Attachment Styles in the DMs: How We Swipe, Sext, and Self-Sabotage
Online dating has proven itself here to stay. No matter if its sliding into someone else's DMs, or swiping right and finding your match. Maybe you swipe up on your crush's stories regularly. Or maybe you like to keep it subtle and just heart a post from time to time. Eventually though, you match and well, you vibe. Then you ghosted them because their last text was overly enthusiastic, or they started to love bomb. Maybe you stayed up until 2 a.m. overanalyzing why you didn’t get a response right away. If dating apps and DMs feel like emotional landmines, you’re not alone.
Most often we tend to think of dating as chemistry and compatibility—but your attachment style might be the hidden algorithm shaping how you connect, disconnect, and spiral in this constantly evolving digital age.
A Quick Refresher on Attachment Styles
Attachment theory was developed by British psychoanalyst John Bowlby in the 1950s. Mary Ainsworth, a developmental psychologist, expanded on Bowlby’s ideas in the 60s, where she identified three main attachment styles: secure, anxious (ambivalent), and avoidant. In the 80s, psychologist Mary Main, later added a fourth attachment style, disorganized. Around this time, researchers such as Hazan and Shaver began applying attachment theory to adult romantic relationships and connected how we date, love, argue, or avoid intimacy through them. Let’s simplify it:
• Secure: Comfortable with closeness and intimacy. Secure daters tend to trust more easily, communicate clearly, have healthy boundaries, and assume good intentions.
• Anxious: When you’re anxious, it often comes from an underlying fear of abandonment. You might crave connection through reassurance or validation and rely on partners to define self-worth.
• Avoidant: If you’re avoidant, you likely tend to suppress emotions or avoid emotional intimacy. Daters needs space for fear of losing independence and prioritize self-reliance. Individuals often struggle with vulnerability.
• Disorganized: Daters tend to have a fear of rejection under the surface. When you’re disorganized, you may crave intimacy but distrust it.
These different styles may be formed early in childhood, but they can show up loud and clear in how we relate to the modern courtship of apps, texting, and swiping.
Modern Dating Behaviors That Might Be Attachment-Driven
Key word being might; continue reading to explore why that quick text or a left swipe can send you spiraling. Our attachment patterns can sneak into our digital lives, help us, or yes, slightly hinder us. Please remember, none of these make you broken. They just make you human.
Anxious?
If you’re anxious, you might be the type that is constantly checking to see if someone viewed your story or liked your most recent post. Maybe you like sending screenshots to your group chat for reassurance. Ever find yourself rereading messages looking for hidden meaning you may have missed the first time around, or to rekindle old feelings and seek comfort? Could be that you’re anxious. If the tone of the messages coming in have a subtle change or delayed replies upset you and leave you feeling rejected, it could be a key indicator of your anxious attachment style. Especially if you find yourself rushing to “fix” a vibe shift—even if it’s imaginary.
Want to spot the anxious someone who slid into your DM? They might be texting or messaging frequently, particularly if you don’t respond. Maybe they’re really tuned into minor changes in your tone and response times. If you’re dating someone anxious, they may seek reassurance often or worry they may have done something wrong.
Avoidant?
If you’re avoidantly attached, you might delay replying because it feels overwhelming or like pressure. Good morning messages sending you? Feeling smothered by a plethora of deep conversations? These leading you to end things before they start to feel more real, or you suddenly disappear after a close moment? Might be avoidant.
Dating someone avoidant, you may experience someone who rarely initiates texting but responds when prompted. They may even start hot, then suddenly stop replying. They may seem present with you one moment and then distant the next. Intimacy could feel like a slow climb, or they pull away just as things deepen.
Disorganized?
If you’re disorganized, you may have your own high highs and low lows when it comes to dating. Dating when you show up disorganized comes with push and pulls. You could be ghosting to avoid getting hurt and returning to test your crushes loyalty, boundaries, or due to feelings of overwhelm after a flirty DM. Sexting as a way to test someone’s desire, but panicking when they reciprocate? Could be disorganized. Maybe you find yourself asking for your friends' advice about a match but struggling to take it.
Dating someone disorganized may feel confusing. They may show up warm and then become withdrawn. Maybe they seem to not always know what they need, but tell you they feel everything. Their emotional intensity can seem confusing.
Secure?
If you’re securely attached, you might approach texting with calm and clarity—no games, no mind reading. If response time is slow, you assume good intentions. You can communicate your needs and boundaries without the drama. You can swipe with curiosity, not scarcity, and when someone isn’t a good fit, you move on without spiraling.
If you find that you’ve swiped right on someone secure, you might notice that they don’t rely on ambiguous messaging—they'll say exactly what they mean. They will respect your time and boundaries, especially when you don’t text back. Maybe they show up consistently and don’t pressure you for constant contact. Its a grounding presence, not chaotic or confusing, especially through text.
It’s Okay to Be Where You Are
These might sound really bad, but trust that none of these behaviors make you broken, unlovable, or “bad at dating.” Attachment styles are coping mechanisms that have been developed over time to survive relationships that didn’t teach us how to feel safe. Love is open to you bringing the mess, the tender, and the evolving.
Because relationships can be healing too, opposed to villainizing someone for the way they show up—you can notice, name, and make choices with clarity. Being avoidant doesn’t make someone cold. Being anxious doesn’t make someone clingy. These are just strategies for connection and more importantly, self-protection. What does matter is how you own them, and how you show up every day in a way that is open and curious.
If you're dating and someone’s attachment style challenges yours, you might:
Pause before reacting. Ask: What part of me is feeling activated?
Communicate needs early and honestly—without assuming the worst.
Offer grace and boundaries. You can honor your experience without demonizing theirs.
Steps Toward Security (Without Forcing It)
Attachment styles and behaviors don’t magically change overnight either, and you shouldn’t feel the pressure to do so. What you can do is build more awareness and more regulation with small shifts. Here are some gentle movements toward security:
Slow your scroll. Pause before swiping. Ask what you’re really seeking.
Name the trigger. Is it silence? Mixed signals? Be curious.
Co-regulate. Reach out to friends not just for the tea, but for grounding.
Reflect before reacting. Is that urge to ghost coming from fear or fatigue?
Once again, your attachment patterns are not flaws. They’re protectors. But sometimes they guard us from exactly what we want. Dating these days—where AI is prevalent, swipes are in the 100s, and HD means revealing pores before personality—is messy, but also a mirror. Your texts, habits, and ghosting tendencies all hold insight. But just think about swiping inward, because honestly, no matter how many unread messages you have, the one that matters most is the one you send to yourself: "I deserve love that feels safe."