Why You’re Obsessed, Anxious, & Still Single - Mercedes Coffman
In a Nutshell
Avoidant culture and dating apps promote emotional unavailability, lovebombing, and ghosting, dysregulating the nervous system of emotionally available people through dopamine crashes, micro-grief, and obsession (limerence) fueled by uncertainty, leaving many anxious, single, and self-sabotaging via self-abandonment. Core advice: Use the MOP framework (Match effort, Observe patterns, Pace access) to prioritize emotional availability, maturity, and capacity over chemistry; enforce boundaries, rebuild self-trust through reflection and therapy, and reject "beautiful but toxic" partners to avoid biochemical addiction cycles. Emotionally available people are rare but vital—seek green flags like consistent investment and conflict repair, while recognizing media and past trauma drive unrealistic intensity-seeking and poor partner choices.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Avoidant culture forces people to minimize themselves because humans are interconnected and need connection to regulate the nervous system, feel good, and stabilize. Modern era of immediacy reinforces avoidance over intimacy through instant gratification. Emotionally available people lower standards to maintain relationships, seeing no hope otherwise. Dating apps prioritize convenience, speed, and disposability, avoiding gradual development.
Avoidant culture avoids inconvenience or discomfort: anything taking too much time, effort, consistency, or follow-through. Dating apps reward avoidance with novelty, dopamine from new matches daily, discouraging emotional investment in one relationship.
Avoidants present with intensity and lovebombing, pulling people in quickly. They reveal lack of capacity for sustaining responsibilities once effort is required. Nervous system experiences attachment followed by withdrawal: dopamine spike then crash, leading to micro grief, cortisol spikes, fatigue, mood disorders, sleep disturbances, appetite disorders. Avoidance and emotional unavailability harm the nervous system more than realized.
Dating apps reinforce emotional unavailability; unavailable people enjoy dopamine, comfort, low effort, while available people seek consistency, follow-through, focus on one person. Swipe culture provides endless options, reducing investment.
Why Emotionally Available People Are Vulnerable
They seek depth in a quick-results world avoiding discomfort. They get pulled in by unavailable people, face decreasing contact and ghosting, leading to distrust in self, dating sites, and dating, contributing to modern loneliness. Available people drop out or become damaged; broken people rarely get fixed, but fixed people become broken—a race to the bottom.
Emotionally available people exist but are hard to find amid expedited everything. Reliance on dating apps built for speed; lack of social groups, community events. No communities for available people wanting to focus exclusively.
Suggestion for psychometric evaluation or Trustpilot-style emotional availability score (e.g., stay above 4/5 to remain on app). Mercedes is working on a dating app for emotionally available people due to client fatigue and discouragement. Chronic loneliness as unhealthy as situationships for nervous system.
- Delay gratification: watch patterns, not potential or chemistry.
- Observe reactions without physical reward (e.g., patience with late food, waiter).
- Assess emotion management, discussing intentions, handling feedback without withdrawing.
Emotional standards matter more than physical (height, income, age); therapy culture highlights mind as appreciating asset, relationship as long shared nervous system.
Profiles show age, hobbies, not conflict repair, love language, emotional availability/capacity/maturity. Leads to bonding over surface-level things, misalignment on relationship values.
- Emotional availability: willingness to invest time (good work-life balance).
- Capacity: hold own and partner's emotions, handle discomfort/growth/intentions without retreating/defensiveness.
- Emotional maturity: manage rejection responsively, not aggressively/reactively.
Green flags, not full compatibility (other factors: attraction, age, life direction). Next: love language, attachment style. Unresolved issues can hinder even aligned pairs. Attach to chemistry/intensity first, leading to broken hearts; should prioritize values.
Past had interconnected social circles with accountability; now low accountability enables easy ghosting.
Passionate to companionate love cons people into obsession via rose-colored glasses to encourage reproduction. People blame selves for missing red flags despite evolutionary wiring. Treat early dating self as future drug addict: be discerning while prefrontal cortex works.
MOP: Match effort, Observe patterns, Pace access.
- Match effort: don't overgive when chemistry hits; reciprocal to stay grounded.
- Observe patterns: wait weeks/months to see true patterns, maintain clarity.
- Pace access: delay physical access to avoid dopamine fix eroding clarity.
Prevents overinvestment, justification, minimizing.
