40s Singleness-Dating in Your 40s

You just have to love people who are in such denial that they can't see the forest for the trees don't you? People who think they're all that and a bag of chips and well...aren't. People who think that the world revolves around them when well...it doesn't. And, my personal favorite, people who think they are emotionally available and well...are so far away from it that it would take the world spinning off its axis to make it so.

NML, in Mr. Unavailable and the Fallback Girl, explains emotional unavailability like this:

When you experience someone who is emotionally unavailable it refers to their inability to access their emotions and their tendency to appear emotionally distant. This inability to connect effectively and healthily with themselves or others manifests itself in a variety of habits that perpetuate the unavailability by creating situations that allow them to remain unavailable. Emotionally unavailable people struggle with commitment. Whether they have to make the decision to put both feet into the relationship or take both feet out, emotionally unavailable people will struggle to do either one because they seem to exist in a limbo state that enables them to maintain the status quo.

NML knows her stuff. She told me once that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a damn duck. And yet so many people who are emotionally unavailable see themselves as anything but a duck. In fact, they really believe they are ruler of the roost, king of jungle, lord of the manor.

There's a very good reason for that actually. You see, if you are not emotionally connected to yourself, and they're not, you simply cannot, or will not, see that unavailability. To see it, to admit it, would mean admitting that they are not all that and a bag of chips.

Then, they wouldn't be able to function in their world as they know it because it would be too uncomfortable. They would have to admit that they need to make changes and change sucks. It's hard. It's uncomfortable and it requires complete and total honesty about who and what you are.

The real truth of the matter is that someone who is emotionally unavailable is totally opposite of what they show the world. The are commitment phobic and suffer from low self esteem.

Let's look at these one by one.

The commitment phobe...
Commitment phobes are terrified of commitment at all costs. They are terrified of committing themselves to anything be it a relationship or to change. And don't let them fool you. Many of them have been or are married or in relationships. One assclown actually told me once that he knew he wasn't afraid of commitment because he had been married twice. So. I've been married 4 times. I was as commitment phobic as they come until I realized what my issues were and that I needed to make changes. In fact, being married 4 times probably helped me become commitment phobic. Marrieds who cheat? Completely unavailable and they're married.

The self esteem lacker...
Those who have a low self esteem are often those people who completely over value themselves to the world. It's kind of like bullies. Bullies bully because they don't feel good about themselves. EUMs bully in relationships. They choose fallback girls so they can jerk them around and feel good about themselves. It, emotionally unavailability, strokes their egos. NML says, "These men actually think they’re a good catch!" They "use, dismiss, and fall back" on women to give themselves an ego boost.

Many EUMs will make noise about how they couldn't possibly be emotionally unavailable. They are full of rationalizations and justifications. They may sometimes talk about changing, but talk is all it is. There is no walking the walk.

And yes, EUMs need fallback girls to operate. They couldn't do it successfully and for as long as they have without them. They don't function in isolation. But, of course, they'll blame it on the women because well...there couldn't possibly be anything wrong with them!