Why Anxious Men Ghost: A 3-Stage Pattern of Vanishing Without Warning

Understand the pattern, so you can break free from the confusion and hurt

Photo by Norbert Tóth on Unsplash

You’re here because you’ve been ghosted or you’ve ghosted someone.

Women: you’re sitting here thinking, “Why do all men do this?”

Men: you’re wondering why you keep fucking things up even when you like her.

This article pulls back the curtain of bullshit and reveals the messy, insecure dance that can go on for weeks, months, years, or even decades about why even the most “anxious” and ‘desperate-for-a-girlfriend’ men end up sabotaging the thing they’ve always wanted.

“He texted after the date to make sure I got home safe.”

“I told her I loved her, but I left her two weeks later.”

“He said, ‘I don’t want to rush things. I just like getting to know you.”

“And then, six weeks later, he was gone. Not mean. Just… gone.”

“Every time we argued I’d shut her out and dismiss her feelings. Eventually she left. Now I miss her more than anything in this world.”

That’s not an ‘anxious’ man. And it’s not a typical avoidant either.

I’ll be honest with you, as much as I write about attachment theory, I hate labels like “avoidant” or “anxious” even though they prove quite useful.

They make it sound like someone with an “anxious attachment” is always spiraling or chasing. Or like an “avoidant” is always cold, calculating, distant, and emotionally checked out.

In real life, it’s rarely that simple.

The anxious man is calm and level-headed until he gets triggered and starts protesting, picking fights, or clinging in subtle ways.

The avoidant man might want connection, but he’ll avoid it in subtle, socially excusable ways because he’s terrified of the vulnerability that comes with it.

But I still have to use labels to make it understandable in writing.

Here are the 3 stages of his detachment.