I always wanted to be a “lover girl”...

but I had an avoidant attachment.

If you’re not chronically online, one- good for you! This is an infinitely healthier way to be.

And two, you might not be familiar with the term “lover girl”. According to good ole Urban Dictionary, a “lover girl” is:

“A girl who is obsessed with the idea of love and/or enjoys being in love. This person typically enjoys songs, art, movies & places that remind them and/or speak about love.”

I was born in the 1980’s so this term wasn’t around back then, but it is something I always wanted to be… even though I didn’t know the word for it.

A big part of me was shoved deep into the shadows: the part that wanted to be loved and love with abandon. The part that wanted an all-consuming, deep romantic connection. A “soul connection” if you will.

Now, before you tell me, yes, I’m aware the grass is not always greener. In the last 15+ years of being a therapist, I have worked with tons of lover girls. I get it- it’s not as shiny as it looks from the outside. There are pros and cons to both… because actually many “lover girls” have an anxious attachment, and that doesn’t look that fun either.

But when I was younger- I didn’t necessarily have this perspective. I didn’t have the terminology of attachment theory (which I wouldn’t learn about until college when I became a psych major). In my teen brain it was: “lover girls have relationship = good, I don’t have relationship = bad”. I know, deeply complex stuff.

A part of me was always longing, longing, longing… I wanted so badly to be in a deeply romantic relationship and it was never available to me.

Which is true for many reasons: 

1. Dating is hard. Period. Teens, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s! It’s all hard. I’ve had clients in every decade and they’ve all agreed on one thing: dating is hard. It’s awkward, it can be time consuming, and the pitfalls are many.

2. I had an avoidant attachment! This makes dating so very tricky.

I’m using a lot of attachment terminology, if you want to learn more, one of my favorite blog posts I wrote of all time breaks down attachment using romantic comedies. Check it out here!

But a quick summary is:

Anxious attachment: a style of relating to others in which you always fear losing the other person; tend to hyper-focus on the relationship and constantly seek reassurance; can raise conflict to get the other person to engage.

Avoidant attachment: a style of relating to others in which you fear losing yourself; tends to suppress their and their partners needs; deflects emotional conversations; needs a lot of alone time. Not great with commitment.

(side note: there’s also “disorganized attachment” which is sort of a mix of both!).

Avoidant attachment folks tend to be the opposite of “lover girls”: extremely independent, sort of detached. Much more “cool girl” than “lover girl” if we’re using internet lingo. 

When my avoidant attachment was steering the ship, I didn’t need anyone!* I never needed to let anyone in or show my feelings to someone or be vulnerable in any which way. 

You can imagine that this wasn’t particularly inviting to many potential dating partners. Nothing like going on a first date with someone who doesn’t seem to need you or care about you at all. 

And the people it was interesting to? Ohhhhh boy. Ooof. A coterie of fuck boys. Because who hears “I don’t need you and I’m never going to let you in emotionally, but I want to date you!”... and is like “hell yeah!”... people who also have an avoidant attachment style.

I kept seeking out (subconsciously, of course none of this was conscious) total fuck boys. Good time guys that always started off super intense and then immediately fizzled out when any level of vulnerability was broached.

Which, you might be seeing, was by design. Subconscious design so that I could maintain my avoidant attachment. If things couldn’t get too close, then they wouldn’t get too close.

But at the end of the day, I was always left disappointed, heartbroken, and hurt. None of these guys cared about me in the way I needed to be cared for and I kept going back to the well because it felt familiar and safe.

At the end of the day, that’s what the attachment styles we got from our childhood were for: to keep us safe in a crazy world. And they work for awhile (in a sense) until they don’t. Until you feel like you’re hitting the same brick wall over and over again. Until you realize you’re dating the exact same person over and over again it’s just that one was a musician and one was a BMXer (true story).

It would be so lovely if I could say I learned about attachment theory in Developmental Psychology and all was cured, but that is not human nature. There is “knowing the thing” and there is “embodying the thing”.

There’s almost a decade long arc between learning about this stuff and actually changing the way I showed up in relationships.

Which for me was a blend of talk therapy and somatic movement. We can cognitively understand “I need to be more vulnerable if I want people to be vulnerable with me” but that’s not going to get us to actually do it.

This stuff goes so deep, it’s like asking us not to squint when there’s sun in our eyes. It’s protective, it’s instinctual.

It takes a beautiful customized blend of understanding what’s going on (talk therapy) and shifting the body’s response (somatic movement healing) to really make this change feel easeful.

For me, it was quite a journey, filled with leaps forward and steps back. Times of tons shifting below the surface and times of quiet steps forward. I was 19 when I sat in a room full of 200 people learning about attachment theory for the first time and I was 27 when I met my now-husband and felt a secure attachment in my body.

And I’ve been very lucky that that’s stuck around. Through work on both our parts of course- but I can honestly say I’m in a very healthy and happy marriage overall. 

Did I ever achieve full lover girl status? Probably not, I still wish I was more of a romantic. I still wish that was an automatic gear for me. Even though I have more access to it now, it’s not a default setting.

Is my avoidant attachment 100% gone and cured? No. But it rarely shows up in a romantic context anymore, it will show up if you piss me off in a friendship though (ugh, I know, I’m working on it).

And I do want to acknowledge- I know it’s not easy to be a lover girl, and I know it’s even harder to be on the receiving end of someone with an avoidant attachment. We’re sorry!! We know exactly why we’re like this (family trauma FTW) and we’re trying to change it!!

So maybe at the end of the day, it’s not about the extremes, the cool girl vs. the lover girl. Maybe it’s finding the parts in the middle where we can explore and stay curious. 

It’s about finding out who we are and figuring out how to be in the world. It’s figuring out what kind of relationship we truly want and the kind of people we want to be in relationship with.

If that’s something you need help with, that’s what my practice is all about. While 1-1 therapy spots are full at the moment, I do have some exciting June events coming up to help support you on your journey.

June 17: Authentic Embodiment: somatic healing meets a drop in movement class. Designed to support your healing that’s happening elsewhere. Also a good appetizer for…

June 27: Aligned: a much deeper healing afternoon. We’ll use mat pilates and somatic movement to get in there and really get things moving. There will be much more time for support and more individualized attention in this offering. 

If you like highly tailored to you, small class sizes, and deeply impactful events, then Aligned is for you!

Message me with any questions at ehamiltonwohl@gmail.com

*this was not true, but I told myself this was true.