I think there’s a difference between being emotionally unavailable vs being emotionally out of tune or unable to read the language of emotion competently. The men I’m drawn to care very much about emotions and feel very deeply. But they get overwhelmed quickly and don’t know what to do. They expect the women they’re with to sort through their emotions for them, to do the emotional labor that they don’t know how to do, but it doesn’t work well because no one else can really do that work for them-and when we try, it makes them feel like we have magical powers they don’t have and don’t understand and don’t know how to get for themselves. So they want to distance, but also they get dependent on us and hate us for their dependence.
And are oblivious to all of it.
It’s not that we need emotionally available men.
It’s that we need emotionally competent men.