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Can Anxious People Date Avoidants? We're Talking Attachment Styles - We Need To Talk with Paul C. Brunson | Wave AI Podcast Notes

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Can Anxious People Date Avoidants? We're Talking Attachment Styles

We Need To Talk with Paul C. Brunson

Thu Apr 16 2026

Summary

Podcast Summary: We Need To Talk with Paul C. Brunson
Episode: Can Anxious People Date Avoidants? We're Talking Attachment Styles
Date: April 16, 2026
Host: Paul C. Brunson (WNTT)
Guest: Dr. Amir Levine

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the complex world of attachment styles—particularly the interplay between anxious and avoidant individuals in relationships. Host Paul C. Brunson is joined by Dr. Amir Levine, psychiatrist and co-author of the bestselling book "Attached." Together, they unpack myths, examine practical tools, and offer eye-opening neuroscience insights about how people connect, communicate, and find security in themselves and others.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. How Do We Choose Our Partners?

Attraction Isn’t About Attachment, Initially
- Dr. Levine argues attraction is often based on subconscious factors like smell and looks, not attachment style.
  - “We choose the people that we're attracted to and...a lot of it has to do with much more rudimentary stuff like how they smell, what they look like. Then we find out who they are.” [01:54]
- Studies show avoidant-avoidant relationships are rare but do exist; attachment is more a spectrum than strict categories.

2. Attachment Styles Across Genders

Myth-Busting Gender Stereotypes
- Media often paints women as anxious or secure, and men as avoidant. Dr. Levine says that’s wrong:
  - “There's plenty of men that are anxious, plenty of them.” [05:25]
- It’s difficult to gather precise data due to the spectrum nature of attachment, but both men and women can be found in any category.

3. What Happens When Like Attracts Like?

Avoidant + Avoidant / Anxious + Anxious Couples
- Avoidant/avoidant pairs might lack the glue (sustained connection), but sometimes these relationships work if mutual distance is accepted:
  - “If it's working for them, that's fine. If it's not, let's find a way to fix it.” [07:54]
- The key is recognizing diverse relationship dynamics, including open relationships, and focusing on what works for all involved.

4. Practical Tools for Building Secure Attachment

The C.A.R.P. Framework
- Dr. Levine shares the "Five Pillars of Secure Attachment":
  - Consistent
  - Available
  - Responsive
  - Reliable
  - Predictable
- “It's like a two-factor authentication...you have to make sure that [the] other person experiences you as reliable and predictable.” [10:29]
Carp with Your SEIMIs (Seemingly Insignificant Minor Interactions)
- The little things—like returning texts or saying hello—are key to rewiring the brain for security:
  - “These seemingly insignificant minor interactions...are instrumental in actually changing the brain, the molecular structure of the brain.” [12:25]

5. Making the Tools Work for Different Styles

Avoidants need to be deliberate about small acts of connection, even if it’s counter to their instincts.
- “You have to learn to do these little things that will give you your space. What you're doing now is the opposite of what you want to do.” [13:54]
Anxious individuals should redirect their attention toward secure people in their lives, not chase those who give mixed signals.
- “Instead of like, 'why aren't you texting me?'...text the person who will text you back and sort of really create—like shift your social media.” [09:19]

6. Attachment Across Different Relationships

It’s possible to be secure with a partner and avoidant with friends, co-workers, or others:
- “You can also be avoidant with a co-worker or even one particular person...” [17:37]
Predictable patterns (“attachment homeostasis”) prevent triggering anxiety in relationships:
- “If you call me once a week, I'm not going to expect you to call every day...you've created a baseline.” [19:23]

7. On the Neuroscience of Exclusion & Loneliness

The brain's “social surveillance system” is wired to hate exclusion, explaining why even minor social slights or waiting for a text can feel so painful:
- “Our brain hates being excluded...areas that are associated with pain and distress and self-scrutiny really come online in a huge way.” [23:53]
Even negative or superficial interactions are better than no recognition:
- "It is better to be noticed by despicable people...our brain still believes that we're in the middle of the food chain." [28:29]

