To All the Emotionally Unavailable Boys I’ve Loved Before

Dylan McKay. Troy Dyer. Jordan Catalano. Ben Covington. Edward Cullen. Tim Riggins...

Hi hi!!

So I was working on a freelance piece the other day and talking to a psychologist source I love (will post that story when it’s pubbed!) and I remembered there an old story I’d interviewed her for that never actually ran in the publication I’d written it for. I went into the annals of my Google Docs and there it was.

And this one even got at least one pass through an editor, which WHN rarely does unless I have a friend read over something for me. **We all need editors. I miss editors. I miss copy editors. I was once so spoiled.

Anyway, it’s “WHN/Abby but make it women’s magazine” as far as voice goes, but the topic is one I’ve touched on here many times and always wanted to write about in a more reported way so I figured why not run it here for paid subscribers—which I have no idea why I didn’t think of until now.

I have a lifelong track record of loving emotionally unavailable men—in my fictional content and, yes, my real life. At least, when I used to actually go on dates eons ago. Maybe I’ll try that again sometime.

This piece gets into that and what it might say about someone, from a psychological perspective. I think I wrote this circa early 2019, which low-key feels like another lifetime and also about 15 minutes ago. It actually might have been held at first because Luke Perry died, a loss from which I shall never recover.

Anyway, here it is…

(Also, ofc, I’m a cis-het woman—so it’s written from my perspective, but I think the same vibes apply to all emotionally unavail identities. Additionally, I dropped in some imagery and a few Writer’s Notes in italics along the way from Current Abby, because she didn’t agree with her past self or there was a lack of Harry and Taylor references, etc.)