Have you ever dated someone who keeps their inner world totally off-limits?

[ForCosyLion]

So, this is a bit of a weird one. Been dating a guy for about eight months. It's long-distance. We meet up about once a month. We text and talk all the time. The relationships is full of humour and laughter. He's funny, he makes me laugh, I make him laugh, and seems really into me. He even says he loves me.

But. As lovely as he is, I can't deny that I find him a bit emotionally shallow. I don't know if he really IS just a surface-level person and there's just not that much under the bonnet, or if it's a calculated strategy in order not to get that close.

I'm the kind of person who connects with others as a deep level (if they want that too) and I find long, deep conversations to be very satisfying. I've always had hours-long conversations with my female friends where we've talked about everything under the sun.

The reason this has come up now is because his elderly father died a few days ago, and when I ask if he's OK, all he says is "I'm good" and such. The death was not a shock. But still.

I really like him, but I'm feeling starved of a deep connection.

Has anyone else known someone who simply will not let you into their inner world and doesn't ask about yours? With him, I don't even know if he HAS an inner world. Maybe he's just very straightforward. I don't think I've ever had such a surface-level relationship with anyone that I'm otherwise close to. I actually didn't know it was possible to have such a laugh with someone, sleep with them, talk to them all the time, and not get into anything beyond surface-level emotion.

If he doesn't want to share, that's fine. I can't make him, and it may be that he's just not that one for me.

I wondered if anyone had experienced a relationship like this? Do some people simply not HAVE an inner world?!

Hmm. Until very recently I was in a similar relationship post-long marriage. We used to joke that his mind was full of fluff like Pooh Bear with no deep thoughts at all. I decided that was fine because he was warm and dependable, and I didn’t need any more from him. Good thing, as actually his mind was full of extreme pornography and he got carted off by the police.

Hopefully that’s not true for you, but your gut is telling you something here…

In the 8 months, have you been to his home, met his friends, family or work colleagues?

Be careful not to get bogged down in a relationship which doesn't meet your needs. Its early days and I'm sure he's a great guy and you have lots of fun but if the lack of emotional depth is bugging you now, it'll be bugging you in five years.

All this is very hard to pin down, though. Its a lived experience. I've been in relationship six years with my partner and she has very little emotional depth. We sort of just bump along the surface. Conversations tend to be on a 'how was your day' type level. She talks a lot though but strangely not about much. It'll be about her friend's holiday or the price of petrol. I've tried to build a deeper connection but she simply doesn't want or need it, it seems. We do some lovely things, go to some nice places but it all tends to have a superficial feel about it, most of the time.

I'm not a quivering bag of emotions or very needy but for me at least, having a deeper connection would allow my relationship to work better. She'll tends to sidestep or put the brakes on anything deeper developing. Paradoxically, she wanted me to develop a stronger relationship with her grandchildren, which I have done and I get on well with her grown up kids and extended family, which is great. We've gone through illness and beteavement during our time together and whilst I supported her through both, the deeper connection we had during thst time was temporary.

Obviously, we don't live together but live close by. We've never got to that living together stage. But three years ago, she wanted me to move closer to her; which I did. However, she announced yesterday that living together would not work and would be happy for me to continue in a place of my own, even if its in a different area than I am now. No - she doesn't want to split up. Its all quite bizarre. Its affected out sex life because it just feels quite transactional and frankly, this far into our relationship, doesn't do it for me.

Throughout our time together, her approach has been somewhat contradictory. However, she can get upset if I stop trying to create something deeper with her. That confuses me. Retirement looms and God knows what that will be like.

Apologies for banging on about my own situation. Its just that yours resonated a little.

me too

Re his father, will you be attending the funeral? Has he asked you to or have you said 'I'd like to support you at the funeral?'.
This may give you more answers.
It may be that this is not a ltr for you x
In the meantime enjoy the sex.

I’d consider of he has alexithymia, the inability to name and communicate your emotions. It often occurs with autism so I would question if he’s autistic and masking? It’s very odd to be fine if your Dad has just died and I’d think that a huge red flag.