Avoids War of Attrition
Natural progression if authentic; desire outpacing effort signals biochemical cycle.
Excuses like "busy" erode discernment as dopamine rises, serotonin falls. Women trust words more (evolutionary); men actions. Busy interested man gives clarity even on busiest days; low priority brings confusion/excuses.
Time as Key Factor
Prioritization amid busyness; some too busy regardless of desire (capacity issue, giving 110% of 10%). Desire genuine, not malicious; career-busy people want relationship but may lack time.
A man or woman deeply invested in their career may want the relationship to work but lack capacity due to no work-life balance. This creates misalignment: pressuring them builds resentment. Discernment is proactive self-healthcare—identifying who is good or bad for your life prevents condemning your future self to damage.
Two things can be true: understanding others' limitations while advocating for your needs. If seeking a specific relationship type, incompatibility persists regardless. It's not your obligation to accept limitations, even if attracted. People say, "He's such a good person" or "She's beautiful," but respond: "They're not your beautiful person." They may excel elsewhere but lack emotional availability.
Kanye West sold out SoFi Stadium two nights out of three in LA recently, despite controversies. Music creates psychological hacking—hard to resist songs that "slap" regardless of the artist. Beauty functions similarly: a harmful, anxiety-inducing person remains desirable due to a reality distortion field.
Beautiful women enter normal rooms, causing dysfunction—everyone behaves abnormally. High-status men like Joe Rogan entering Muties bar (downstairs at Comedy Mothership in Austin) trigger the same: an odd sphere follows, disrupting normality. Only close friends withstand it. Beautiful women rarely have normal male interactions; even gay men comment on their hotness.
Kanye face-plants publicly yet sells out due to "bangers." Similarly, reject beautiful but toxic people: "I don't like Kanye's politics, but his bangers are incredible."
Biochemical hijacking intensifies chemistry, releasing pheromones signaling availability. Universe provides frontal lobe for pause: "This drug gives energy but costs money; this handsome person breaks hearts." Pause, process, step away—acting on biochemistry lacks mental clarity about treatment.
Romantic discernment is preventative health.
People no longer pause. Movies now start mid-emotionally gripping scene, skipping development, mirroring dating: instant intensity like Amazon next-day delivery, Uber Eats, Instacart, fast-forwarded commercials. Speedrunning dates (drunk club at 3 AM, Netflix and chill) embeds into relational history. Nightclubs post-1 AM show disrepair states.
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Romance movies (targeted at women) promote archetypes: The Notebook—rejects stable war veteran/accountant/lawyer for emotionally volatile guy (works out); Titanic. Subtext: stable = boring, regulated = no spark; need rollercoaster, fixer-upper who "makes you feel." Recipe for disaster.
Women want both Notebook guys blended—ideal doesn't exist. Media finesses women like dating apps/OnlyFans do men: unrealistic standards. Romcoms promise emotional intensity, poetry, depth—but depth isn't everything. Heroes win due to emotional availability others lack.
Romantasy (romance + fantasy) cultural appropriation of male genres (orcs, warlocks) into softcore porn for women. Parallels porn/video games inflating desires. Books self-generate immersive stories, heightening emotional expectations (e.g., endless TikToks: "He's got a big thing... but he's an asshole/stalker/etc."). Fascinating to study relational satisfaction in deep romantasy readers.
Clients adapt to trends, losing authenticity. Reading books delays gratification, builds patience—but declining.
Emotional readiness: wanting a relationship. Emotional capacity: sustaining growing pains—arguments, unresolved conflict, triggered traumas. Desire outpaces capacity/maturity, causing misalignment despite wanting the partner.
Seeing potential damages: can't predict growth. Initial highs (serotonin, dopamine, novelty) align; consistency/effort/future-talk reveals limits. People cling: "He had it initially." But fuels may not match your level—fork in road.
Instagram: gym over 2,000-word texts to emotionally avoidant. Late-night counseling/co-journaling signals mismatch (Alander Botan video).
63% affected (2021 Journal of Couples and Relationship Therapy, 700 interviews): fear of hurt/rejection, low self-esteem; end before attachment.
Ghosting normalized (anonymous, no shame)—triggers biochemical withdrawals/grief stages, not just casual. Narrative ("no good men/women") + confirmation bias self-sabotages at delays/lack of attention.
