbit by giving them an out, and rationalising why you should still stick with them, thus wasting even more of your time. And in the worst cases, it validates why you are receiving poor treatment. It is also an excellent way for someone to give validity without taking ownership of the fact that they don't want to be associated with one person in particular, but opportunistically taking their value without providing anything tangible in return, thus avoiding responsibility for leading another person astray.

Regardless, the fact that there is this ridiculous focus on the matter tells you one thing: the dynamic in relationships that keeps people hooked is one where one person is not giving the other what they want, or at the very least, just enough to keep them around. This creates loops of uncertainty which foster anxiety on both levels. The "avoidant" who wants to maintain control of the dynamic, otherwise, they will feel like an anxious bitch. The one chasing after the "avoidant" because they like that person more than the "avoidant" likes them.

Processes like breadcrumbing, gaslighting, and deflecting blame — emanations of toxic dynamics — are what people resonate with the most. In financial markets, it is commonly admitted that a loss feels twice as painful as a win. This shows that loss aversion is a stronger driver of action-taking than a win trigger. Add the sunk loss fallacy to the mix, and you will see why people get stuck in non-productive relationships with individuals who are too lonely to give up on attention they would not usually entertain if they had options or any sense of self-esteem.

Usually, women have the former but not the latter. Men, when they are not effeminate pussies, typically have more of the latter than the former. However, this species has become rarer; therefore, responding positively to these toxic baits from the "avoidant" (the person who is the least attracted to the other individual, due to their lesser fear of loss from the perception of the value delta) becomes more commonplace than it should be. More importantly, the younger people are, the more receptive they are to such tactics, as they are in their formative years and thus not yet properly shaped.

So it is very easy for the younger generations to fall into these traps, especially women who resonate more with the drama surrounding relationships than men, from the self-created anxiety that barely needs any more fuel to the fire from a guy who treats them like an option.

They need one toxic guy in their younger years to be marked as emotionally busted, because it screws them up with trust issues for the future. Guys on the other end, it is mainly driven by their romanticism, which one or more red pill events, once properly digested, would awaken them. Essentially, the free market of dating and relationships has created a marketplace akin to the baggage reclaim section of an airport, where everybody is free to do as they want, and not necessarily for the right reasons.

The resulting jadedness and cruelty are just the merry-go-round of "I got hurt, so I am fine hurting others". That is your "avoidant" for you. And when one enters the market, if they don't get lucky soon and fast, they end up in the wasteland, partaking in the crabs in the bucket downward gravitational force of the environment, where one can do something worse than what happened to them in the past. It eventually becomes a sadistic game, which the participants reward with more investment towards the person who inflicts it on them.

Whether it is done consciously or unconsciously, it does not matter; what matters is how it affects the person at the other end.

This is why therapists are having a field day addressing the mess people have gone through or have become themselves. Thus, the popularity of the concept of boundaries has grown to the extent that people have become overly sensitive to anything that could potentially be interpreted negatively, where good faith is a foreign or ludicrous concept, often associated with naivety or wishful thinking. Bad faith is king, and power games are the illustration of it.

Whenever a female friend comes to me for a male perspective on a situation with a guy, it is never with a guy who is emotionally balanced or healthy; it is for the one they feel they can't control or have some hold over. I don't recall a single instance when it wasn't the case.

If a therapy has been successful, the former patient is now convinced that all of her natural triggers for attraction were not right but unhealthy, or toxic, and they should not respond to them when confronted with them (aka go for the beta or the nice dull girl). It's time to find the good guy and let go of these incorrect schemas. With enough self-convincing, they will settle for the person who makes them feel safe enough not to trigger the inherent insecurity that drives the perception of (unrequited) love through toxic attachment. What they will say, if properly reconditioned, is that it was an illusion, and for opportunistic narrative reframing purposes, the new, more grounded man is the one they love.

The reality is that they are one call away from falling for the person who made them feel the deepest and rawest form of emotional degradation. Do you see many TikTok Videos about the perfect partner they left and how to get him back, or ones with the "avoidant" they seek to get back? And if you see the former more, ask yourself this: if they left their ideal partner, to whom did they leave them for?

We desire the things we don't have, and the reality is that situationships or toxic relationships will arise when the status given to a set-up is not aligned with the reality of the dynamic between the two individuals. It is one where you never have what you want, keeping the desire alive for as long as it is possible, creating this scarcity within what should be a reciprocal exchange. Situationships are addictive for that simple reason, as they are more valuable through the unachievable attainment of getting to know the other person.

How many times have you heard that once the relationship was officialised and recognised in words and actions by both parties, things got worse? Situationships are an extension of the pre-officialisation stage, lasting as long as possible, as it is what is most beneficial for both individuals. The man feels like he is getting the most out of it without making a commitment. The woman feels more invested and appreciative than ever because she does not get what she wants. On the other hand, in situations where the woman receives all the attention from many men without commitment, as she is still waiting for a better option to arrive, and still enjoys her freedom.

These are the respective games the genders play because they believe they deserve better, wasting their time and their emotional bandwidth if they have any left.

Eventually, it becomes tiring for both participants, and they may develop a sense of dating fatigue, ultimately leading to a desire to settle. Many will continue acting on their bad habits, screwing the relationships they got themselves into, comparing what they used to have to what they currently have. For the ones who have done the work on themselves, they will try to appreciate as much as they can what they now have, which is healthier, or so they believe, suppressing what they unconsciously know deep down but won't admit, which is:

Their most genuine love will remain the one in the past.