There are some of us who enjoy a little bit of a challenge. As much as I say that I want a “nice” guy who is there for me and treats me like a princess, when push comes to shove, I want a guy who will at least shove back sometimes and not be a pushover. But how do you know if he’s emotionally unavailable or if it is something else?
But there is a difference between the dark mysterious guy and the emotionally unavailable one. And if you mistake one for the other, you could be waiting forever for him to commit and for you to feel settled. When that feeling in the pit of your stomach alerts you that something is amiss, don’t ever miss it and keep thinking things will be what you want if you just wait it out.
What Does it Mean to be Emotionally Unavailable?
There are two different types of unavailable in the dating and relationship world. There are people who are actually unavailable because they have circumstances in this life that ties them to someone else, and then there are some people who just aren’t willing to give their heart away. For whatever reason, emotionally unavailable people refuse to make themselves vulnerable and are not interested in anything permanent or long-term.
It isn’t you, it is about them; but you shouldn’t ever guide your desires by letting someone else take the lead on whether they will let you in to see what is behind the mask or not. If they are emotionally unavailable, they aren’t playing hard to get – they will always be unable to get.
25 Signs He’s Emotionally Unavailable
Playing hard to get involves a guy holding a little bit of himself back so that he doesn’t appear too eager or more into you than you are into him. The beginning stages of a relationship are marred by letting a little bit of yourself out at a time, instead of letting it all hang out. But emotionally unavailable men aren’t playing, they are keeping it under wraps because they aren’t at a stage in their life where they want anything more than someone to hang out with and fulfill their immediate needs.
When you need him, he isn’t there
There are many great benefits of being in a relationship. One of the most important benefits is that you know there is someone to call when you need them. And it isn’t just about helping out in a crisis, it is about being there for good and bad.
If you think of him every time that something significant happens, but he doesn’t reciprocate, or even worse, can’t be reached when you need him, that is not playing hard to get, that is unreachable on purpose. Don’t ever settle by being in a relationship on your own or waiting for someone to step up to the plate. If you have given him three strikes already, then it is time to get out.
When you talk about anything long-term his eyes glaze over
It is natural in a relationship to discuss more than the weather or what you want to have for dinner. If you get an uneasy feeling whenever you talk about anything in the future for more than a week, that is a sign that he isn’t sure if he will be around by then.
Don’t mistake it for mysterious; if it is happening consistently, then he has no intentions of committing anytime soon, or if at all. You deserve to have someone in your life who is interested in what comes next, not pondering if there is a next.
He avoids saying things like “us” or “we”
A man who is emotionally unavailable will never speak in terms of “we” or “us.” In fact, he is probably not even introducing you to his friends as his girlfriend, or even if at all. That is a very subtle sign that you aren’t significant enough in his head to have a label.
You know in your heart that it hurts when he bumps into people and just leaves you hanging while he chats away pretending that you are nothing more than a casual acquaintance. There is a reason you feel temporary, because in his head you probably are.
You’re still meeting him out after months of being together
Guys who are emotionally unavailable want their independence above all else. After a while in a relationship meeting someone at a bar or late at night becomes nothing more than embarrassing.
You deserve his undivided attention and some one-on-one time, not a hook up call at three am in the morning. If you are wondering, ask to go on a date and see how he reacts. Most likely, he won’t react very well.
He hasn’t introduced you to his family or friends
Someone who doesn’t introduce you to his friends or his family is sending you, and them, a clear message that you aren’t going to be sticking around long. Emotionally unavailable people don’t want to have to explain why someone isn’t with them anymore, or have any questions about a person they don’t intend to keep around for very long.
If you aren’t important enough to bring around the family, you aren’t important to him. Don’t make excuses about why, look at his actions and take them for face value.
When you start to get emotional, that is his cue to leave – that equals he’s emotionally unavailable
Any emotional reaction that is past a smile is his cue to hit the road. When you’re sad or super excited, it is almost like he is standing next to the sun. An emotionally unavailable guy doesn’t want to waste the energy on feeling anything that you feel.
He is doing his own thing and your feelings are only irritating his mood. Not being able to comfort, celebrate, or congratulate you for anything means that he really just doesn’t care. Your feelings are not his problem, or something he wants to share.
You know better than to ask him to come to anything important in your life
If the question you get most often is “so he wasn’t able to come?” every time you have an event, party, or meeting out with friends or family, they are trying to subtly hint to you that you are always hanging out alone.