Two extremes: withstand too much or too little. Latter provides instant relief but stunts capacity/maturity growth.
Growing Emotional Capacity
- Sit through uncomfortable conversations (dates, growth talks, feedback)—feelings won't swallow you.
- Avoid life overload (work balance, cortisol)—lacks connection/conflict repair capacity.
- Nervous system practices: meditation, gym/workout routine, discipline.
Unresolved trauma (abuse, neglect) creates narrative: can't trust intimacy/connection. Hypervigilance awaits abandonment/harm; reinjures wounds subconsciously.
Identifying Hidden Trauma
Trauma isn't just big events—anything dysregulating (any life stage). Signs: reactivity in intimacy (vs. sitting through feelings). Simple comments trigger due to childhood caregiver wounds.
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- Self-reflect post-relationship: mirrors reveal value/toleration.
- Build emotional language (use emotional wheel beyond mad/glad/sad/angry)—focus internally over external.
Prioritizing other people, places, or things without pausing to ask: Am I okay with it? Do I feel safe in this environment? Do I feel safe with this person? Do I really want to go to this party or am I just people-pleasing? Every time we override what we feel is right or regulating for ourselves, we self-abandon.
Thoughtful people often think themselves out of prioritization: I see the best in this person. They make me happy sometimes. So I'll shunt my own needs to one side.
Suffering breeds compassion. The more a person has suffered in their own life, usually the more compassionate they become to others because they don't want anybody else to suffer the way they did.
Overgiving and being overconsiderate reflects how you were abandoned and how you're still abandoning yourself. People continue the trauma inflicted on them by becoming the perpetrator to their own pain in adulthood. It's a unique kind of self-harm that society sees as noble: They're like, it's so kind. So you're so kind.
Dr. Gabor Maté talks about eulogies of people who died an early death: They'll talk about how this man would give the shirt off his back to anybody. He was the kindest person. Nobody looks at well that may have led to the self-abandonment that increased his inflammation, suppressed his immune system, and eventually got him to be dead now.
Many pro-social behaviors are self-abandoning.
Joe Hudson's daughter kept crying in the bathroom at 9 years old, yelling while crying. He asked: Hey, are you sad or are you pissed off? She said: I'm pissed off. He asked: Well how come you're crying? She said: When I get angry my sister runs away but when I cry she comes and gives me a hug.
This shows the pro-social nature of domesticating displeasure: turning outward discontent, rage, anger, displeasure, criticism into something palatable. You don't get mad, you get sad. You don't get angry at the world, you get angry at yourself. It makes people less confronted. People around you get to be the hero. Even if you're sad about something justified that your partner did, they get to come in and save you and fix it.
We don't look at that enough. It keeps us isolated from ourselves. How can we expect aligned connections when we're misaligned within ourselves? Everything's a reflection. If I'm not aligned with what I want or my nervous system is disconnected from what my brain says I want, I'll find the same misalignment in another person.
Humans ultimately want belonging. It's easier to be sad, which is why people share tragic situations or illnesses on social media more than victories. There's judgment on don't get too cocky, don't get too confident, it could be taken away. But there's belonging in shared suffering: Oh, at least we're all struggling.
Why not do both? Continue to be compassionate towards suffering of others and ourselves, but also uplift ourselves and others.
People caveat accomplishments: But this was me 5 years ago when I was sleeping on the bedroom floor. It throws into sharp contrast what others don't have. Unhealed people can't say well Chris has that but I have this other thing. Without self-exploration and anchoring in self-worth, we constantly compare like crabs in a bucket: The moment one crab goes to the top and starts talking about I'm doing good, they're like no no no come down here.
Success landscape flattened to small bucket of things. Hard to flex quality of relationship with your grandmother, how much other people rely on you, how reliable you are as a friend, how much you make your local community feel valued, how much you contribute more than you take, how good you are with money responsibly.
People trade observable metrics for hidden metrics:
- Observable: job title, car, postcode, house size, annual salary.
- Hidden: quality of relationship with partner, spare time, peace in mind at night, time asleep.
We trade hidden for observable because people can see observable but not hidden. Radical statement: I'm satisfied now. I'm good.
Good-looking people have to minimize themselves to belong. Can't just say Yeah, I'm a good-looking guy and I know it. Belonging is the most important human need. Not wanting to outshine is self-abandoning and censors authenticity.
