I feel there is a fine, invisible line between avoidance and conscious disconnection; a line that can be easily misinterpreted, depending on where your perspective lies.
Being a recovering fearful-avoidant, I can easily feel the pressure to be social to avoid appearing avoidant. I can also easily become isolated and enjoy it, which, one could argue, is potentially—vaguely—born from avoidance.
So what does one do, and how can we tell if it stems from avoidance or a conscious choice?
I think it all comes down to the intention of one’s decision. If I am deciding to isolate myself because being social might mean having to face some type of emotional discomfort—like having to face someone to tackle a problem—then yes, one might be acting from avoidance.
But if, say, I’ve had my kids over the weekend, I’m exhausted on all the levels, and I gently opt out of being social in order to care for myself and my delicate existential state, then I would say that is acting from a conscious, self-caring, and self-respecting place.
This has led me to think of how I use my phone and how often I connect with people through it. We’ve gotten used to instant and frequent dopamine hits from the millions of apps on our smartphones, and messaging is no different. I send a message, I get an instant reply, and I get a lovely hit of dopamine. We use these devices to connect with others; it becomes a problem when we are connecting constantly. Are we even able to disconnect anymore? When was the last time you spent the day to yourself?
I’m 48 years old (at the time of writing this post) and I remember the days of old where mobile phones hadn’t yet been invented. We made plans face to face, and if we needed to cancel we used the landline phone. In today’s world we worry or get annoyed if we don’t get instant replies to messages.
As much as I loved my youth (kind of), I can’t deny the usefulness of a smartphone. But they are draining as fuck. To circumvent this issue I’ve decided to remove all notifications and have a blank, app-less, black screen. I’ve added timers on my apps and a limit on my screen time to 3 hours per day.
This brings up some shit, I’m not gonna lie. Fear, mainly. If I’m unavailable, my connections will weaken, or at worst, end. What if I make people feel abandoned? What if they forget about me? What if they get bored and find someone else to hang with? Urgh. The list of what-if’s could go on and on.
My answer to all the what-if’s and questions?
Do Nothing.
I will step out of resistance and into the unknown and let life happen. If the connections I have with people are true and strong, they’ll survive my not being in constant contact. If not, that’s ok. But at least I’ll know what connection was real, authentic and based on mutual desire and what was based on dependency and expectation.
