How to recognize when someone is pulling away

In any relationship between people, openness and mutual desire for communication are important. It is not uncommon for one person to suddenly avoid meetings and conversations. Usually, there is no explanation for such behavior, so the person just pretends that everything is as before.

In order not to waste your time and energy on maintaining one-sided communication, you need to learn how to recognize the warning signs. Several behavioral features may indicate that a person does not want to communicate with you.

9 ways to recognize when someone is pulling away

1. Constant rejections

Probably one of the most obvious signs that a person is avoiding you is the constant refusal to meet or communicate. You can regularly invite a person to see you to go somewhere, or just to chat, and in response, you only hear complaints about the lack of time. Of course, each of us has periods when, due to the abundance of cases, we cannot allocate even an hour to someone else. But if a person refuses you systematically, without offering to reschedule the meeting for another time, it means that he has no desire to maintain a relationship with you.

2. Avoiding eye contact

If, during communication with you, a person constantly looks away or avoids eye contact with you, this may indicate their discomfort. Perhaps the other person is embarrassed, he doesn’t like something about your behavior, or he’s just not interested in communicating with you. There are people who, in principle, do not like to look anyone in the eye, in which case you have nothing to worry about. But if you’ve started noticing this behavior in a person recently, or if it only manifests itself when they communicate with you, then this is an alarming signal.

3. Lack of initiative

Healthy relationships are built on mutual initiative. If you are the only one who initiates communication, and the other person never offers to meet you, does not call you, or write to you, this is a good reason to think. Perhaps his interest in you has faded, and he feels uncomfortable in the process of interacting with you, trying to distance himself from you for some reason. An initiative requires a certain investment of effort and time, and if a person is not ready to invest it, then they are not on their list of priorities.

You can stop texting or calling first for a while and observe the reaction. If you don’t see any steps to restore contact with you, then your suspicions are not unfounded.

4. Unwillingness to talk about personal topics

When people are close to each other, they want to share their thoughts, feelings, and plans for the future. If a person avoids personal conversations and avoids frank questions, he is not ready to get closer. This does not always mean that your communication has no future.

Your interlocutor probably doesn’t want to share something specific, doesn’t trust you, or just needs more time to get used to you. Give him time to prove himself. If he wants to establish a trusting relationship with you and sees you in his life in the long term, he will definitely open up to you.

5. Increasing the distance

Previously, you and the person saw each other often, spent a lot of time together, shared the latest news from your life, and your experiences. At the moment, your relationship has changed; it seems that the distance between you is rapidly increasing. If a person avoids places where you usually go, cancels scheduled meetings, and comes up with things for himself so as not to cross paths with you, everything is quite obvious.

Also, in addition to physical distance, emotional distance can increase: they no longer share emotions or thoughts with you, or tell you about problems. Visit. A F I N I K . C O M . For the full article. All your conversations come down to discussing neutral topics, which is more like talking to casual acquaintances.

6. Delayed response in online communication

It’s clear that people rarely respond to social media messages within a minute. They may be busy, they may not see your notification, or they may think before they write to you. But still, if earlier the response delay in communication was minimal, and now you can wait for a message for several days or more, this is an alarming sign. You must admit, you can always warn me that you will answer later.

If a person does not write to you, but at the same time is often online, actively uses social networks, and communicates with other people, everything is obvious here. Try to accept the fact that he deliberately avoids dialogue with you.

7. Reducing communication time

If a person feels a sense of shame or guilt due to too frequent refusals, they will tend to shorten the time of their communication. In this case, even if your meeting or conversation takes place, it will go very quickly. A person may agree to communicate with you, but to do so to get rid of unpleasant emotions.

Almost immediately, you will be notified that he has little time, he is too busy, in a hurry, and tired. If such situations occur rarely, there is nothing to worry about. If a person behaves like this all the time, it means they just don’t want to waste time communicating with you.

8. The appearance of cases at the last moment

Everyone has situations where plans have to be changed at the last moment due to unforeseen circumstances. Again, it’s all about regularity. If a person constantly finds seemingly valid reasons to cancel your meeting literally an hour before it starts, it looks suspicious.

If they are genuinely interested in communicating, they may try to find a compromise, offer an alternative time, or postpone their business for later. If a person avoids communicating with you, they won’t talk about a new date. So analyze the purity of the cancellations of your meetings, as well as the plausibility of his excuses.

9. Involvement of third parties

You and the person agreed to meet together, but at the last moment, a friend, colleague, or relative joins you. Of course, spontaneous changes in plans do happen, but this is rather an exception to the rule. Engaging third parties in communication may be a sign that a person feels uncomfortable alone with you, subconsciously looking for a way to defuse the situation.

This behavior can also be a kind of barrier to avoiding frank conversations. The more people participate in communication, the more shallow it becomes. Watch how a person behaves in the presence of other interlocutors: whether he becomes more talkative or still keeps aloof. This will allow you to more accurately determine his true attitude towards you.