← The Thais Gibson Podcast
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So what is going on with your dismissive avoidant friend? Are they really feeling like you're a great friend or do they really value you? In today's video, we are going to break down some of the mixed signals and confusing signs a dismissive avoidant gives in terms of friendships and commitment and consistency in relationships. And most importantly, at the end of this video, I'm going to break down if you are on the receiving end of something confusing in a friendship, how you can approach it and what you can actually do if you're new here. Hello and welcome. My name is Thais Gibson. I'm the founder of Gibson Integrated Attachment Theory, the proven method to help you rewire your attachment style as little as 90 days by doing the deep inner work at a subconscious level and in turn, that deeply impacts your nervous system. I'm really excited to share this with you. I actually get so many questions about the dismissive avoidant attachment style. And I figured, okay, let's just put a video together so that this can really give some light or context into these things. We're going to start by talking about what the dismissive avoidant friend looks like, then what's happening underneath, and then we'll talk about how, how to really make this friendship work or what to do if you feel like it's not working. Okay, so four major points we're gonna cover. Number one, what the dismissive avoidant friend often looks like. So this is really interesting. Dismissive avoidance are very likely to feel much more comfortable bonding in their friendships in social ways or intellectual ways. So if you look at the different ways that we connect as people and obviously this bridges into romantic relationships as well. But we have a romantic pillar of connection for those types of relationships. We have an emotional pillar of connection which can be in friendships, romantic relationships, family relationships where you just emotionally share and you're vulnerable and you're yourself and you talk about your feelings or your truth or your inner world with people. Then we have a physical connection pillar, which can obviously be very much romantic, but also platonic. You can be somebody who's an affectionate friend. You like to hug your friends, you sit close to them when you hang out with them, like these types of things. And then we have an intellectual pillar of connection. And that's when somebody prioritizes speaking more about their thoughts, ideas, beliefs about things, philosophies, sometimes political views, and they really sit comfortably in that. Now, dismissive avoidance, they're already like that in all of their relationships. They prefer the intellectual connection pillar. And so that Makes them good with social connection at times where they have a lot of high level friends, where there's distance and they can be more community oriented if they're more of a communal dismissive avoidant. But then we have our typical dismissive avoidance who also tend to be a little bit more independent. Maybe they don't really value community as much as the more community based dismissive avoidance. And they're the type that they just, when they do speak to people, they connect intellectually. And so in these types of cases, I've often seen dismissive avoidance end up valuing these three things the most in their friendships. Intellectual connection. Being in a place where they feel there's a sense of harmony in their friendships that can be through like laughter or humor, lightness, ease of connection and feeling like there's a sense of acceptance from their friendships. Okay. And so what you'll often see is that dismissive avoidance through this acceptance and comfort and ease that they're looking for in a lot of their friendships, they often end up with these same long standing friendships for years. And they never necessarily go really deep into those friendships. I was speaking to a dismissive avoidant not too long ago and they were saying, I saw my friend and my friend just had a baby. And I said, oh, and how is it? How's their experience being a new parent? Do they like it? What are they feeling? And the dismissive avoidant person I was talking to said, well, I don't know, I didn't ask any of those questions. I asked all these questions that I would be curious about from that sort of emotional connection pillar. And they said, I don't know, they just had a baby and they spent more time hanging out with that friend, talking about very high level things, right? Their political views or opinions or ideas and what's going on at work and just these sort of high level conversations. This is very on brand for a dismissive avoidant. Now a couple other things under the point of like what a dismissive avoidant looks like is they tend to keep conversations light. They avoid heavy processing. A lot of dismissive avoidants have told me over the years when they see a friend of theirs going through a hard time, they try to protect or respect their privacy, which is so interesting because oftentimes when people are going through a hard time, they want you to be there, they want you to ask questions. But a lot of dismissive avoidance because what they need is privacy and space when they go through a hard time, try to give to other people what they would need themselves and in turn, sometimes it actually gets lost in translation. Sometimes people are like, where are you? I needed my friend. Meanwhile, the dismissive avoidance there being like, oh, I'm respecting your boundaries and trying to not bother you while you're going through a hard time, that's almost their way of showing love or care, which I know just can be so counterintuitive and confusing if you're on the receiving end of that. Dismissive avoidance also show their love so much more through actions. I remember years ago, this is like 16 years ago or 17 years ago, I went through a breakup and I remember having a dismissive avoidant friend and he kept just kind of popping up and trying to hang out and keep me busy. And he didn't say like, how are you doing? How are you feeling after the breakup? But he would take me places and say, oh, let's go for lunch, let's go do this. And it was very much in a true friendship way. But he wasn't trying to emotionally process with me. He was trying to help me stay distracted and busy. And that's a really common theme you'd see in a good friend who's a dismissive avoidant. And of