The Night of the Living Avoidants

I remember the moment vividly. I wasn’t sure about the etiquette for hosting a birthday party in the kitchen while my wife was dying in the back room.

• Should guests be given a meeting with the person of honor?

• Do we pop open beers or speak in hushed tones?

When the “party-goers” arrived, I instinctively entered host mode. I shook off my confusion about how to host and decided to love up the guests in the kitchen — music playing, beers in hand. How strange – these people came to support me! What a concept, “ME!!! And not Us.” For a brief moment, I felt strong, complete, and whole, rather than fractured and broken.

I vividly remember at my “birthday party” being tasked with carrying the torch. Celebrating my next self was being offered to me, and I accepted.

After the birthday pie, I invited people to visit Karen. Some people instinctively disappeared while others assembled on the outdoor deck, doors open, a few feet away. As they peered through the door, I felt ashamed to have foisted such a jarring vision — to see their once-vital friend hovering between worlds, looking gaunt. My musician friend Anahata broke into song.

After the guests left, I slid into bed, defeated at last by the crushing fatigue. I cowered under the covers like a child and let the demon thoughts pull me under the surface.

The pictures that had described my life were now erased, leaving my primordial screen blank. Effectively, I had become a modern-day Rip Van Winkle, waking up to a world of unrequited relationships that bore little resemblance to what I navigated when Karen and I met 40 years earlier.

I plowed forward, a day at a time, twisting the little dials — hoping for a future partner to emerge. The resulting image defied expectations:

The next December, after 12 months of hapless attempts at reinvention, and at the conclusion of my annual Rumi event, I noticed a guest in the back of the room.

Background: When Rumi died in Konya, Turkey, on December 17, 1273, his disciples bound together to form the Mevlevi Order – better known today as the Whirling Dervishes. Through a mix of fate and destiny, I helped bring Rumi’s path to America as a young man. Every year, Karen and I hosted a celebration, which I continue.

The whirling releases a spiritual energy that causes hearts to open and tears to flow – except for the mysterious woman in the back of the room, who seemed oddly out of place. Still in my turning robes, I went to each guest and thanked them for coming. I finally approached the mystery guest:

“Hi, I’m Bruce. How did you find your way here?”

“I’m Alice. Christine brought me here.”

I was struck by her bluntness – like someone from my native Chicago (which turned out to be the case!)

Flash forward two Decembers.

UK astrologer Pam Gregory advised:

“This is a period of profound formlessness and creative potential. Being a supermoon, the moon is very close to Earth. So, it intensifies energies, including heightened dreams and intuition.

“And as I’ve mentioned before, when you wake up, if you remember your dream, don’t open your eyes, don’t move, don’t do anything, just keep your eyes closed, keep in the same position, and recall your dream.”

Following Gregory’s advice, I composed much of this Substack in my dream.

I imagined a remake of George A. Romero’s 1968 low-budget zombie masterpiece, Night of the Living Dead — but instead of zombies, the town was crawling with Avoidants.

To be precise, Dismissive Avoidants:

A dismissive avoidant is a person with an attachment style characterized by emotional distance, a high degree of self-reliance, and a discomfort with intimacy. They tend to suppress their emotions, avoid deep connections, and prioritize their independence, often believing they don’t need emotional support from others. This style can make it difficult to form and maintain close relationships due to a fear of dependence and vulnerability.1

Jung gives great credence to dreams (no surprise), and I am just beginning to be curious. Here are three quotes that steered me to attend to the dream:

“The dream is a spontaneous self-portrayal, in symbolic form, of the actual situation in the unconscious.” – ‘The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche’

I get it. My unconscious is yelling — “Pay attention!”

“A dream that is not understood remains a mere occurrence; understood, it becomes a living experience.” – ‘The Practice of Psychotherapy’

Instead of a dream being more noise on the radio dial, inquiring into it makes it part of my lived experience — something I can integrate.

“The general function of dreams is to balance such disturbances in the mental equilibrium by producing contents of a complementary or compensatory kind.” – ‘The Symbolic Life’

Too many big words, Carl. I see myself as centered and calm, but in truth, the Avoidants are disturbing my equilibrium. Here’s to hoping dreams will help.

Jerry Lewis proudly made his telethons a display of stamina, hosting for 22 hours straight. If you’re too young to remember the vibe, here’s Jerry Lewis and Ed McMahon in that year, hitting the $20 million mark in the final 30 minutes:

I also worked the Cerebral Palsy telethon, which featured an official Poster Child. I took her picture with Ronald Reagan and President Gerald Ford:

I was a young Sufi, living an austere spiritual life in the Institute for Conscious Life in Los Angeles. My psychic sense was shocked in an Emperor’s New Clothes way when Reagan walked into the room. He seemed all suave and sunny to the media people. But I saw something different. I turned around, wanting to shout, “Don’t you see?” I saw a dark cruelty. He emanated a f*ck-the-little people vibe.

She was adorably blonde, didn’t have crutches, but the TV audience showered her with love as the Big Board Dollars grew

Jung advises that a dream is an actual situation in the unconscious, so maybe an Avoidant Telethon is a thing. The people working the phones could be fielding matchmaking partners.

Why is this an actual situation in my unconscious? The Threads algorithm has been flooding my feed with posts about Avoidants —all screaming with zombie alarm: “Run, run, while you can!”

I discovered a cottage industry for Avoidants — books, classes, coaching — all trading on emotional distress to earn fast cash.

