According to this helpful website, signs you are seeing an emotionally unavailable man include:

He’s recently separated.

Yep.

He’s very reliant on text messages, IM’ing and email for the majority of his contact. You’re not sure when you’ll hear from him next.

Um, check. Many, many checks.

He says he’s over his ex but he’s quietly still trying to cope with the end of the relationship.

Pretty sure that's right.

You think you’re in a relationship (albeit a casual, friendship-based one), but it’s closer to a booty call. He doesn’t come around to your place until late.

Hey, I don't think that's any of your business...

He determines the momentum of the relationship – you meet up when he wants to meet up. He can’t commit to anything, no matter how minuscule – everything that he’s asked, such as whether he can do something with you, is a big drama to get him to say yay or nay.

Uh oh. Yeah.

When you try to tackle the status of your relationship or any issues, he either tells you what you want to hear and then returns to his normal behaviour or he just skirts the issue. One way or the other, you wind up back at square one.

*sigh* Can I add to this? Invalidation of your feelings, abrupt change of subject, insistence that everything is Fine! with the expectation that is the end of conversation. It's all becoming so clear.

He is resistant to involving himself in your life. He talks about his problems, his successes, his life – it’s me, me, me all the way.

Well. Fuck.

Must run out the door to purchase a pile of self help books or something.

Yes, I found myself mixed up with an EUM. To be fair, he isn't a big jerk. He's actually a pretty amazing guy--smart, hilarious, fun, normally a caring and attentive friend, generous, good taste in music (very important)--who has been dealing with a lot of truly difficult stuff for a long time. The emotional unavailability is understandable, even if it sucks. For me. Especially since I wasn't expecting it at all. In hindsight, knowing what I know, I probably should have been perceptive enough to see this possibility before leaping forward. But, it is what it is. My hope for him, though, is that this is a temporary step in a healing process, or an isolated incident, and not a permanent stopping place.

It's funny (not haha) what we do to ourselves in the name of that little L-word. Sometimes it shows up in your life unbidden and unexpected, taking you completely by surprise, and, like a dripping faucet keeping you awake at night, refuses to be ignored. So, you take the risk to move forward to embrace love for love's sake, even if the situation makes almost no sense and there is little hope for it. You recognize that the choice to have a something with this person to carry with you forever holds more than hiding in the safety of a nothing. For once you feel very alive in the moment. You enjoy. You laugh. You open yourself. You learn. You struggle to hang on. You cry. You accept what is, understanding that you can't allow yourself to continue under these conditions. And then....you let go. I'm letting go. Yet, I hold close all that was beautiful about this fleeting experience, because it was lovely for me in many ways. The process has been nothing short of painful, but underneath my own messiness there is great value and gratitude. After all, my firmly held belief is that love is our whole point, and in that love only beauty can exist. No regrets.

C'est quoi ce cirque?