I let myself romanticize the idea of shutting people out and remaining distant, and it was not healthy.
As someone who has very little trust in people, I can almost recall the time in my young life in which I decided that the easiest way to avoid disappointment from and due to other people would be to quite simply build a wall around myself that only a ridiculously small amount of people would be able to get through to get to know me or for me to connect with whatsoever. As if that outlook on life wasn’t bad enough, that type of personality started becoming romanticized and others who are in the same boat as me sort of became “mysteries” that people found interesting and almost charming.
The lack of proper communication and the use of sarcasm as a means to get through human interaction without ever truly being serious became entertaining and some thought of it as a challenge. The worst part about romanticizing a group of people’s ideas on personal relationships is that it changes it from something you should try to improve to something uniquely well known and easy to relate to, but not any less complicated. Glamorizing my attitude toward others gave me the ability to just laugh it off and use it as an excuse or a means to an end in which I could pardon myself for my behavior towards people due to my “complicated but beautiful” cogitation.
Making my closed personality a sentimental “safe to be cracked” instead of treating it like the issue it is allowed me to treat people terribly because I started to believe that people admired and understood it more. Being emotionally unavailable for no obvious reason is in no way healthy for a person in both relationships and personal growth. There are far too many people stuck in this same mind-set that being emotionally unavailable is alluring, as well as an actual way to get through life without being hurt or distracted by other people.
Hollywood and social media platforms such as Tumblr presented young people with characters with "no strings attached" mentalities or the attractive inability to express feelings appropriately and although I do not blame media for making me think this way; I decide for myself how I will choose to live as will everyone else, I blame myself for letting society lead me to believe that an unhealthy perspective was more than acceptable and that it made me unique. I am choosing to no longer be a closed book. I am ending the idea of emotional unavailability for myself, and so should you.