British culture is averse to ego, but even in America people minimize.
Chris was a commercial male model for over a decade, DJ, nightclub promoter—all red flags collected like Pokémon cards.
Dislike for people who seem to have something they didn't work for. Difference between good-looking and good body from gym: People respect gym work, understand it's not innate.
Beautiful women disadvantaged by other women more than advantaged by men. Female intrasexual competition is hidden. Male is out front.
Tracy Vaillancourt study: Female basketball players on the same team showed less physical affection to each other than male basketball players on opposing teams because rivalry is hidden.
Beautiful women pay a weird cost. Men open every door due to reality distortion field, but no sympathy. Different rules for people.
People want to see work for stuff, like gym bodies get great comments. But in personal lives, want to bypass gradual process, quick fixes for beauty, jobs, money. Nobody wants time or discomfort.
Clients emotionally available go on date: It just wasn't intense. Used to intensity from emotionally unavailable patterns—the reason they're in therapy.
Dating timeline: relationships superbly exciting and terrifying/dysregulating; relationships where people think they're wonderful but boring; brief terrifying loneliness.
Swing between partners feared but exciting and safe but boring.
Belief that partner should be everything: excitement, stability, fire, calm. Get excitement elsewhere: exciting career, bungee jumping, hobbies, friendships.
Like staying in casino after winning because better prize out there. All intensity is nervous system activation from lovebombing, especially when overstimulated and numb.
Obsession in early dating is red flag because rarely about the other person—it's nervous system activation. Not enough data on compatibility, patterns, alignment.
Obsessed: can't stop thinking, intrusive thoughts, waiting for messages, rereading—nervous system creating certainty from uncertainty. Inconsistent person without clarity increases obsession likelihood vs. stability.
Spark/rush highly predictive of person not being good for you.
Calling it butterflies conditions us: He activates your nervous system. Not good for you. Conditioned to think anxiety means this is my person.
Modern cultural conditioning: push-pull, intermittent variable reward like slot machines, social media. Chaos as chemistry is bad reframing. But bottom brain stem stuff—ancestors gaslit into thinking they loved via this dynamic.
With awareness, integrate limbic/primitive brain with frontal brain. Best way: take space. If feels good, person #1 but not only one, not fully emotionally invest—it's biochemistry, not clarity. Awareness breaks generational patterns.
Birth rates low due to emotional literacy, therapy, social media awareness. Fathers ghosted but shame made it costly then. Now convenience: like drone operator vs. knife effort.
Dynamic with dysregulating partner becomes model for kids' love. Would you choose this person as role model for love? Way you communicate, relate, disagree teaches what romance/mommy-daddy do. Associates kids' identity with partner's.
Not just cute babies—what teaching about love, hard work, conflict repair, emotional availability.
People make big decisions based on chemistry—we're addicts chasing feels.
Limerence: emotional fixation fueled by uncertainty. Signs: unusual fixation, constant ruminating thoughts, extreme highs/lows in mood, waiting/craving validation. Happens early in dating, deep obsession without knowing person fully. Seeing more nowadays.
Vulnerable types:
- Unresolved wounds/attachment styles: love given unpredictably in childhood, emotional unavailability—limerence based on uncertainty/inconsistency.
- Highly imaginative: fall for fantasy, imagine life/intimacy.
- Emotionally intelligent/highly imaginative: build story around chemistry.
- Highly empathic: extend understanding to inconsistency.
Large scale surveys: 64% overall prevalence for limerence with 32%
Experiencing full person addiction (limerence) at a level far higher than the previously circulated estimate of 5%. Anxiously attached people were significantly overrepresented. Analysis of two and a half thousand self-identified limerents found personality types dramatically overrepresented: highly intuitive, feeling-oriented people most prone—INFPs, INFJs, INTJs, INTPs, ENFPs. Most common personality types (ESFJ, ESTJ, ISFJ) barely represented. Limerence out on the tails for introverts, more likely because they're more introspective, empathic, imaginative. Anxiously attached people usually from childhoods with lots of unpredictability, fall into limerence with unavailable people resembling familiar childhood patterns.