And when you do have something going on, you have been conditioned not to ask because you either get a list of reasons why he can’t come or you are hurt by the fact that he supplies nothing but “sorry I can’t make it.” You should have someone who wants to be a part of your world, your whole world, not just the parts that he chooses to be involved in.
He says things like “I never want to get married”
We all would like to believe that people say things to play hard to get. If you are thinking surely he can’t be serious, everyone eventually wants to get married and he is just using hyperbole, it isn’t. Never assume that someone is saying something they don’t mean.
If they have said it more than in just passing and their tune hasn’t changed, they mean what they say and they are saying what they mean. Even if he does want to at some point, do you really want to wait around for him to want you?
He never asks you about anything related to you
Does he know what you do for a living? Have you told him stuff about your job and your family? If you feel as if you haven’t really divulged anything about yourself then there is a reason. If he wanted to know about what makes you tick, what makes you happy, and what your goals are, don’t you think he would have asked?
An emotionally unavailable man not only keeps his life separate from you by not sharing, he doesn’t really want to know anything about you. As hard as that is to hear, he just straight-up doesn’t care.
He shifts in his chair when you talk about anything serious
If the mere mention of anything serious makes him shift around in his chair like someone set his toes on fire, you are making him uncomfortable. Sometimes you have to pay close attention not to what he is saying, but his actions to really understand how a man feels inside.
Shifting around or being jittery is a sign that he wants out of the situation he is in. And if he isn’t willing to listen to anything serious, he doesn’t want anything serious with you.
When he leaves things at your place, he returns immediately to gather them
As you continue to date, people will leave things behind from the night before without giving it a second thought. They know that they will get it the next time they come by.
If he walks out the door and forgets something insignificant like a baseball cap and is back at the door asking in ten minutes for it, that means he isn’t confident that he will be back – you are temporary. It also probably means that he doesn’t want you to get the impression that you are “at that stage” where you are leaving things at one another’s place.
He still wants to go halves when you go out together
A man who is emotionally unavailable doesn’t only not want to share their time and family with you, they don’t want to waste their money on you. If he has no problem picking up the tab for guy’s night but a simple dinner is still split with you, then that is a sign that he has no intentions of carrying things very much further or deeper. He isn’t going to commit when he is still only half in!
Vacations aren’t a thing for you two but he has no problem with guy outings
Vacations are the natural progression in a relationship. They are also the point where you feel as if you are comfortable enough to be together without interruption and consistently for as many days as you are away.
It takes a certain level of intimacy to head tho the mountain or the shore together and potentially show all the parts of you that the other person might not have seen. And if he isn’t there yet, he probably won’t get there with you.
He feels uncomfortable when you are close
When you sit on the couch, he sits in the easy chair. When you switch to the easy chair ottoman, he gets up to get a drink and returns to the couch.
These are all physical signs that just being close to you is disturbing and that it doesn’t feel right. Someone who is unavailable doesn’t want to be vulnerable or put themselves out there to be physically or emotionally close. His body is telling you what his mouth won’t, he doesn’t want to be that close to you in form.
The guy you’re into is inconsistent when you contacts you
If he blows up your phone for three days in a row and then just disappear and not contact you at all, he might be emotionally unavailable. In a stable relationship, there is a certain expectation and familiarity that gives you a sense of stability and security.
His non contact on some days and then love bombing you on others is a way that he is keeping you on your toes and telling you not to get comfortable that he is going to be around or to expect that he is going to be there from one day to the next = he is emotionally available.
He seems to have changed since you started dating
When you first got together he was charming and attentive. But as the relationship, or lack thereof, has progressed he seems to be pulling away more and more; that is him telling you that he doesn’t want things to get any more serious than they already are.
Men who are emotionally unavailable are looking for physical comfort, and getting you physically is the aim of the charm upfront. But as time has gone on, he has begun to see that you expect more, so he is pulling away to make you chase. He has no intention of letting you in, this is one promise I can make!
When making plans for himself you are completely inconsequential
You hear him on the phone making all sorts of plans for the evening, for the weekend, for the holidays and there is never the question about what you are doing, or even the mention that you are going to join.
Don’t think he just doesn’t like going out or being social, he is telling you in that moment as he is excluding you that he does want to be social, he just doesn’t want you to be there when he is. He wants to be a one-man band and isn’t just forgetting, he is doing it intentionally to send you a message.
Your sex is just that, sex
Sometimes in a relationship we assume that people do things for the same reason that we do. Or we assume they are on the same page and feel as you do. Sometimes sex is just sex, as hard as that is to hear.