course, dismissive avoidant friends don't love neediness or so much emotional intensity. And so they can be really consistent for years. They can have these really long standing friendships as long as you don't expect them to be always emotionally accessible on your time or in your terms. They'll tend to value friendships and keep them for a long time. But they're the type of friends that like, you'll talk to four times a year and you'll hang out with four times a year and see and catch up and pick up from where you left off. But there's not this huge emotional commitment and there's not all of this ongoing emotional updating happening. Okay, so those are some big themes in terms of what the dismissive avoidant looks like, what's happening underneath. Because of course, dismissive avoidance are wanting to keep their independence and make sure that they're not being burdened too much by the request of a friend. And they want to make sure that they're keeping their freedom and their autonomy. And so these are really big themes for the dismissive avoidant. Now, how can you tell if a dismissive avoidant is interested in the friendship? Because they will show up. Dismiss avoidance, don't do things they don't want to. And they'll show a lot of care. Like I said earlier, through their actions, okay? Through they won't say, oh, you're such a great friend, I value you so much. They're not going to be very affirming in friendships. They see friendships as being about harmony and sociability and often, by the way, dismissive avoidance. Like to do things together with their friendships. They're like, let's go play a sport together or let's sit and watch a game together. They're sort of like these high level things that they do that don't have to involve so much presence or attunements so much like sitting down and being vulnerable and talking. In fact, they tend to avoid things that involve that as a whole in their friendships. And they're not great at keeping in touch through the phone or through texting. But they will be consistent across time and they will show up and they'll come to things and they'll show that they care so much more through actions and words. Now what do you do if you're on the receiving end of a friendship and you're confused or you don't know if it's working for you? Okay, I really want to get into that. I want to say as well, if you want to go into our course, it's all about learning your needs so that you can individuate. Know who you are as a person, know what needs you have to get met to self soothe. Learn to communicate these needs in healthy ways. It's going to help you so much. If you were struggling with this, you literally can keep this course for free for life. It's actually a giveaway. Right now we're just doing this for a couple of days. You can click the link below. It gives you access to all of the personal development school for free for seven days. And with that you will get to keep our needs course for free. As a bonus, the last major thing is if you're on the receiving end of this, okay, one of the best things that you're ever gonna do, and I'm such a big believer in this of all types of friendships, is ask the person what they're available for. Say, hey, in an ideal friendship, how often do you talk to somebody and how much time do you spend with that person? And when you have that conversation, it will be so enlightening because we have this concept in the personal development school called the five stages of closeness. The five levels of closeness and level five is like your cherished, most trusted confidants that you share everything with that you trust that you know can be your best friend or your your partner. If you're in a really healthy, secure relationship. And one of the most painful things that hurts people is that people are in a relationship with somebody who's only capable of a level three or a level four, and they're always trying to push it to a level five. And that gap feels like grief. That gap will always disappoint you because if somebody's not capable of meeting you there, then you always are yearning for something and pushing for something that somebody can't give to you. And it's like squeezing water from a stone. And so by having conversations, and it's not just about attachment styles and dismissive avoid. Sometimes you can have somebody who's a very loving friend who could be a level five connection, but they're in a position where they have two new kids that are young, they're working two jobs, and, like, they just can't be there for you as much as you would hope, even if they really like you. And so it really helps you assess those things. And this is why you're going to ask your dismissive, avoidant friend this. You're going to say, hey, in a perfect world, and you ideally want to do this in person, how often do you talk to a friend that's close to you? How often do you see them? And when you hear them, you now know what they're available to give to you in your life. And if somebody says, yeah, I see them once a month, I talk to them, you know, every couple weeks we have a text exchange or share a funny meme. And like, that to me is a really good friend, then you know where this person belongs. And you're like, okay, I'm going to meet them in reciprocity there. And then with the excess energy that I'm looking to invest in friendships or other relationships, I can now go and invest that in other places. I can invest that in other people. And so when you're able to do that, you'll start to see so much more momentum in such a beautiful way in other relationships. So that then allows you to actually get your needs met instead of always trying to get needs met from somebody who can only meet some of them or partially meet them as a whole. So really good thing to do. Then you can assess your boundaries accordingly and how you're investing your time and energy so that you can be creating level 5 relationships in other areas of life as needed. That is it for today. I hope this was helpful for you if it was, please subscribe to this channel. I put daily content out here for you, and I also often do giveaways here of courses or guides or just things to really help support you on your journey in a deeper way. Because obviously the courses come with in depth workbooks and exercises and just really help you do the work and plug in in such a deeper way that rewires your brain. So that is it. Thank you for joining me. I'll see you tomorrow in the next video and thanks for watching.