Chaos or unpredictability in the home, e.g., unpredictability around praise, performance, and doing well—every kid wants mom and dad to say "you did a good job," but unknown standards create unpredictability striking at the heart of what a kid cares about. Common example: played a sports game, got in car with mom or dad, received feedback with no idea why you were good or bad that day. This unpredictability gets kids (who become adults) trying to work out what to do to feel like they matter, belong, are good, with predictable stability. They reconstruct and deconstruct to feel safe.
Children with unpredictable praise don't know when they'll be seen or valued—belonging most important for children. Kid won't stop loving abusive parent; they'll stop loving themselves, turn inward: "What did I do wrong? How can I be better?" Creates hypervigilant nervous system—always alert to please everyone in any room. Brings into dating: "This person doesn't seem happy—what can I do to keep them happy?" Leads to self-abandonment from childhood, plus dopamine response to their attention (even days later), biochemically addicted because parents didn't provide consistency to anchor own identity.
Pro-social, giving, charitable, reciprocally altruistic behavior can be self-destructive—you don't know if someone does it because they want to or need to. Great if more pro-social people, but at what level of self-abandonment? Doing it from desperate desire for you to see me, can't exist with your displeasure—even if you deserve it. Keep picking up loads not mine to carry, then wonder why shoulders ache.
Therapist heartbroken for such clients—kindness and overextending from wounded place. Nobody asks what happened to make them ensure nobody else suffers; instead, "They're so nice, call them when I need a nice person." Don't talk about cost of someone's niceness—benefiting from it seems pro-social, good place. Self-deception, not conscious: like ignoring obvious drug addiction because good hang at parties. Equivalent: "He's great, always supportive, there when I need." Don't recognize broken place, don't ask.
Check on nice friends—don't ask what they need, just do nice things: listen to the listener, do for the doer, pay for the payer. Brain seeks shortcuts in identification—"this friend good at this." Wants certainty, so "nice friend" stays nice. Changing that requires changing ourselves, too dysregulating. Want people in roles, causes self-abandonment—must always be the therapist. Doesn't allow flexibility: sometimes don't want to listen, want to be heard. Need space to be all we are, not rely on them staying the same.
You are a different character in the mind of each person who knows you because their impression of you is made of the bare bones of what they've seen fleshed out by their knowledge of themselves.
Lonely chapter: so developed you don't resonate with old friends, not yet developed enough for new ones. As you grow, you don't fit with friends, but they don't fit you either—causes reaction. Hardest part of changing isn't improving habits, it's escaping people handing you old costume. Others enforce who you were. Reinvention feels like breaking out of prison you can't unsee.
Even in recovery center: parents bring addicted child to treatment, used to relapsing identified patient. Adult recovers, sober, goes home—family doesn't like sober person, used to drunk one. At first party, hand them drink, make them relapse—easier for you to be who you once were, as their identity built on that. Not flexible enough in minds, identities, feelings to sustain safety and space to be true selves.
Wrong people most addicting—not because great, but emotionally unavailable, no capacity for substantial relationship. Uncertainty and unpredictability cause dopamine spikes (addicting), cortisol spikes (stressful), nervous system dysregulation (designed for certainty). Wrong person triggers uncertainty—brain/nervous system focuses to get clarity, reframed as "I love this person, can't stop thinking, maybe my person." Nervous system chasing regulation after intense high not felt since. Uncertainty leaves gaps for projecting fantasy—paint anything on blank canvas. Limited pieces from them, brain fills with fantasy that works for you. Prefer holding fantasy over reality.
Don't be hard on self—goes back to self-blame. Picker not broken; nervous system starts from dysregulated baseline due to modern conditioning of uncertainty without clarity. Pick based on intensity/chemistry. For history of misaligned relationships: pause, self-reflect, therapy (pro therapy), learn patterns, find standards. Bad picks/emotionally unavailable overstep boundaries, disrespect—we let it go. Realign with self, standards, boundaries—start picking better.
Empathetic, sees best in others, fear of "who am I to," "too demanding," "my needs don't matter." Fear of abandonment normal, tactical problem conflicting with nervous system.
Reframe: boundaries not pushing away, keep good person/protect relationship. Boundaries protect good relationships. Say: "Hey Chris, you did this one thing, hurt my feelings, would like us not to do that." That's advocacy for the relationship. Most see boundary as hurting feelings, possible rejection—don't consider relationship has its own needs. Not speaking up abandons the relationship.
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