I used to enjoy deep conversations as a teenager and in my 20s. I don't really enjoy them now, I'd rather be reading or getting on with things. But I definitely have an inner world!

I didn't talk about it much when my Dad died. I didn't particularly want to or feel a need to. I was sad about it but didn't have much to say about it beyond that and I preferred talking about less depressing things. I also wasn't that close to him, so although I was sad and did grieve, probably not as much as other people might have expected.

A death affects people in different ways some people want to talk some don't, some don't want to talk until much later.

He may be numb with grief at the moment. When I heard my mum had died I was saying'thanks, I am fine, was expecting it.' for days. Grief came after the funeral and lasted intensely for months. Give him time then ask if he missed his dad.

I also like deep discussions. Not politics or anything but just things I find interesting or just a conversation that can go into many different directions. I had a long term bf who, like OP’s bf, just wasn’t interested in debates (for want of a better word). I found it frustrating. One example was we happened to start talking about Geisha (I think we might have watched Memoirs of a Geisha). He insisted they were just s*x workers and I didn’t agree. This was a subject I found very interesting, but after two minutes he just cut the conversation off. That was the norm. I left him in the end because we weren’t right for each other.

To be honest, I tend to keep my emotions private from everyone.... it's not an "inner world" if we're sharing it with others! I have lots of thoughts that I never discuss with a soul. I don't think your partner is shallow, he just prefers a level of privacy.

I remember feeling frustrated that my partner wouldn't open up to me much the first couple of years we were together, I think partly because he would get very sad about things when he'd had a drink so it felt like he did need to talk. He is very emotionally repressed and only expressed sadness about the death of his parent a couple of times to me while drinking (complicated relationship as others have said).

But he's very affectionate and we have intellectually stimulating conversations and the same values so I wouldn't say he's at all shallow. I actually think shallow is a very disrespectful way to describe anyone, never mind a partner. It's very dismissive.

I think part of my wanting him to open up was to give me permission to do it. I masked around him for years until the pandemic when we were together 24/7 and I couldn't keep it up any more. So I think it was ultimately quite selfish of me to want that (a combination of wanting to feel special because he would open up to me and wanting permission to unload on him). And now I miss when it was easy to mask around him because being with him used to be a reliable escape from my feelings.

I have met people who grief seems to have really opened them up to sharing deeply very easily, I am wondering if that's a factor for you as you mention you have both experienced loss? I just wouldn't say needing a lot of deep conversations is necessarily a sign of emotional health either.

I am on the side of 8 months long distance feels early to expect this kind of emotional intimacy and I don't think loving someone automatically means you want to share your inner world with them, sometimes that's actually easier with someone you know less well eg a counsellor.

I will admit the part I still find frustrating is my partner's lack of curiousity about others' inner worlds but I think this is again really about me because I have so much curiousity about it. So I constantly want to know why did they do x and why did they think y and that's not a conversation he finds interesting, which is fair enough!

Also on the him not asking you how you are etc. Is it possible this is because he doesn't like to be asked so is treating you as he likes to be treated? I found with my partner I have had to model behaviour over time especially asking about each other's day and I still feel he now does it as a bit of a tick box which I'm fine with. I have had him get annoyed with me about going on my phone and 'ignoring him' when the previous few minutes were me asking him several questions about his day etc and then him not returning the question so the conversation died. He also used to call me up because he was bored/lonely when working away but again not do anything to sustain the conversation. So sometimes you do have to explain/model what you want to see because their background is different, though I would maybe expect someone older to have learned this by now, we met at 19/20. I probably ask too many questions because my dad interrogates everyone he meets (and it's my way of deflecting emotional intimacy - get them talking about themselves so I don't have to share about me 😄)

Or maybe it's too raw and immediate to voice? This is his grief, and he can handle it however he likes - sometimes a "stiff upper lip" is the right way to go.

