How To Tell Someone's Attachment Style On A First Date

Dating apps and matchmakers want to know dozens of things about us—our favorite foods, movies, hobbies, etc.—all to help find us a good match. But their questions may be missing an essential ingredient that scientists now say could be the key to a successful match: attachment style.

Hundreds of recent studies worldwide confirm we each have an attachment style, which refers to how we behave in intimate relationships throughout our lives as a result of core emotions we formed in early childhood from interactions with parents and other caregivers. There are three main styles of attachment—secure, anxious, and avoidant—and while pairings of some attachment types work especially well, others can be disasters.

With all this in mind, it's plenty reasonable to want to compare your own style to that of a romantic prospect before getting into a relationship. It's possible to learn your own attachment type through a simple quiz, but what about the people you're interested in dating? It's not like you're going to be able to shove a survey in the face of every new prospective partner you encounter.

A first date mostly consists of conversation, and that's a good thing if you're trying to decipher the way a person relates to other people. Listen closely, and you can often pick up signals that point to whether your date is secure (mostly trusting of others and comfortable with intimacy), avoidant (pulls away from relationships in favor of independence), or anxious (craves intimacy and requires constant reassurance).

Avoidants are easy to pinpoint based on the way they talk in those early interactions: They're uncomfortable talking about feelings, explains Harry Reis, Ph.D., a psychology professor at the University of Rochester. Instead, they tend to focus on what they do, their jobs, their favorite TV shows, and other such topics without getting too personal or deep.

Meanwhile, secure people will be a lot freer and more versatile about what they talk about: "In a first conversation, secure people would be relaxed, pleasant to converse with, easy company," Dr. Reis says.

Dr. Reis warns it can sometimes be tricky to tell a secure person from an anxious person just from an initial conversation. That's because an anxious person—fearing rejection and wanting to please—can often be funny and show interest in the other person. In other words, they may come across as confident and engaging, as we'd expect a secure person to be, but actually they're doing it for another reason.

"Some anxious people aren't really interested in the other person," Dr. Reis explains. "They're interested in the other person liking them and offering them security. It's like the Bette Midler line, 'Enough about me. Let's talk about you. What do you think about me?' That's an anxious person talking."

Avoidants are unlikely to talk much about their inner selves, especially with a virtual stranger. Overall, they'll reveal little and, consciously or not, communicate that they really don't need a partner.

Anxious people will tend to disclose too much too soon—well before the other person is ready for closeness. This urge to self-disclose can reflect their need to quickly find intimacy, to control their own anxiety, and to feel an interpersonal connection before any has actually been made. The result is they may appear needy and overeager.

Secure people tend to be comfortable in the world and at ease with themselves, whether or not they are in a relationship. If through conversation you learn that over the years your date has had a couple of serious relationships but also spent considerable time without a relationship, this could be a sign of a person with a secure attachment style.

Anxious people, on the other hand—because they crave intimacy and feel emotionally incomplete without a partner—will often have been in a continuous series of relationships since early adolescence. In discussing former partners, they may express strong, unresolved feelings, such as holding on to anger or still carrying a torch.

If you're secure, congratulations. Attachment research shows you can enjoy a successful relationship with any attachment type. If you match up with another secure person, you both can contribute to a stable relationship. If you match with an avoidant or anxious person, you can bring stability to the relationship by understanding your partner's attachment needs, and over time, you can actually help your partner become more secure, too. For that reason avoidant and anxious people will each do best with a secure partner. As Dr. Reis advises, "If you can find someone secure, you're five steps ahead."

An anxious–anxious match can work, although that pairing can sometimes result in partners becoming highly dependent on each other. It's good to be aware of this going in, so you can discuss the issue and try to head it off.

An avoidant–avoidant match can work, too, but there the danger is that when the couple hits a rough patch, both partners may be too likely to simply drop the relationship rather than sticking around to work on it.