She’s a stalwart in the Gurdjieff work. Years ago, she lived with Karen and me while applying to the doctoral program at Columbia Theological Seminary.

Bruce: Hi Daphne.

Daphne: What a treat to hear from you.

Bruce: I’m writing about the Avoidant personality type, and I remember you presenting a thesis on this.

Daphne: Yes, I wanted to use the myth of Narcissus to research the importance of maternal attachment. In the myth, Narcissus rejects his lovers in favor of his own image in the pool.

Bruce: As I understand it, when there’s an emotionally distant or unresponsive mother, the child learns to suppress their emotional needs to survive.

Daphne: Yes. Even if the mother prioritizes independence and physical care while neglecting emotional needs, the child must become self-sufficient without learning to bond.

Bruce: So the child learns to suppress emotions and fear dependency?

Daphne: Yes. The child is unable to form intimate bonds later in life — what you’re calling Bondo.

Bruce: I feel like a modern-day Rip Van Winkle — after a 40-year marriage, I’m discovering avoidants for the first time. They’re everywhere. EVERYWHERE! People on the Internet pathologize them.

Daphne: We formed Quaker-based spiritual nurture groups to heal this wound. Six to nine people come together — for a year or more — to deepen relationships and learn to build trust.

Bruce: To help rebuild the maternal bond?

Daphne: I’m doing it now with a Gurdjieff group. I feel as though I am being remade.

Bruce: I actually love my Avoidant almost-girlfriend — but keep a serious distance. It’s so confusing. Can you love an Avoidant?

Daphne: If you enjoy her company, yes.

“Some relationship advice,” Daphne offered. “Being an avoidant myself (I think lots of girls are)… I think the trick is to go deep… heart to heart… slowly, slowly, slowly.

“How do you establish that heart connection? My sense of things is that when intimacy arises from that deeper/higher heart place first, there is real possibility. If you recall, that’s where you and Karen started from. You were young and not fully aware, yet you shared the spiritual work.

“Without that deeper heart connection, we can only be friends.”

It was Alice, 2:28 am. An owl hooted from a tree, plus the supermoon. With the nocturnals in full swing, I decided to join them.

I flipped my creative switch on and began to script the Avoidant Telethon in my mind. This is very much something I would do.

1. Why is the Avoidant Telethon raising money? To fund nurture groups that re-parent the capacity for intimacy. “One hundred dollars helps send a maternal-bond-deficient child to Bondo Camp — plus you get a tote bag!”

   

2. And the poster child? I could see her being stunningly cute, but longing to be cuddled. Imagine the Got Milk campaign, but with the celebrities cuddling a child.

   

3. And the MC? Definitely not Jerry Lewis. I vote for Aretha Franklin — the big Aretha wearing the brown Russian sable coat while performing “You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman” at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2015.

Aretha lost her mother when she was 9. Then gave birth to her first son at age 12 and her second son at age 14. She had two more boys. Aretha Franklin’s sisters and her grandmother played significant roles in raising her children while Aretha focused on her career. Aretha is perfect to make maternal bonding her cause.

Sidebar: Aretha’s father, the charismatic C.L Franklin, was the most famous preacher in America — famed for his powerful sermons and promiscuous womanizing. My best friend Rob and I would catch his Detroit sermons on AM radio — suburban Jewish kids absolutely transfixed. For as long as I live, I will remember C.L. preaching about Nehemiah and the Great Work: Scroll in to the 20 minute mark where C.L. builds an explosive head of steam: “I am doing a great work, so I can’t come down.” Listen here.

“What if ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ became the Avoidant Telethon anthem? Wow, with some googling, I discover Jerry Lewis sang it at every Telethon. In this video, he was clearly spent. Maybe it’s his 22-hour closer.

When you walk through a storm
Hold your head up high, and don’t be afraid of the dark
At the end of the storm is a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark Walk on through the wind
Walk on through the rain Tho’ your dreams be tossed and blown
Walk on, walk on With hope in your heart
And you’ll never walk alone You’ll never walk alone

Now we’re cooking! Here’s Aretha singing the song at L.A.’s New Temple Missionary Baptist Church, taking it into uncharted territory. The album won a Grammy and was turned into a film. Mick Jaggar was in the pews:

I imagine little children rushing the stage to hug Aretha’s Russian sable coat while dollars whizz on the big board. The Avoidants watching at home flood with tears — knowing at last, it’s safe to love.

Something lifts in me. Maybe my heart is big enough for Avoidants.

Thank you, Aretha.

I learn that the song has a fucked-up backstory:

“In the second act of the Rogers and Hammerstein musical Carousel, Nettie Fowler, the cousin of the protagonist Julie Jordan, sings “You’ll Never Walk Alone” to comfort and encourage Julie when her husband, Billy Bigelow, the male lead, stabs himself with a knife whilst trying to run away after attempting a robbery with his mate Jigger and dies in her arms.” Wiki

Say what? I’ll leave that to Jung. Importantly, we could cover the entire Telethon with this one song:

Johnny Cash, Barbra Streisand, Elvis, Sinatra, Righteous Brothers, and Nina Simone. What’s more, the entire Liverpool soccer stadium sings the ballad on Pink Floyd’s “Fearless.”

I never ask this question, but Aretha gives me no choice: ‘What would Jesus do?’ He would love all God’s children, of course — especially the Avoidants.

What is an Avoidant? Someone who avoids life.

That’s why we are all Avoidants.