I’m Not Emotionally Unavailable — I’m Just Pacing Myself Like a Limited Series

I’m tired of the phrase “emotionally unavailable.” It’s used like an insult — like I’m withholding, broken, or secretly in love with someone from grad school who lives in Berlin now.
I’m not emotionally unavailable. I’m just pacing my intimacy like prestige television.

You don’t binge deep feelings. You build toward them. I can’t give you everything in Episode 1. That’s what Netflix boyfriends do. They trauma dump, overshare, cry once at dinner, and then vanish halfway through season two.

Me? I’m HBO. I release intention. Texture. Lore. You want to know what happened with my last relationship? That’s season finale material. Right now, we’re still establishing tone.

I’ve had people tell me I’m “hard to read” — but maybe you’re just trying to read me like a tweet instead of a slow-burn memoir with unreliable narration and a minor dissociative arc. That’s not a flaw. That’s craft.

Is it control? Maybe. Is it fear of being truly seen? Sure. But you don’t criticize a novelist for building suspense. You turn the page. You wait. You invest.

I’m not emotionally closed off. I’m just protecting the plot. And if you’re patient — if you make it past the mid-season dip and resist the urge to fast-forward — you’ll get the whole story.

Eventually.