"Why We Chase People Who Make Us Anxious (and Ignore the Ones Who Calm Us) "

The human heart is often an unreliable narrator, leading us toward narratives of high drama and emotional volatility, even when our minds crave peace. In the theatre of modern romance, it’s a puzzlingly common script: we find ourselves overwhelmingly, sometimes even obsessively, drawn to the people who create a knot of anxiety in our stomachs, who are inconsistent, or whose affection is a constant, shifting challenge. Simultaneously, we often view the steady, secure, and genuinely kind people, the ones who consistently offer calm, with a strange sense of boredom or apprehension, dismissing them as "too nice" or lacking a certain "spark." This pattern isn’t a coincidence or a flaw in our character; it’s a deeply ingrained psychological phenomenon, primarily explained by attachment theory, the dynamics of intermittent reinforcement, and the subconscious drive to repeat and ultimately resolve childhood emotional scripts.

At the core of this anxious attraction lies Attachment Theory, originally developed by John Bowlby and expanded by Mary Ainsworth.1 This theory posits that the emotional bonds we form with our primary caregivers in infancy shape our expectations and behaviors in adult relationships. Roughly speaking, people fall into one of three main insecure adult attachment styles: Anxious, Avoidant, or Disorganized. It is the anxious attachment style that most directly fuels the chase of the unavailable partner. An anxiously attached person, often having experienced inconsistent caregiving in childhood, sometimes warm and responsive, sometimes distant and preoccupied, develops a core belief that love is conditional and scarce.2 Their nervous system is therefore primed to see high emotional arousal and uncertainty as the very definition of love. When they encounter a partner who is emotionally inconsistent or non-committal (often someone with an avoidant attachment style), it triggers this familiar, high-stakes dynamic. The chase isn't about the person; it's about validating their deepest internal script: "I must work tirelessly to earn love." The anxiety, paradoxically, feels like proof that the relationship is important and worth fighting for.

Conversely, the calm, stable partner often fails to activate this deeply ingrained emotional circuitry. A securely attached person offers consistent warmth, clear communication, and reliability, all of which contradict the anxious person's familiar, dramatic narrative of love.3 Because there is no "work" to be done, no looming threat of abandonment, the anxious person’s nervous system can misinterpret the absence of anxiety as an absence of passion. Their internal alarm bells, which usually signal a meaningful bond, remain silent, leading them to feel flat, bored, or even questioning whether they're truly "in love." This feeling of "lacking a spark" is often just the uncomfortable, unfamiliar sensation of being truly safe and secure, an experience their emotional blueprint hasn't learned to recognize as desirable or exciting. The calm partner is inadvertently filtered out as irrelevant because they don’t provide the intensity that their emotional history has equated with romantic desire.

Beyond attachment styles, the psychological principle of intermittent reinforcement plays a devastating role. This is the same principle that makes slot machines so addictive. When a reward is given unpredictably, sometimes you get a huge payoff, sometimes you get nothing, the behavior preceding the reward is dramatically strengthened. In anxious relationships, the reward is the partner’s affection, attention, or validation. The anxious partner is subjected to a cycle where the avoidant partner is occasionally warm and close, but often distant, quiet, or withdrawn. This inconsistency elevates the value of the scarce reward. When the distant partner finally sends a thoughtful text or suggests a date, the anxious partner experiences a massive rush of dopamine and relief. This intensely positive reinforcement, occurring after a period of high anxiety (the "chase" or the "wait"), locks the behavior; the chasing, the analyzing, the worrying into place. The calm, stable partner, who offers consistent affection, provides steady, predictable reinforcement. While this is healthier, it doesn't trigger the same addictive dopamine surge, and thus, the relationship doesn't feel as dramatically "exciting" or compelling.

There is also a deeper, more subconscious motivation: the repetition compulsion. Coined by Freud, this is the unconscious drive to repeat traumatic or difficult life events in an effort to master or overcome them. Many people who chase anxiety-inducing partners are subconsciously trying to "fix" a pattern from their past, often involving a distant, critical, or inconsistent parent. They project this unresolved emotional script onto their current partner, hoping that this time, they will be able to perform the right actions to finally earn consistent, unconditional love. The unconscious thought process is: "If I can get this avoidant, distant person to finally commit to me and love me fully, it will prove that I am worthy of love, and finally heal that old wound." The calm partner offers no opportunity for this "mastery," as there is no wound to be created or healed; they already offer what the person is desperately seeking. The repetition compulsion drives the anxious partner back toward the familiar pain, viewing it not as pain, but as an opportunity for ultimate emotional triumph.

Breaking this cycle requires a radical re-education of the nervous system. It means consciously choosing to prioritize calm over chaos, and reframing the steady presence of security as the most valuable, rather than the least exciting, characteristic in a partner. It involves therapy to address the underlying attachment wounds and to learn how to self-soothe when the familiar anxiety arises, rather than projecting that anxiety onto a partner.4 The "spark" we chase in the anxious relationship is often just the feeling of danger and adrenaline. The truly lasting and profound "spark" is the quiet, sustained warmth of secure attachment—the feeling that you can truly rest, be seen, and simply be with another person, a connection that fosters growth rather than demanding exhaustive labor. The long-term reward of choosing calm over chaos is not boredom, but authentic peace, and the freedom to finally stop running in an emotionally draining race.