Are you emotionally slutty?
About a year ago, I was working with my friend, coach, and teacher, Kira Sabin, and we were recording a podcast. In a moment of describing how I had previously shown up in relationships, I described myself as emotionally slutty. I think I actually giggled when the words came out of my mouth, but I also loved them immediately. It was the perfect descriptor of how I had shown up for years.
Here was a pretty standard scenario for me when beginning to date someone:
Date 1: Show up as super fun Amanda, upbeat, positive, kind. None of this was a lie but it was a bit over-exaggerated.
Date 2: Show up again as super fun Amanda and start to share a bit more about myself. Learn more about the person I was on a date with and try to suss out if I could like this person and if they liked me.
(if I liked them and I had any sort of inkling that they liked me)
Date 3: Show up as more of myself BUT spend basically the evening sharing every tragedy of my life, my parents’ divorce, being intensely bullied in middle school that eventually led me to thinking that taking my own life was the best course of action, an abusive aunt who lived with us and on and on and on.
It wasn’t pretty.
It was downright emotionally slutty.
What I didn’t realize at the time but I see so clearly now was I had so little sense of self and my own worth, that I figured if by some miracle of chance, I met someone who actually liked me – I had better show him the ugly underbelly of my life and quick because what if I REALLY started to like him, he learned the truth of who I was and then he bailed. Head that sort of pain off at the pass at all costs.
A few things happened – over and over again:
I attracted men who were in no way, shape, or form in good working order for a romantic relationship. It was almost as if I had the “emotionally unavailable” bat signal shining right over my head. Gentlemen, looking for a trainwreck? LOOK NO FURTHER, HERE SHE IS!
I attracted men who realized that I was someone who could be manipulated. They could use this information as a weapon against me. Even if they didn’t use the specific information, what I had taught them early on was that I had no self-worth and filter so they could basically get away with anything. Example? The guy I dated for a year who had multiple other girlfriends to the point that he had a first date with a new woman while I packed his apartment so we could move into “our house” together.
Healthy men walked away. I think I made it pretty clear, pretty quickly that I wasn’t in a place to build something deep and real.
I grew to dislike myself more and more with each relationship. For someone who has spent a lifetime fighting the battle of good self-worth, this wasn’t a good pattern.
For me, being emotionally slutty was a defense mechanism – it was one of the many ways I was simply trying to avoid getting hurt. It was also a clear signal that my self-worth was in the gutter. I didn’t allow people in my life to earn the right to my story. I was trying to bypass the discomfort of blossoming intimacy because it felt too big and too scary. It wasn’t until I learned that my worth is in no way dictated by anyone else, that I had the strength within me to bear the weight of emotional discomfort as I waded into the pool of vulnerability and intimacy with another soul that I have been able to hold back, to share myself slowly and intelligently with those in my life and only with those who have earned it with their time, care, and attention – and I have learned the same about them with my time, care, and attention.
Have you ever been emotionally slutty? If so, what has it looked like for you? I’d love to hear from you.
