Let's say you just had an incredible night with the new person you're seeing. The conversation crackled; the hours over dinner flew by. Come Monday, though, you start to feel that something isn't right.

They come up with excuses that strike you as flimsy, and they start responding to your texts with a detached "haha" or "nice." You end up feeling anxious, confused, and lonely when the weekend rolls around. 

If you're dating someone who backtracks after deepening intimacy with you, it's possible that they have an avoidant attachment style.

The avoidant attachment style is the second most common out of the four types, and it involves a tendency to form insecure relationships out of a desire to remain independent. According to a 2012 study in The Dysregulated Adult, a person might develop an avoidant attachment style if their early attempts at human connection and affection are overlooked or rejected1.

Here are five signs that you may be dating an avoidant. None of them are surefire proof on their own, but together, these indicators point to your partner harboring a particular relationship with emotional intimacy.

A person with an avoidant attachment style is going to crave the feeling of being loved and supported, just like anyone else. The key difference is that they'll also feel a compulsion to distance themselves from those they're getting close to.

In their landmark book on attachment theory, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love, Amir Levine, M.D., and Rachel Heller, M.A., wrote that avoidants push their partners away, not because of a lack of interest but because intimacy is a trigger for them.

In a 2017 paper on apologies and attachment styles2, researchers found that those exhibiting avoidant attachment behaviors "tend to use distancing strategies when they, their partners, or their relationships are distressed." To you, this might seem like your partner is avoiding conflict or being passive-aggressive.

It may also manifest in normal conversations. If you say that you've been having a rough day, or if you get frustrated with something other than your partner, and your partner responds as if they're being attacked, that could be an indicator that they're an avoidant.

An avoidant suspects deep down that everyone in their life is going to disappoint or abandon them. In their 2017 paper, Jeffry Simpson, Ph.D., and W. Steven Rholes, Ph.D., stated that avoidant people are less willing than the average person3 to rely on others or have others rely on them.

Avoidants will often neglect to offer help or support when their loved ones express a need for it, not necessarily because they don't recognize the need or because they don't care. It's more likely that they've connected the idea of support with extreme vulnerability in their heads; they believe that showing weakness is embarrassing because their earliest memories of asking for help ended badly.

In the same study, researchers found that avoidant partners were less accurate than the average when they tried to guess at their partners' internal emotional state. Stressors only worsened this, meaning that after an argument, or while embroiled in an unpleasant situation, avoidants were even less likely to decipher their partner's words or behaviors correctly.

If your partner seems to assume you're upset when you're not, or if they step away from you after an argument and prefer to sweep things under the rug rather than discuss them, they may be an avoidant.

According to an attachment overview paper published by the University of Illinois, avoidant participants in a study showed the same level of emotional and physiological distress when asked to discuss and consider losing their romantic partners. However, they didn't verbally report their emotional state to researchers, and even more interestingly, they were able to suppress their physiological responses to the concept of loss.

If you've seen your partner live through a difficult situation, like perhaps the loss of another loved one, a professional rejection, or a traumatic experience, and if they seemed oddly cold to you, they may not be unusually resilient. It could be a sign that they've learned to suppress their vulnerable emotions over time.

Contrary to popular belief, it's possible to have a romantic relationship with an avoidant. In fact, many people change their attachment styles over time, based on their life experiences, so you don't have to think of your partner's mindset as permanent.

When an avoidant receives love or favors or gifts, they'll often tell themselves that accepting these things is a sign of their own weakness. They'll also fear becoming a burden on you because they ultimately fear tiring you out and chasing you away.

Keep this dynamic in mind when you do little favors for your partner; it's not a fun situation if you're teasing them about forgetting something. If it's cold and you offer them your jacket, don't make a big deal out of dressing for the weather.

Though affirming your partner is important, you also need to take care to do it simply and succinctly. If you get the feeling that you might be suffocating your avoidant partner, or feel you are being too "needy," take some time for yourself. After all, even if you're dating an avoidant, you definitely have a constellation of unique needs and quirks that need looking after. And you can't love your partner without loving yourself.

If you've read this far, you clearly care about the person you're dating. That's perfectly fine, although you've got quite a bit of work cut out for you if your partner truly is an avoidant. That's the bad news.

If you believe you're dating someone who backtracks after deepening intimacy with you, it's possible that they have an avoidant attachment style.

While dating someone who's an avoidant isn't easy, it is possible. They may be able to change their attachment style over time with your support.