You ever just… realize you’ve engineered your entire life to avoid something? Like, you wake up and it hits you — this whole elaborate system you built. I’m 31. My parents, bless them, they’re already dropping hints about grandkids, about finding a "nice boy" from back home. And I nod, I smile, I tell them yeah, soon. But “soon” for me means the guy who just moved to a different continent for work, or the one who's always "too busy" for anything more than an hour-long coffee every few weeks. My friend, she’s a florist, in her fifties. She dates exclusively men who are clearly emotionally unavailable or live in other countries. She just got back from seeing some guy in Bangkok, apparently. And I'm sitting there, listening to her talk about it, and it's like a mirror. I’m doing the exact same thing, just… younger. It’s not even conscious. Or maybe it is? Is it some kind of pre-emptive strike against… what? Commitment? Vulnerability? It feels like an avoidance attachment style, textbook definition, but I don't *feel* like I’m avoiding anything. I feel like I'm just living my life. But then why do I keep choosing the impossible ones? There’s this pressure, right? To get married, have a career, have kids, all by a certain age. From my family, from everyone around me. And I’ve got the career part down, I guess. But the rest… it’s like I’m setting myself up for failure on purpose, but it feels like success. Like I’m WINNING by staying unattached. Is that messed up? Does everyone feel this push-and-pull, this internal sabotage of their own supposed desires? Or am I just… fundamentally broken in a way I haven't quite articulated yet.