I doubt there’s no emotion. Just not emotion he feels comfortable sharing with you. I’m a bit like how you describe him - I have a deep inner world, love deep conversations, thinking outside the box etc BUT I also find it difficult to trust people, don’t let people in easily at all, don’t like to feel vulnerable. The thought of making myself so vulnerable that I tell someone I really like but have only been dating 8 months and only meeting once a week, that I feel grief-stricken/sad/lonely etc fills me with absolute dread. I would just never put myself in a vulnerable position like that. Most people that have been consistently let down in the past or seriously hurt are the same. It takes a LOT for me to trust someone enough to let them into my inner world. They have to prove themselves and make themselves vulnerable to me first. It may take 2 years with a new partner. Perhaps he is similar?

I would also ask some questions to see whether he has aphantasia (an inability to create mental images or to have an 'inner life'). The men I have known who haven't wanted to have deep conversations have also had this. It might be pure coincidence but I find it fascinating. I don't know whether the lack of inner visualisation ability means that they DON'T have deeper feelings or that they find it harder to put words and images around those feelings.

I've not found that aphantasic women have the same problem, so maybe it's a man thing.

First response nails it…. This is me for sure.

I don’t do deep and meaningful conversations either, even with my DH. I don’t think I’m shallow I just don’t do emotions very well and keep my feelings and fears to myself. Maybe not healthy but works for me!

I went out with someone like that for 3 years. He was a very nice guy but it was rather dull. None of my other boyfriends were like him. It was really just a total lack of interest in human emotions and behaviour. He could analyse a sports match or talk about the relative merits of cars but he just wasn't interested in people, himself or anyone else. We weren't compatible.

I’m so glad I’m not the only one.
Long deep conversations remind me of being a teenager and thinking that my every thought was a profound insight.

Ive been married a very long time: long deep meaningful conversations aren’t really our thing: I mean we do talk to each other: but we certainly don’t have hours long conversations

People who don’t see them as wasted time?

People who have those conversations as part of a broader conversation on all sorts of topics, whilst they are out for a walk with a friend or sitting baking/having cups of tea?

People who are interested in finding out what others think, and why?

Also being unable to communicate is very indicative of low EQ, because inevitably they try to shut down conversations and keep them in a very narrrow range of scope and depth, panicking and getting defensive if they start to stray outside that.

This made me laugh out loud. I have a number of those in my life too 😂

You are completely unrealistic to expect this sort of conversation from someone whose father died only a few days ago! As you more or less admit yourself, it’s all about what you enjoy and want rather than thinking about this poor man's needs. Has it occurred to you that his feelings might run too deep at the moment for him to want to discuss them, especially with someone he’s only actually met in person a few times?

In my experience, some people who want to discuss others' feelings for hours are just as likely to be the shallow ones, avidly feeding off the emotions of others.

Some people, perhaps because of their upbringing, are uncomfortable talking about emotions or deep feelings. It doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t have such thoughts or feelings. If it means he’s not the one for you, fair enough, but you’re being unfair to assume it means he’s shallow.

I’ve been seeing someone for 7 months and I told him about a mental health episode where I was hospitalised on our first date briefly. I’ve also told him if I’ve had insomnia. I get the feeling he would have a deep convo with me but it’s not got quite to that stage yet, come close. But he’s opening up more and told me about his relationship with his father who he was very close to and died a year ago this month.

I just think some people just aren’t like that.

I’m thinking of one of my friends husbands (and one of DH’s best friends so we know him well). There’s absolutely no way he would sit and speak to anyone about anything deep for hours. Not a chance.

The two are totally unsuitable for each other, she is like you and craves more. I have no idea why they got married. She suffers from certain mental health issues and I think they are made worse by his unwillingness to have long chats with her, and she fact she has married the completely wrong man for her.

I would cut my losses now before you end up stuck somewhere that isn’t right for you. At least you’ve realised now.

I’m the same. Long deep conversations have a time and place. If it’s eg about the I Ching, Richard Hawkins or whatever my parents discuss then a deep conversation can be interesting.