It isn’t that he doesn’t like anything specific about you, it just isn’t what he wanted when he started the relationship. Sometimes as hard as it is to hear and accept, sex is literally and purely just the physical act and nothing more.
He has negative or unrealistic expectations about what a relationship is
When you hear him talk about marriage and relationships, you think he is just being silly or grumpy. Surely, no one can date someone and feel that negative and ugly about being in a relationship.
Whatever his issues are were formed well before he met you, so don’t think that he is teasing or convince yourself he can’t possibly feel the way he is talking; it is real and yes, he really does feel that way!
You never know which “him” you are going to get
Are you going to get the adoring guy gazing into your eyes or are you going to get the one who doesn’t want to have anything to do with you. Living with an emotionally unavailable guy is like being on a roller coaster, one day you are up and secure, and the next you are in tears hitting rock bottom because he isn’t the person you thought he was.
When people want to share their lives with you, they treat you like it. You deserve more than to be with someone who acts toward you anyway the wind blows, that just isn’t cool!
You feel like you are in a fog when with him, your anxiety is on high-alert
His inability to be a stable person from day to day has you worried which guy you are going to encounter today. You try to tap dance around how he feels and avoid any pitfalls that are going to set him off.
Suddenly you feel yourself limiting what you say and what you do, trying to pivot to make things okay for him. That is selfish in any situation, emotionally unavailable or not, do you really want to live that way forever?
He is very critical about everything, but usually only related to you
Nothing you do is ever good or right, like nothing. Most emotionally unavailable people don’t want to share their life or their heart with you, but they want to keep you on the sidelines.
The way they do that is to criticize you and to make you feel less than so you won’t have the confidence to walk away. If you see someone completely unworthy when you see yourself through his eyes, that is not someone who is emotionally supportive or someone you want in your life.
He won’t even combine his laundry with yours
Nothing gets mixed, not clothes, not bills, not checks, nothing. That is a sign that he is sending you that when he is ready to cut and run he can do so without any entanglements. There is a reason that he is keeping things separate, and it isn’t one that you want to hear, but you need to.
He never discusses work or his goals, or really anything pass what you want for dinner
It isn’t just that he doesn’t want to introduce you to family and friends, it is that he doesn’t want to introduce you to the real him. If you have no idea what he does for a living, really, or what his dreams, goals and aspirations are, then he is keeping you at an arm’s length for a reason.
It isn’t subconscious, it is highly conscious and not fair to exclude someone you are supposed to care about into your world.
He emphasizes what he wants for his future and it never includes mention of you
There is never any mention of you when he talks about the future, usually even the current day. If you feel as if you are no where in the relationship at all, you aren’t in his mind at all. And it isn’t going to change.
If you have given him ample time to step up to the plate and to be the man you want him to be, but he won’t, then you need to move along.
He makes you feel like an outsider in your relationship
You deserve some stability and security in a relationship and if you feel like you aren’t really in one, sorry to tell you, you aren’t. You can’t be both people in a relationship and if you feel like an outsider peeking into your own life, he is making you look from the outside in.
He has no problem talking about what is going on in his life to others
You can’t seem to get more than a sentence from him about anything, like not even when he wants for dinner. But when you go out in a crowd or with other people he becomes chatty Kathy, not being able to tell them enough about what he has going on, or what he is doing, that is not unintentional.
He is manipulating you by withholding intimacy by making sure you know nothing about what he is doing or what he is planning in his life. It isn’t a mistake, it is on purpose and no one should treat someone like that.
You just feel in your heart that something isn’t progressing the way that it should
If you are reading this then you probably already know the answer. You are researching whether you are reading too into things or not, you aren’t. A woman’s intuition is very strong and if he is sending you signals and your mind is sending up red flags, see them loud and clear before you get in any further and lose more of “you.”
If you are like me then you don’t want some guy to fall all over you and be your yes man. A healthy bit of mysticism and holding back can be a good thing to keep things a little interesting, but there is a difference between keeping some things hidden in a relationship at first and then revealing as you go along and not revealing anything systematically over time.
Or, even worse, you are pulling back as you should be reaching out. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that you can’t change anyone and the only person you can control is you; so take control right now and don’t let any more time go by.
If he Isn’t Ready to Commit Then it is Time to Move Along – He’s Emotionally Unavailable
If he isn’t ready to commit and you are, you have to move along. Stop waiting for him to catch up, his actions speak way more than his words and he is telling you that he doesn’t want the happily ever after. But take heart, you are worth more and you will find someone who does! Don’t let him make you feel like you aren’t worthy of true love and closeness, if you have given all of you, you should get it back… period.
