I’ve been thinking a lot about compatibility in relationships (romantic or otherwise). Specifically, it seems like successful relationships require matching capacities for “seeing” and “being seen.” What I mean by “seeing” is the act of making space for another’s vulnerable emotions like grief or anger. When you see, you understand others. What I mean by “being seen” is the act of making these vulnerable moments obvious to others while receiving the empathy and care from the other person. When you’re seen you allow yourself to be understood. You could also call this attunement.
There are particular personalities that find one or both of these acts challenging. If you were taught independence and competency were the only way to deserve love, you may have a hard time letting yourself be seen. After all, being seen is an act of dependence and vulnerability. If you simply don’t have the emotional tools or bandwidth to sit with other people’s emotions, you may have a hard time seeing others.
In this post, I explore how matching attunement leads to different types of success or failure. This will be written from the perspective of the person being seen, since it might be easier to relate to.
Along the axis of attunement, there seem to be four possibilities:
| You Them | Sees | Does not see |
|---|---|---|
| Is ready to be seen | Goldilocks zone. Leads to close and/or romantic relationships. May last a lifetime, may last a week. | Feels unsupportive, like they don’t get you. May actually be the bottom left one, though. |
| Is not ready to be seen | Too much too fast. Leads to avoidance. | No spark. People drift apart. |
Ready to be seen and sees This is the one we’re all after. Where your desire to be seen is honored by the other person. These interactions are positive feedback loops and commonly lead to states of high emotional valence. Grief, anger, and elation may show up in force (and, hopefully, skillfully received). It’s wonderful, and likely to yield a heartfelt relationship, a friendship, or even a romantic relationship.
Although these interactions are deeply meaningful, the ensuing relationships not guaranteed to last forever. Their longevity seems to depend on a deeper alignment of values. Think of the honeymoon phase (which doesn’t happen only in romantic relationships!)
It is also an area to tread carefully if you find yourself emotionally vulnerable, because these are exactly the interactions where cult-leader-types thrive. They’re great at seeing and finding those in need of being seen, but they may knowingly (or unknowingly) take advantage of people.
Ready to be seen but is not seen A frustrating mismatch. You open up to someone and they don’t receive it. It’s easy to chalk this up to evil or meanness, but most of the time, people just don’t have the emotional bandwidth, tools, or even the sensitivity to realize what’s going on. In some cases, the lack of seeing is intentional: it avoids intimacy that may cloud judgment. This is common in the workplace.
Whatever it is, the correct response is to meet people where they are. Instead of assuming evil, perhaps gently (but clearly) bring up what you’re feeling. It may just be a case of a subtle interactive mismatch, where bids for connection are simply missing each other. Maybe you have different love languages. It’s very important to do this gently because shaming or forcing someone to see you will not work. In fact, this behavior may be why they don’t want to see you in the first place.
Now here’s one way this quadrant is misidentified: you may think you’re not being seen, when you’re in fact deflecting attempts at being seen. This could look like off-handed expressions of sadness or frustration followed by immediately changing the subject when your feelings are addressed. Or constantly seeking romantic connection but then pushing others away when your vulnerable, authentic self is revealed and things become too intimate.
One way this happens is if you were taught that you are conditionally deserving of love. For example, that you only get love if you were productive. Then you might deflect loving attention unless you feel deserving (and it’s always easy to find a reason why you’re not deserving). I’ve certainly seen this behavior in other people, especially those you would call “Type A” (I include myself here). But also, if you think you’re in this quadrant, you might actually be in the next one.
Not ready to be seen but seen This is when someone peeks into your soul before you’re ready for it. Some people are just good at seeing through your performative acts, and this can be uniquely uncomfortable if
- you weren’t aware your acts were performative.
- you aren’t comfortable accepting the parts of you hidden under the performance. An example: you spend years building up a perfect career and then someone asks you if you’re doing it because you’re insecure about being “enough”.
Another way this happens is through experiences that speedrun emotional intimacy:
A trip.
A dance.
A one-night stand.
This may force out tender bits of yourself before you’re ready for them!
Addressing the mismatch goes in two ways: One is the receiver feels uncomfortable with being seen, but they’re open to explore that feeling. This requires some level of emotional skill because digging into why you don’t like being seen typically brings out a bunch of deep shit (e.g. childhood trauma). A kind and compassionate see-er is also nice here.
Alternatively (and commonly), the person being seen pulls away. They’ll either explicitly state their discomfort and ask for space, or they might come up with an unrelated reason why the relationship can’t continue. This is commonly referred to as “avoidant behavior” by the attachment theory fans. Incidentally, American norms around communication actually makes avoidance really easy. There is very little social cost to not answering a text back, or avoiding further commitment with passive phrases like “let’s hang out sometime.”
As before, the correct behavior for all parties involved is to meet people where they are. If you’re not ready to be seen, then state your boundaries clearly. This may take some practice for the habitually conflict avoidant. If you habitually find yourself digging a bit too deep into others, remember: you can only meet people as deeply as they’ve met themselves! And maybe also inquire into why you insist on being a connection junky. An insecurity, perhaps?
Not ready to be seen and not seen You don’t care to be seen, and they don’t care to see you. Anecdotally, I’ve only ever seen this kind of relationship survive (temporarily) in very transactional settings. Both people benefit from the interaction through e.g., sex, status, money, but no real emotional depth happens. This is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, a good chunk of business happens in this quadrant. Once the transactions are done, however, separation likely follows.
What I’m after are good, meaningful, and honest relationships. And I’ve found that reflecting about matched attunement to be a great grounding practice. Once I know where I stand and what I want I may choose to have a hard conversation, invest even more resources into a relationship, or perhaps even end it entirely. Heartbreak is often involved. Alas, what others are and what we’d like them to be are not always the same. But I’ve yet to find a situation where this heartbreak doesn’t eventually lead to deeper, more meaningful connections.
Thank you for reading.
Fernando