8. A Story of Making It Work: Anxious + Avoidant

Explicit communication can make these pairings work:
- One woman told her avoidant partner:
  - “For me, it's very important that people respond to me in time. And if you're not gonna respond, actually, I'm gonna hit up your phone. And eventually, it's just not gonna work. So I'm just letting you know right there.” [32:06]
- The avoidant partner, though unresponsive with friends, agreed:
  - “With her, he does respond...they've been together for over a decade now, and it's really working.” [32:18]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Secure Relationships:
- “Good relationships are where you actually don't really think about your partner hardly at all...it gives us permission to spread our wings and fly when we have that secure...base.” [34:13]
- “Secure relationships are often boring.” [35:02]
- “They never work on TV because there's no drama.” [35:11]
On Blaming Parents and the Origin of Attachment Styles:
- “There's this myth that avoidants are the way they are because they were not given enough emotional support as children. But I've had patients who were loved and coddled.” [15:02]
- “We've done so much sort of blame the parents in psychology...the holy grail of science is to find causality, and it's so hard.” [15:47]

Important Timestamps

Choosing Partners & Attraction – [01:54]
Attachment and Gender Stereotypes – [05:19]
Avoidant/Avoidant Relationships – [07:22]
Practical Tools: C.A.R.P. – [10:29]
Minor Interactions & Neuroscience – [12:25]
Predictability in Relationships – [19:23]
Social Exclusion Research (“Cyberball/Still Face” Experiments) – [21:53] to [27:17]
Communication in Anxious/Avoidant Pairings – [32:06]
Secure Relationships are “Boring” – [35:02]

Conclusion

This episode gives listeners both a scientific and heartfelt look at attachment, busting cultural myths while offering actionable advice. Dr. Levine’s C.A.R.P. framework stands out as a practical roadmap for anyone—anxious, avoidant, or secure—seeking more fulfilling relationships. Above all, the conversation insists: understanding attachment is not about assigning blame, but about learning the patterns, communicating needs, and nurturing bonds that help us thrive.

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Transcript

A (0:00)

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B (0:30)

Dr. Amir Levine, your book I Was Privileged Enough to Read is also one of the most important books.

A (0:38)

The whole thing of this book is devising tools to help the anxious and the avoidant how to navigate their social world better to create a secure, enriched environment.

B (0:50)

So this resonates with me. I remember reading that part of the book thinking, this is wild.

A (0:56)

Really what it looks like, what it really requires is something that I've come to put.

B (1:02)

Hey there. Before we begin the episode, I just want to say thank you for choosing we need to talk. Doing this podcast is one of the greatest joys of my life and I want to continue to share it with you. So hit follow and the bell icon. It takes just a second and it helps us to continue to grow this podcast. Now, you said something also that I agree with, but help everyone with this. So do avoidance look for other avoidance as romantic partners. If you're anxious, do you look for other people who are anxious? Like do secures look for secure?

A (1:50)

How do we.

B (1:51)

Who are we looking for?

A (1:54)

So I personally believe, and I know maybe some people are going to have an issue with it, but that's my personal belief, just from understanding sort of biology, I think that we choose the people that we're attracted to and we don't know who they are. And I think a lot of it has to do with much more rudimentary stuff like how they smell, what they look like. I think it's much more that and then we find out who they are. That's what I think. But the studies actually show that oftentimes they don't really show who are you attracted to, but they show what kind of relationships. So they didn't find that many avoidant and avoidant relationship. Although then since then I've had patients who were in avoidant avoidant relationships. And also I've encountered people in avoidant avoidant relationships. And again, also what's important on this questionnaire, you'll see it's more of a spectrum.

