When it comes to affairs of the heart, we are all beginners. Some of us, however, at least speak with authority. Introducing Shon Faye, author of The Transgender Issue (2021) and the forthcoming Love in Exile (2025), whose advice caught our eye. Contact her at DearShonVogue@gmail.com for your own chance at enlightenment.
Dear Shon,
In the spring my first romantic partner broke up with me. I entered a new relationship a few months later, surprising myself with how quickly I moved on. However, I find myself worrying every single day that my new partner will break up with me for the same reason my ex did, namely that I’m not exciting and challenging enough for them (my distillation of their more vague explanation).
My new partner knows what happened with my ex and knows that I’m scared of losing them, but I don’t want to tell them the full extent of my worries in case it leads them to realize that they don’t actually want to be with me.
I love my new partner so much and I’m terrified of losing them, terrified in a way I never was with my ex because I was completely oblivious to their doubts about the relationship. How can I get over my new anxious attachment style?
Sincerely,
Anxious
Dear Anxious
Modern dating is a minefield. For our grandparents, dating and courtship was a brief layover to marriage, and for most of our parents, dating was something that arose organically out of daily life—work, school, friends. Nowadays, our expectations are greater than they ever were before but there are less social conventions and rules around dating. This produces greater freedom but also a lot more anxiety. In response to these new forms of anxiety, I think that a lot of us look for frameworks and explanations to make sense of our fear and confusion.
Attachment theory is one such framework. Attachment theory comes to us from the work of British psychoanalyst and psychologist John Bowlby who focused on the proposition that young children need to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for normal social and emotional development. Those children who don’t, Bowlby argued, may be left with an anxious attachment “style” that repeats through life in all close emotional relationships. It’s a theory that gained more mainstream traction after a pop psychology book called Attached: Are you Anxious, Avoidant or Secure? How the Science of Adult Attachment Can Help You Find–and Keep–Love, written by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller became a bestseller. Now, you will hear a very simplified version of the theory doing the rounds on TikTok and group chats to help you diagnose the behavior of the guy who ghosted you (“classic avoidant”) or offered up as a horoscope for you to understand your own behavior (“I’m so anxiously attached”).