Editor’s note: This article was originally published in 2018 and was updated in June 2026 to reflect Ideapod’s current editorial standards and The Sovereign Mind Framework.
Plenty of people spend years single without quite understanding why. A common assumption is that the right person simply hasn’t come along yet, and that the answer is to keep enjoying life, focus on a passion, get clear on the qualities worth looking for, and wait for the perfect partner to appear.
That approach makes less sense than it first seems. Attracting a compatible partner tends to work very differently from what most people believe. Life isn’t a fairy tale, and there are no easy solutions, despite what the law of attraction gurus will tell you.
For many people who stay single, the harder truth is that the pattern has more to do with them than with the people they have been dating.
That realisation often arrives through “attachment theory,” popularised in an article by Mark Manson, which describes the nature of emotional attachment between humans and the four types of people in relationships.
What follows is an overview of those types, starting with the underlying problem they help explain.
The pattern that keeps avoidant people single
For someone with an avoidant pattern, the same sequence tends to repeat. Meeting someone new brings real excitement about the possibility of sparks flying. Some time is spent together. Then the familiar sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach returns, the person concludes the other is “not quite right,” and moves on to the next.
Week after week, month after month, and year after year, the same thing happens. There can be plenty of success at external goals in life alongside little success at building any kind of emotional and loving connection with a romantic partner.
It is not unusual for someone to reach their thirties having spent almost all of their adult life single, only to recognise the pattern through attachment theory: the problem isn’t the people they have dated. The pattern is an avoidant one, and naming it is the first step toward living a better life.
4 types of people in relationships, according to attachment theory
As Manson explains, attachment theory began in the 1950s and has since amassed a sizeable body of research behind it. In short, researchers have found that the way in which infants get their needs met by their parents determines their “attachment strategy” throughout their lives. A person’s attachment strategy likely explains why their relationships have succeeded or failed, the manner in which they did, and why they are attracted to who they are attracted to.
The four attachment strategies people adopt are: secure, anxious, avoidant and anxious-avoidant.
1) Secure: people who are comfortable displaying interest and affection. These people are both comfortable showing affection towards their loved ones while also being alone and independent. They can prioritize what’s important in their relationships and can draw clear boundaries. Secure people can accept rejection when it happens and can also be loyal during tough times. People who are secure are the best people to have a relationship with.
It turns out that more than 60% of the population are of the secure type, according to research. Secure attachment is developed in childhood by infants who regularly get their needs met, as well as receive ample quantities of love and affection.
2) Anxious: people who are often nervous and stressed about their relationships. These people need constant reassurance and affection from their partners. They are uncomfortable being alone, and often succumb to abusive relationships. Anxious people have trouble trusting their partners. This is the girl who constantly wants to check their boyfriend’s messages and the guy who follows his girlfriend to work out of fear she’s going to meet someone else.
Anxious attachments are developed early in life from infants who receive love and care unpredictably from their parents.
3) Avoidant: extremely independent, comfortable being alone and uncomfortable with intimacy. These people have massive problems with commitment and can often rationalize themselves out of any intimate situation. They are highly sensitive to feelings of being “crowded” or “suffocated” in a relationship, and in every relationship they always have an exit strategy. Avoidant types of people often create a lifestyle that supports their constant independence.
It’s the man who works 80 hours a week and gets frustrated when his partner wants to spend some quality time together on the weekend. It’s the woman who dates many partners over a number of years, telling them all she “doesn’t want anything serious.” Often, before encountering these attachment types, avoidant people have no idea they are creating the problem.
This attachment strategy is usually developed in childhood by infants who only get some of their needs met while the rest are neglected.
4) Anxious-avoidant: the “fearful type” who bring the worst of both worlds. These types of people are not only afraid of emotional commitment and connection. They also lash out at people who try to get close to them. Anxious-avoidant types often spend large amounts of time alone, but they’re miserable in doing so.
Only a small percentage of people are anxious-avoidant types, and they sometimes may also have other emotional problems in other areas of their lives too. Anxious-avoidant types develop from abusive or terribly negligent childhoods.
What happens when different attachment types date each other?
