I think it either means you’re a bad listener or he’s a poor communicator or some combination thereof.
(Bolding mine)
It’s this bit. When people complain about someone being emotionally unavailable, in my experience, this is what they’re driving at. A sense that the person is holding back from expressing how they feel about the relationship emotionally, for fear of making themselves vulnerable (or whatever the internal reason is). Also shows up in comments like “I feel I’m not really getting to know you” or “you’re holding back”.
As to why you think this may or may not be true or not, that’s for you and your SO to decide but a good starting point might be to ask yourself WHY you feel uncomfortable talking about your feelings for each other. Some people have a deep need to hear the words, not just the actions. FWIW, if I noticed that a partner of mine was making efforts to deliberately avoid having such conversations, eventually that would get to me.
When actually and for many people being accused of this “holding back”, what happens is that “nothing” means, exactly, “nothing”. It’s not that they’re not sharing, say, their childhood traumas or their angst or their insecurity/jealousy about “the gang’s night out”, it’s that there is no such thing.
Example:
A is staring out the window, thinking of nothing much, sort of half-asleep. Sun shining… nice, pleasant… green leaves… nice, pleasant… car driving by… train… train… gee, that’s a long train… nice, pleasant…
and then B says “what are you thinking?”
“Uh? Nothing.”
“Nothing, uh? :dubious:” - and, depending on how B is, the war is on! But that “nothing” didn’t mean “nothing I can tell you about” or “nothing I want to talk with you about” or “your best friend’s ass” - it meant, exactly, nothing. In even sven’s case, she’s not sharing her plans for which curtains to buy because she has no plans on which curtains to buy.
That would just mean you aren’t emotionally available to yourself. You have emotions of some sort. You have feelings of some sort. Maybe not at that particular time, but you do have them. There is no one with no emotions going on.
Usually, it’s either a lack of perception of emotions, a lack of ability or willingness to talk about them, or something like that. And you might be less emotional than average. But, if you are told that you are emotionally unavailable, and you want to change that, the best advice I can give you is to try to communicate whatever feelings you do recognize and have.
Also, I will point out that person A is simplifying at best, and lying at worst. You already showed us that there were actual thoughts going on. Again, he just chose not to share them.
I knew it was a mistake to say whether this would bother me. It’s not like I’m dating her, so what on earth is the relevance as to whether it would bother me or not. FWIW, I am happy to say have never in my life been on either side of the conversation (or anything approximating it) that you’ve outlined in your impromptu play above.
And sure, sometimes ‘nothing’ means nothing. And then again sometimes ‘nothing’ means ‘I am not comfortable discussing my feelings for you’. The OP seemed to indicate she was more to the latter end of the spectrum.
I wasn’t attacking you, take it easy, just providing an example of what happens when someone’s expectations and the other party’s reality don’t match.
I’ve been A; my mother is a terrible case of the Bs; SiL was going all B on Middlebro over, you guessed it, home décor, when they were preparing the wedding, until I pointed out that “when he has an opinion he shares it, doesn’t he? So, when he says he doesn’t care that’s exactly what it means” (as he’d been putting it “love, I would be happy in a cardboard box, whatever you like so long as it’s within budget is fine”). The problem is mismatched expectations / communication styles, nothing wrong with having one or another (we do need expectations and we do need communication styles in order to function), but the hard part is getting them to fit. Ivory Tower Denizen provided a previous example of mismatched styles and getting them to fit.
Apologies, Nava. Poor communication on my part - one of those occassions where I’ve posted and then looked back to see that it does indeed reads rather angry. Not intended and I agree with your general point about both parties needing compatible sharing levels.
passes the cookies See, we provided another example 
For me, it has to do with willingness to bond. Is your SO’s emotional energy flowing towards you? Or does your SO withhold their emotional energy from you? IME, it is about you both being willing to be open and vunerable and concerned about the other person’s emotional well-being as much as your own. It’s about developing a sense of mutual trust so that both partners feel safe. I’d say your SO doesn’t feel safe with you. Safe to be himself, to be heard, to be cared for, to be cherished, and to be mutually vulnerable with you. Do you contribute your heart and your whole self to the relationship? Or do you accept his emotional offerings but make none of your own volition? Are you connected to each other in your hearts?
