Dear Elias:

(the boldface are your words:) You expressed intense and negative feelings of frustration about two things: (1) that your love and erotic life has been so far minimal, and (2) social repercussions: societal negative judgment of you for failing to be either paired up, or experimenting sexually and having fun.

On one hand, you are touch and love starved, and you want so bad– to love and be loved back, but usually, when you meet men, including attractive men, you tend to relate to them platonically, and rarely does this perception of them shift over time from platonic to  romantic or erotic.

When men in real-life take real steps towards you, you tend to feel easily overwhelmed and want to maintain distance. But in fantasy, you don’t feel overwhelmed, and you don’t maintain distance: “I think I suffer from some degree of maladaptive daydreaming because I feel like I would rather fantasize about having sex or being in love, or even just watch a show about people having sex and being in love rather than engage in real life“.

In real-life, you feel very blocked to do what you do in fantasy: to touch and be touched, to love and be loved.

“Maybe I suffer from some kind of avoiding attachments where I feel most comfortable at arm length from people“- I agree, Elias: in real-life, you avoid that which you long for, that which you dare have only in fantasy, or by proxy of watching a TV show. I think that it’s fear that’s blocking you from real-life love relationship.

It may be fear of abandonment, as in: if you’ll be in a relationship, the man will leave you, and you’d be devastated. It may be fear of engulfment, as in: if you’ll be in relationship, the man will control and dominate you, he will mentally take over you, and you will lose the bit of independent-self that you now have.

These two fears may be rooted in your childhood where a parent abandoned you physically or emotionally, and/ or a parent was enmeshed with you, taken over you mentally and emotionally, not giving you the space to be.. you.

” I tend to see people all around me very platonically“- seeing people very platonically is self-protective: it protects you from either being abandoned or taken over.

“A part of me genuinely would love to share her life with someone else, to love and be loved back“- but another part of you is afraid.

“It’s like I am asexual on the outside but full of longings and needs inside“- I think that the term asexual is not helpful here: it is too broad (it means different things to different people) to explain what is specifically happening with you.

Some consider the term a sexual orientation. I don’t think that it is a sexual orientation in your case. I think that you are afraid of irl-love relationship.

“I notice I am more likely to feel real attraction to people who breadcrumbs me rather that people who take real steps towards me. I tend to feel easily overwhelmed and want to maintain distances“- it makes sense to me that you are less afraid of breadcrumbs than of a whole loaf of bread, meaning: you are less afraid of men who are not taking real steps towards you. No real steps toward you= no reason to run away (no immediate reason).

“But how does one change their own attachment style? I have done therapy in the past but was more like, talk and CBT therapy rather than attachment focused. I can’t say it didn’t help but for some things but unfortunately, for others it didn’t.“- attachment-focused therapy sounds just right for you:

From psychology today/ attachment based therapy: “An attachment-based approach to therapy looks at the connection between an infant’s early attachment experiences with primary caregivers, usually with parents, and the infant’s ability to develop normally and ultimately form healthy emotional and physical relationships as an adult”.

A bit about me: I grew up with a mother who controlled and dominated me on a regular basis, making my life all about her. She did not give me either the space, or the permission to be me. I felt guilty and too enmeshed to free myself from her mental domination. As a teenager, I daydreamed about romantic relationships a LOT, often from morning to night, but avoided such in real-life. There was a boy in high-school I fell in-love with for a couple of years maybe, fantasizing about having a love-relationship with him. One evening irl, following a youth-group meeting, he asked me to walk me home (just me and him), and I said.. No.

If you relate to what I shared, we can talk more about anything or everything, if you would like to.

anita