I recently finished a book called Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find – and Keep – Love by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller.

For context, I buy a lot of books. Physical books, ebooks. I get all my audiobooks from my library app but I’m prolific in my book buying habits. And for a bit of accountability, at the beginning of the year I counted the number of unread e-books I had (at the time, 300) and just happened to notice that 1/3 of those unread e-books were non-fiction. So I set myself a task of reading 100 non-fiction books as a reading challenge.

I love books about sex, about relationships, about desire. I love books about science, history, psychology. I’ll pretty much read anything. But there are certain books that I feel compelled to buy but like, I’m almost too afraid to read and confront my own issues. And that was the thing with picking up Attached to read. I knew there was a problem and I knew that Attached would address it. And it has. But now I feel paralysed about what I should do versus what I will do.

Attached is a really interesting book that discusses the theory of attachment styles. But it’s also just really practical and helpful as well as being interesting. It talks about the three types of attachment, the reasons behind why people have these types of attachment styles, how to spot the attachment styles of your romantic partners and what to do when you’re in different pairings.

There’s also a quiz fairly early on that lets you know which type of attachment style you have. It was no surprise to me to learn that I have an anxious attachment style. What was fascinating was learning about why I have the reactions I have and why I resort to what the authors called ‘protest behaviour’ and gave some incredible (but also fairly common sense, let’s be real) tips on how to approach being anxiously attached with someone who is securely attached and someone who has an avoidant attachment style.

The reason this book is giving me some real confusion is that I’m fairly sure that the person I’m in a situationship with has an avoidant attachment style and …I’m too afraid to use the advice I’ve just learnt to set better boundaries, to open up a line of communication with him and to acknowledge that I might not be in love with him. I might just be used to having an activated attachment style.

I …guess what I have to keep in mind is that I do actually want to have healthy romantic and sexual relationships with others and I’d like to have my emotional needs met. And I know that the way things are, I’m not exactly happy with the relationship and I’m not happy that I’m not getting the things I need.

I’m hoping that taking these baby steps towards better self awareness will go some way towards taking that next step towards finding – and keeping – love.