A (11:25)

Yes. Okay, so another very important part. So this is the part from the attachment sort of world that I sort of, I created that tool there, but then I married it together with something that I took from the lab from my bench work, which is really understanding how the brain changes on the most fundamental way. And you know, when people go to therapy, they think the change will come from talking about my childhood events and drawing sort of inferences from childhood to adulthood. Question. And there's a chapter about that, but. Or talking about the really big difficult things that have happened to me over my life. But from the brain's perspective, we often miss what I've come to call the seemingly insignificant minor interactions of everyday life. Those little things like my interaction here with you now, like if I said hello, I didn't say hello to the person in the elevator this morning, did I communicate? Did I create a bond? Like, did I even just a little bit of an interaction with the person that brought me here? So those seemingly insignificant minor interactions of everyday life. As an epigenetic neuroscientist learned how the brain changes, really on the structural level. These are instrumental in actually changing the brain, the molecular structure of the brain. And in fact, if you remember any of this conversation tomorrow, or if the listeners remember any of this conversation tomorrow, there's been some structural changes in your brain and in their brain. It's not enough to be consistent, available and responsive in those big, big gestures. You have to make sure that you're carp in all of those CMEs and that helps you. That is like the key to becoming carp. And avoidance and anxious. Have to deal differently. Like avoidant. Have to learn to. They're like the mother in the strange situation test. They're the ones who lead in the room. And then the child is there like, what's happening? Save me, help me. And it's like, what do you want? I was just there with you for like a long time. Now I need my time alone. Well, you can't just leave the room like that. That's kind of like. That's from. Our nervous system hates it. It's just like we have like this thing that constantly. You have to. Even a small text, you have to learn to do these little things that will give you your space. What you're doing now is the opposite of what you want to do.

A (21:53)

So I think it really depends on how you use social media. If you use it to connect with people and meet up more and do more things then. And I think the whole loneliness thing is also, it's more from what I understand, I'm not a big loneliness expert, but from what I understand is it's more of an inner feeling because sometimes the same people can have the same amount of connection but some feel I'm all alone in the world and others will feel no, I'm connected to others. So that actually is very important. I'm glad that you're actually mentioning that because I really start the book secure about something that our brain really loathes. Our brain really. And that's like one of the most important things to understand. Our brain hates being excluded or it hates that disconnect. So it's something that's called the soluble. I call it the sore bull effect. It's actually, it's based on the cerebral experiments and that's when basically it's this amazing body of research where they had like you basically you're playing very rudimentary video game. When you're like one of the characters and then you play with two other people, you play a game of catch and all of A sudden they stop throwing the ball in your direction. And what they find is they find both a psychological, a really profound psychological effect, but also the brain effects. And the brain effects are that areas that are associated with pain and distress and self scrutiny really come online in a huge way. And then psychologically it makes you feel less in control of your life. It makes you have less self esteem and that life is less meaningful. The things that you think are specifically related to how you feel about yourself are actually related to how you connect with others. And the other thing that they found is that it's almost impossible to mitigate. So in one experiment they gave people money. It's like whenever they're not going to throw in your direction, we're going to give you a prize. No, you still had the same horrible effects of exclusion. And then in one, I don't know how they even approved that study, but they had like minority students, like they were told that the other two are members of the kkk.

A (25:27)

Yeah, yeah, yes. But the thing is, so in the still face experiment, they ask again those poor mothers and their infants to come in and they sit them across from each other and they ask them, oh, you do what you do with a child and you babble with them. And the child, you can see it on YouTube, it points things and they're having a great time. And then they ask her, okay, look, Bad and look back and just have completely blank face. And the child immediately reacts to sort of the change or the disruption in the connection and tries to get the. It's actually hard to see that video. I have to say, every time I see that kind of like. But it's fine. It's really important because you get it. You understand how this neurocircuitry works. Also in adults, the child, hey, look at this, look at this. It tries to grab her attention back, her attention. And when she keeps going, they start to get upset. They look away and they withdraw. And then they start really like crying and get really upset. That's the part that's hard to watch. But then quickly the mother re engages and they start smiling again. There's a happy ending, but it's good. But it just showed to me. I always show this still facing experiment to patients because I want to explain to them, and especially to avoidance, what happens. It's like when you're. When you sort of like cut off that attachment thread. And especially people avoidance, when they fight, there's like, okay, I'm not responding anymore. I can't do it anymore. And then they'll just say, but what do you want? I'm not saying anything. What do you want from me? Not from a place. But they're not realizing that they're actually engaging in a really. From the point of view of the brain, they're engaging in an incredibly aggressive act. It's like no less. It's painful. It's. No, it's like. I mean, I don't know, maybe it's like. It's just that, like, from the point of view of the brain, like, it's almost like you're slapping someone across the face.