5 Signs of Dismissive-Avoidant Attachment in Dating Profiles

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The percentage of avoidantly attached participants on many online dating apps tends to be higher than the estimated 25 percent of all adults with an avoidant attachment style.

Avoidantly attached persons value independence, autonomy, and self-reliance but struggle with emotional closeness and interdependence. As a result, the emotional unavailability of many avoidantly attached persons can complicate relationships.

Many people with a dismissive-avoidant attachment style—often termed “avoidant” for short—want an intimate relationship. However, fearing rejection or a loss of independence, they may find it difficult to fully engage in dating or seeking a relationship.

Dating a dismissive-avoidant partner may feel confusing, depriving, or hurtful, particularly for people with an anxious attachment style, which is on the opposite end of the spectrum from avoidant attachment. Anxiously attached persons are often drawn to avoidantly attached partners, only to end up feeling not valued or prioritized.

At the same time, avoidantly attached persons often experience anxiously attached persons as too demanding or clingy.

Nearly 1 in 3 American adults have used dating apps and nearly 1 in 4 have gone out on at least one date with someone they met on an online dating site, according to a 2020 Pew Research Center study. Despite the large number of people seeking relationships online, there is little peer-reviewed research on a possible correlation between attachment styles and the language and approach used in online dating profiles. This would seem to be a fertile area for future study.

In my clinical practice, I have worked with dozens of single individuals who use dating apps. Many clients seek to stop pursuing unavailable partners and have read or shown me numerous profiles of people they have dated who turned out to be emotionally unavailable.

Five themes emerged from my work with clients, which may suggest ways to spot potentially avoidantly attached people from their dating profiles.

1. Keywords

Every word in an online profile is a choice. Avoidantly attached people tend to use certain key phrases to describe themselves. For example:

• “Independent”
• “Free spirit”
• “Self-reliant”
• “Value my alone time”
• “Catch me if you can”

Seeking a relationship but reluctant to get too close, avoidantly attached people tend to telegraph "I want my distance" in their profiles. One of my clients related reading an online dating profile with the opening words: “I want someone who doesn’t make me feel trapped.”

2. What isn’t said

Many avoidantly attached people are not comfortable expressing emotions. Their profiles may focus on accomplishments, possessions, or activities, rather than the emotional experiences they seek with a partner.

In addition, because self-disclosure may feel too vulnerable, many avoidantly attached people’s profiles may be short, offering sparse insight into the writer.

However, it's important to keep in mind that many women, after experiences with inappropriate, demeaning, or threatening contact on dating sites, may intentionally write less-revealing profiles as a way to protect themselves. That is not avoidant attachment.

3. What they are seeking

Dating apps ask people to categorize their relationship goals, such as marriage, a long-term relationship, a short-term relationship, or “casual dating.”

Profiles from avoidantly attached persons tend to list vague, tentative, or short-term goals for being online, such as:

• “Not sure”
• “Just looking”
• “Checking it out”
• “Nothing serious”

Of course, not everyone who uses such terms is avoidantly attached. People new to dating or who have recently ended a long-term relationship may use similar terms. That can reflect a healthy stance of wanting to take things gradually. The difference with avoidantly attached persons is that their standoffish posture is generally not due to recent events but reflects a long-term orientation.

4. Their tone

Profiles of avoidantly attached persons often read like a shopping list. They may use the imperative “must” to describe what a partner should be, such as “must have a sense of humor” or “must respect my alone time.”

Of course, many people seek a partner with shared interests. Doing so is not an indication of an avoidant attachment style.

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The difference, in my clients' experience, seems to be in the quantity. Avoidantly attached persons may list a dozen or more “musts,” thus ruling out the vast majority of potential partners. Doing so may unconsciously place roadblocks to meeting people.

They also may use simplistic phrases like “no drama” or “no baggage” which may reveal an unrealistic view of relationships, given that some conflict and personal issues are inevitable in relationships.

5. Their availability

Avoidantly attached persons’ profiles may expect someone to seamlessly fit into their existing life structure, with little willingness on the avoidant person's part to accommodate another. For example, they may say they love their busy life but will try to make room for "the right person."

Or they may write something like, "I’ve worked hard [or raised a family] my entire adult life and now I'm ready for a relationship." While this can reflect an earnest re-prioritization of goals, for an avoidantly attached person, it may reflect a belief that one can simply change priorities on a dime.

Additional clues to a person’s attachment style will present themselves once contact begins. Though avoidantly attached people desire closeness, they are often wary of intimacy and proceed slowly, with frequent pullbacks. This may manifest as:

• Being slow to respond to texts
• Sending short or ambiguous texts
• Engaging in a burst of back-and-forth texting, then going silent for days
• Being hesitant to progress to a phone call or meeting
• Suggesting getting together and indicating they will write back to set up a place and time, yet never doing so.

If you are seeking a relationship and find yourself repeatedly drawn to potential partners with avoidant tendencies, you might ask yourself two questions:

1. Is there a part of you that is anxious about intimacy and may be leading you to pick potentially unavailable partners?
2. Is there a way you are abandoning yourself and your boundaries by pursuing partners who will be exceedingly difficult to get close to?