For some dudes it just means you don’t bring the drama. Girl not freaking out over every damn thing = girl doesn’t care. Girl taking guy at guy’s word without trying to find subtext = girl doesn’t care. Etc.
As per the above: I don’t withold emotional energy. I just don’t have a lot of emotional energy. Most things that seem to inspire really deep emotional feelings in others, especially other women (babies being the perfect example) I don’t recoginize as emotional events at all. I just pretend so as to be socially acceptable. To a lot of people who really have an extremely deep emotional life, I’m probably emotionally unavailable. Then again, their behavior is emotionally suffocating to me, because they are too available, out of proportion and irrational (from my point of view). I’m not thinking WOW we have this amazing bond! I’m thinking, Oh jeez, calm down.
So, there’s two side to the coin, but maybe you just haven’t found the right person, the person you click with; whose level of emotional availabilitude is “just right.”
This may be one of those things where there is an asymmetry between male and female expectations. Kind of like humor. The studies show that while humor is important to both men and women in a relationship, what they mean by humor is different. When a man says he wants a woman with a good sense of humor, it seems he means “I want a woman who enjoys my jokes and that I can make laugh.” When a woman says she humor is important to her, she means “I want someone who makes me laugh.” This is a pretty good match really. The asymmetry works well in this case. Both want the male to be the source of humor in the relationship. That’s not as far as it goes, and the woman having a sense of humor which she employs in tough times to lift the spirits of the couple(the article says something like “usually with self-effacing humor”) can cement the bond further. So in the good times, hopefully a majority, the male is expected to make the female laugh, at life, at him, at whatever. Then when times get tough, it appears to be the woman’s role to make them laugh and provide the spark of, often dark/black, humor to get them through the rough times
Anecdotally, there is a similar disparity among emotional supportiveness and sharing of emotional intimacy. The woman is expected to be the vulnerable one, with the man providing her support. This is the norm. Occasionally a man may air his deep, dark demons, and then a woman being there to accept him and comfort him is a great boon to the relationship, but the norm is the other way around. If he’s expecting you to have shared some deep feelings by now and you haven’t, either because you’ve dealt with them and don’t have that kind baggage to bring to the relationship, or for some other reason(aside from not wanting to share them with him, which would mean he’s right about you being emotionally unavailable) then he could have this impression. If you’re taking it slow then I’d just explain that to him you believe the physical aspect of the relationship can progress faster than the emotional, and you’re happy with him and that time will probably bring more emotional closeness(and continued happy romping physical closeness).
Enjoy,
Steven
It means you spend too damn much time on that Straight Hope message page, or whatever the hell you call it.
It was a joke. No need to get defensive.
I recognize the words…but they sort of don’t make sense to me the way you have them arranged.
Have you asked him what he means by that comment?
I would agree. On the other hand, somebody who is emotionally unavailable probably would not ask (or want to ask) that question directly. For me, that’s part of the characterization of being emotionally unavailable–that you don’t like addressing something like this in an open, honest heart-to-heart.
Or challenge the guy with an unsmiling demand: “You say you feel I’m emotionally unavailable. Give me a specific example of when I was emotionally unavailable. Well?” And when he backs down for the sake of avoiding an argument, or just can’t think of an example at the moment, she comes away convinced that whatever he says about his feelings on this, he is wrong to feel that way.
Not saying that applies in your case, even sven, but I’ve seen it elsewhere FWIW.
My perception of “emotional availablility” is this.
You have the means, time, and desire to form an emotional bond with another person.
You are not so wrapped up in work, kids, someone else, hobbies, etc to form a relationship with another person.