by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmith@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com
Literary Proviso: Re the subject of ‘avoidantism’ – I’m pretty sure I’m not pathologizing ‘being a dickhead’ (But you never know do you? Perhaps the entire DSM V could simply be whittled down to an A4 page entitled ‘The Seven Types of dick’eads’).
So what happens when two avoidants collide?
I think this happened to me in a gnarly unforgiving mega-city long ago.
She was a ‘dismissive avoidant’.
I was an ‘anxious avoidant’.
Of course I am not qualified to diagnose –
But ain’t pop psychology fun? – the joy to diagnose everyone with at least something.
And that something is only only ever half real – at best.
BUT some diagnosis are more real/useful than others.
And I think the ‘avoidant’ attachment style theories are quite good.
But again – what do I know?
This is the beauty of writing – it’s your universe up until the ‘blackshirts’ arrive.
Now going back to us ‘two avoidants’.
At the time (in the gnarly mega-city) I also hated my job.
Yeah sure for that you can call me a copy cat – I agree entirely.
In big gnarly cities the jobs are ‘created to be hated’.
That is their raison-de-tre.
And you can quote me on that
I think she did (hate her job) too, but not nearly as much as I did.
But at least she made – as they say -‘some decent coin’.
I had foolishly and blindly made myself an immigrant slave.
Well I guess I was an immigrant coming from New Zealand to Melbourne.
Pseudo-immigrant maybe, but still an immigrant non the less.
Maybe I had a better ‘class of slavery’ over there than in NZ – maybe.
Now that I am older – I realize it’s (i.e’ your life) is all about self-confidence.
It is one of the many ‘glib but true’ things.
You life falls or rises to the level of your self-confidence.
Both of us ‘two avoidants’ had low self confidence (a neccesary condition of the disease).
Of course you can be high in confidence in some areas and low in others.
It’s all a complex thing – and we Kiwis/Aussies are also bred to have low confidence.
Glib but true thing number two: The brain is the most complex thing in the universe.
I was high in confidence in picking up bar-women for example,
But low in chasing a job or generic situation that reflected a higher-self.
Of course there’s really no way to win being an corporate employee –
They’ll fire you if your confidence isn’t fake anyway.
Confidence is allowed when you ‘own the thing’.
Confidence is for Entrepreneurs with 100% or at least 51% share loadings.
Confidence is for Artists/Muso’s/Writers with shitty day jobs @ glorious creative nights,
And there’s not much in between.
Anyway of course me being the ‘anxious avoidant’ wanted to be around her (the dismissive) more.
I guess the ‘anxious’ part overrided my ‘avoidant’ part if she was the one avoiding me first.
It’s all such a ridiculously complicated thing.
It was far too complicated for me to figure out,
Mainly because we men (us with brains) get better with age – and I wasn’t old enough.
A young man cannot really put guard rails on the powerful forces that exist in him.
It is when we age the forces ebb away a little so the train can stay on it’s rails.
But I must say in my case of the ‘two avoidants’
I will always wish that somehow I could have prevented the book-end-implosion.
But as an old man I accept that is also wishful thinking.
And I still wonder about her some decade and a half gone (well -more than that).
I wonder what ‘the ol’ dismissive’ will be saying her poems about it all – & about me.
I’m sure she agrees that we couldn’t have changed anything much at all.
And only as an (almost) old man ‘ave I came to accept that.
It was a wise decision to dismiss me after all.
If the cards fell a little more to the left –
I would have easily done the same thing to her.
And she was only following her ‘nervous systems orders’ after all.
And to be fair to myself – I was wise to be anxious about her.
I too was merely following my nervous system’s orders.
We were both relative novices riding that selfish bucking beast.
But Avoidants or not – at least we did at least ‘attended class’.
We sat next to each other in class – the naugty ones at the back.
And my now my self-imposed detention (exile?) is surely over.
I’ve written the same line a million times now:
“In time good executive function can & will tame any prior emotional dysfunction”.
And upon writing the millionth line – it came true (or did it?).
And so in summary: in relative youth two avoidants must explode,
But many years later the remnants can gravitationally collapse over a lovely cappuccino.
And I don’t care if someone complements my rose tinted glasses.
For with age you don’t care what others think.
You finally and sans apology do what’s best for you.
And now I will finally stop rambling (it’s artistically legal via Prose) of the time –
“When two avoidants did collide all those years ago”.
Anton Martin Smith Writer 