Emotionally Unavailable vs. a Predatory Personality
Exploring some of the hurdles in romantic relationships makes you realize the fascinating variety of things that can damage our romantic relationships. Some conditions are temporary, such as wanting to wait until you finish school to find a long-term relationship. Others are chronic such as having a mental illness.
When looking at psychological conditions, professionals have to rule out medical disorders that can mimic symptoms of psychological ones. I doesn’t matter how much I work with you about your chronic depression if it is caused by a thyroid issue. It won’t be corrected until the proper medication has been administered.
That got me thinking. When we discuss the dangers of toxic relationships and predatory personalities, can they look like emotional unavailability?
What are the behaviors of someone who is emotionally unavailable?
They are charming
They are controlling
They’re up front about not being good at relationships
They follow a pattern in relationships
They’re looking for a “Perfect” partner
Tendency towards anger
They will brag about themselves
They’re inconsiderate
They’ll be really fast with intimacy
They will be fast with seduction
They are deceptive
What are the behaviors of someone who is an emotional predator?
They will brag about themselves
They are perfectionists
They are controlling
Lack of Accountability
No Boundaries
Lack of empathy
They are exposed to a lot of fear, anger, and anxiety.
They are also the cause of those emotions in others
They are deceptive
So, we can see that they share several traits in common: Charm, following a pattern in relationships, anger, deception, control, and perfectionism. Both types of people have bouts of anxiety and depression. Both cause distress in relationships and in their significant others. It’s easy to confuse one for the other.
The differences come from the intent.
A person who is emotionally unavailable (EU) will not return calls or show up late because they are not thinking of you. A person with a predatory personality (PP) like a narcissist, will do it to cause you distress or because inconveniencing you doesn’t matter. Someone who is EU will be charming because they want to be in a relationship, they just have not done the work on themselves to be in a good one. Our person with PP is charming to groom you into trusting them. It’s a manipulative act designed to feed the parts of them that are empty.
The difference between them is the intent. Our emotionally unavailable people need to learn the skills of intimacy in order to grow a relationship. Our predators are looking to take. It’s less about growing a relationship than using it up. EU’s know they are not healthy and feel a sense of shame about it. PP’s do not have a reaction to others that leads to shame.
Neither one is good to be in a relationship with. Both need help, but not rescue. They can only get help when they are ready and motivated to receive it. They need to want to perform the necessary work and actually do it.
You are only asking for trouble by being in a relationship with either type of person. Knowing the differences between the two types might be important to unlocking your own relationship patterns. If you believe you are always finding yourself in relationships with emotionally unavailable people and they are really more like predatory personalities, you need to take different steps to keep yourself safe and prevent that pattern from continuing.