Scans › What’s my attachment style? › Pair scan
Person A
The Radar
Together you scan as
The Chase
ANXIOUS + AVOIDANT · THE PURSUE-WITHDRAW TRAP
The classic trap: the Radar reaches, the Fortress steps back, the Radar reaches harder, the Fortress bolts. Each of you is doing the exact thing that triggers the other, and both of you feel like the reasonable one. It’s the most common painful pairing in attachment research, and the most written about.
Person B
The Fortress
A · READOUT
B · READOUT
What this pairing means
Anxious-avoidant is the pairing with the worst satisfaction scores and, oddly, some of the strongest initial attraction, because each confirms the other’s model of love: the Radar gets someone to chase, the Fortress gets someone who won’t leave. Without intervention it settles into a pursue-withdraw cycle that both find miserable. It can work, but only when both people name the cycle, the Fortress learns to stay a beat longer, and the Radar learns to stop pursuing before the door closes.
WHAT THE TWO OF YOU CAN DO
- Name the cycle together, out loud, and blame the cycle instead of each other.
- Fortress: stay in the conversation two minutes past comfortable. Say “I’m here” before you leave.
- Radar: when they pull back, do one thing for yourself before you reach again.
Read each archetype on its own
All 10 pairings on this scan