According to attachment theory, different configurations of relationship types coming together have different impacts on the nature of the relationship itself.
Secure types are capable of dating both anxious and avoidant types. They’re comfortable enough with themselves to give anxious types the reassurance they need and to give avoidant types the space they need without feeling threatened themselves.
Anxious and avoidant types often end up in relationships with one another. This is because avoidant types are so good at putting off others that it’s only the anxious types that stick around. And the lack of emotional availability of the avoidant types ends up triggering the anxiety of the anxious type, which keeps them coming back for more.
Anxious-avoidants often date each other, or the least secure of the anxious types or avoidant types. These relationships are often abusive or negligent.
This theory suggests that people can shift their attachment patterns over time. Secure types can help anxious or avoidant people “level up” over the course of their relationship, but unfortunately, the converse is also true with avoidants and anxious people also able to “bring down” their secure partners.
What attachment theory can and can’t tell you about yourself
The first point worth making is that no theory can perfectly describe who a person is. Identifying with the avoidant type doesn’t make someone a “flawed individual.” The insights from attachment theory are better used as a guide for creating personal shifts.
As Manson points out, everybody has elements of each attachment type. Most people, though, end up demonstrating the behaviors of one particular attachment more than the others over time.
Someone might recognise elements of the secure type in themselves, along with moments of anxiety, yet still find that a perpetually single life is best explained by the avoidant type.
From there, the work is to address the parts of oneself that drive avoidant behaviors. This isn’t about being a bad person or assuming something is wrong; it is the recognition that there is always room for personal improvement, and that it is possible to change one’s circumstances and become more secure with intimacy and companionship.
For anyone who wants a committed and intimate relationship, the first commitment is to oneself and to creating the change from within. A few principles help anchor that work:
- How a person treats others in a relationship mirrors how they treat themselves.
- What someone wants from others in a relationship is often what they need to give themselves.
- The most important relationship to cultivate is the one a person has with themselves.
- Becoming secure in the relationship with oneself tends to translate into more secure relationships with others.
Written out like this, it can seem simple. In practice, internalising it tends to take far longer.
Practised consistently, this kind of daily attention to the relationship with oneself tends to produce noticeable change. A person can still be single while becoming markedly more secure in their relationships with others, and more confident about the kind of partner they would be in a loving and intimate relationship.
Whether that understanding ultimately leads to an intimate relationship matters less than it might seem. Self-respect and genuine self-regard are worthwhile outcomes in their own right.
The Sovereign Mind lens
Understanding attachment theory through The Sovereign Mind framework reveals deeper layers to relationship patterns that often go unexamined.
- Unlearning: Many people inherit cultural scripts about “finding the one” or the belief that love should feel effortless, without questioning how these romantic myths can mask emotional unavailability or unrealistic expectations.
- Restoration: Building genuine intimacy requires the ability to stay present with uncomfortable emotions rather than automatically retreating into familiar patterns of avoidance or anxiety when vulnerability arises.
- Defense: Recognising one’s attachment style helps separate genuine incompatibility from the defensive stories people tell themselves to maintain emotional distance when a relationship starts to feel real.
How to start building secure attachment patterns
For anyone wondering why they are still single, understanding their attachment style is only the beginning of meaningful change.
- Notice your exit strategies: Pay attention to how you mentally prepare to leave before relationships even get serious. What stories do you tell yourself about why someone isn’t “quite right”?
- Stay present with discomfort: When you feel that familiar urge to pull away or create distance, pause and breathe through the sensation rather than immediately acting on it.
- Practice small vulnerabilities: Start sharing slightly more personal thoughts or feelings than feels comfortable, even in friendships, to build your tolerance for emotional exposure.
- Examine your relationship with yourself: Notice how you speak to yourself during difficult moments. The harshness or kindness you show yourself often mirrors how you’ll treat others.
- Question your timeline expectations: Challenge beliefs about how quickly intimacy should develop or how relationships should “feel” in the early stages.
- Seek feedback from trusted friends: Ask people close to you what they’ve noticed about your relationship patterns. Sometimes people have blind spots that others can see clearly.
