Cases where the closer you are to someone, the less you want to open up to them

I've seen other people talk about this before and at first I didn't understand how this could happen, but I've noticed now that there are cases where the closer you get to someone then the less you want to open up to them and even get emotional in front of them. Now I know in some cases, it could mean you aren't as close as you once were or you were never as close as you thought but there are other cases where you just no longer feel comfortable opening up. There are some people I used to like opening up to, but then once I became closer to them then I no longer liked opening up and I've seen men and women do this.

I've always wondered what causes this to happen, in a weird way it's as if you no longer feel comfortable showing vulnerabilities to someone you are close to and may even feel weird opening up to them too as if they're a complete stranger. Anyone else have this experience or have any idea why this happens? Makes me wonder if it has to do with maintaining an image. Also wonder if it has to do with being afraid to lose the person or being judged. Weird how it works though since it's someone you should feel most comfortable opening up to but instead you'd much rather turn to someone who you may not feel as close to in a strange way.

Who are these people? Are their co workers? Actual friends? Family? Romantic partners? So I think it depends

I do like your suggestion that opening up to strangers is safer as they won’t judge you and won’t do anything with the info. With people you know you always run a risk. Sk you might be on the right track with this thinking

I personally can’t relate though as I feel no desire to open up to people unless they are very close. I am very private.

I'm basically just referring to close friends but it can apply to anyone who may be super close to their families and in some rare cases, their coworkers too. I'm very private too, I just have trouble opening up to people. I agree that it all depends, I definitely don't feel close enough to share anything with coworkers like some people seem to do. And I'm not close with family either so I don't open up to them, I reserve opening up with very close friends and even that is very hard for me just because I'm so private and don't want to be judged.

That to me sounds like this is not actual closeness. Definitely not "super close" like the wording in your later post. Just a phase of getting closer. Getting attached. Where you start to sense the risks of getting more involved. Because the relationship is about to get deeper with actual attachment. That's okay to not want to trust so fast imo.

There are a lot of reasons why it's normal to not want to trust too fast. You do need to know the person (and yourself) well enough to know how much you can share with them, you do need to have good enough people knowledge to judge that confidently enough, and even then it will still be a risk.

Even when you know how to not put all your eggs in one basket and confidently manage more than one close, intimate relationship, and have enough interests in other things so you don't overinvest yourself in any one relationship and so on.

Risks like, some people will like to hit below the belt and attack vulnerabilities (or what they *think* are vulnerabilities), and no one is a saint anyway, and so on. Even when people try to do their best....Hurt or pain is unavoidable either way. It's just how it is, it's how life is.

I can't analyse this at all without specifics. If we always just use the phrasing "opening up", that is vague, undefined, blurs things here and will not lead to an answer or any kind of actual conclusion. What kinds of opening up do you mean, what kinds of things are being said and expressed, etc. or do you have examples?

Thing is again, there is more than one way to "open up" and show and express emotions and feelings.

Firstoff, it can be done with shallow emotions that pass fast or can be done with deep, attached emotions and feelings too.

What feelings are being expressed and what the emotional messages are do matter, along with the relationship context and other circumstances, so again specifics matter.

This is obviously still too general but then this is a complex topic that people have already written 1000 books about and analyse and process for years in therapy or sometimes in talks with friends.

Anyway, if you feel like you need to run when the relationship starts to actually become intimate, it sounds like to do with the avoidant attachment style too, maybe check that out. It's OK to be an avoidant btw, don't listen to anyone that says it's "wrong". It's just an attachment style.

I actually doubt other people are really attached to their coworkers either, often it's just like, they easily share shallower emotions

Yeah you have some good points, I do agree that opening up can push a relationship or friendship into further closeness or it can backfire which could explain why people may be reluctant to reveal their most intimate struggles. Also, when I say opening up, I mean letting out your true emotions and thoughts and even getting emotional at times. I don't mean opening up in a whiny way but still showing a very vulnerable side of you that the person you're with may or may not have ever seen in you which can be risky. Also I agree that most likely no one is truly attached to their coworkers and coworkers who call each other friends are doing it out of politeness and it's all superficial, I actually find it really cringy and unprofessional when I see coworkers reveal their vulnerabilities at work but that's just me.

I mean, there's lots of kinds of friends. At some point the general categories will fail. So, just because it's called a close friendship, it doesn't mean it's actually emotionally all that intimate. Doesn't mean it has to be, either. Same for romantic relationships.

Strictly my own view on things, of course.

Well I don't know what kind of true emotions and thoughts these would be and what the purpose of the sharing/opening up would be. ? Did you have anything in mind with that?

AIso I noticed you mentioned "getting emotional" as a separate thing. When you let out true emotions&thoughts, that's already being emotional in my view, that action already has emotional messages and further emotional consequences in the relationship for all parties involved.

If you meant getting impulsive, then I get what you mean.

I don't think they are necessarily doing it out of politeness. I personally think it sounds wrong to call someone a friend purely out of politeness actually. What I was thinking was that some coworkers can be superficial buddies alright and share a lot - or seemingly a lot - without it meaning all that much.

It's like. On a more extreme level, if that makes it easier to imagine. Some people are emotionally shallow enough to actually think that they have a deeper relationship to these people that they are so easily feeling like sharing with, than what it is in reality. Of course if someone thinks that to a distorted degree, we'd be talking about a personality disorder already, and I wasn't intending to take this post towards pathological stuff. It was just for a strong enough illustration of what I originally meant.

I'm interested if you don't mind; what kind of vulnerabilities have you seen coworkers reveal to each other like that, do you have a good actual example?

Sometimes it can actually be a form of respect. Just because a person is a friend doesn’t mean it’s ok to dump all our personal private challenges on them.

Some people think a friend means including the person in all one’s drama. That’s expecting too much IMHO.

When I mentioned opening up, I basically meant getting emotional and expressing how you feel about something or what may be bothering you but now that I think of it, being emotional and expressing your true emotions is basically the same thing. And I do think there can be some impulsiveness involved too, sometimes people may express how they feel at the wrong time and wrong place. As for calling people friends out of politeness, I totally agree that it's not nice to call someone a friend just to be kind to them. I've seen that happen before and I consider it rude since it leads the other person on thinking they're friends when they're really not.

Also now I see what you mean about coworkers talking about personal things, they may have a way of appearing to be telling you a lot when in reality they are just telling you on a surface level. And when I say they open up about vulnerabilities, I meant like they go into detail about what they can and can't do as well as their honest opinions about things in great detail at times and in front of students as well which comes off as unprofessional to me. At the same time though everyone has different views on what's professional and what isn't and some are more open than others.

Yeah that actually does make sense, I once knew someone in college that did that. She would dump every little detail about her life onto others, it was to the point where it was uncomfortable. She would complain about literally anything and everything, not even an exaggeration and she would go into detail about how emotional she got and she had no filter as well. I'm all for listening to other people's problems, but there is a point where it can be too much for anyone and she had the tendency to do it to the point where it pushed people away.