Performing Connection: When Vulnerability Becomes a Mask
Why emotional openness doesn’t always lead to intimacy and how we mistake performance for presence
In modern relationships, emotional expression is often mistaken for emotional depth. When a partner is highly articulate about their feelings, open about their past, or fluent in psychological language, it’s tempting to equate that openness with intimacy. However, emotional performance does not always signify emotional availability or relational safety.
The Psychology of Performative Intimacy
Performative intimacy is when someone shares emotions or personal stories not to build a deeper bond, but to shape how they’re seen or to stay in control. As Goleman (2006) explains, emotional signals like tone and storytelling can make us feel close to someone, even when the connection isn’t mutual or real.
Tronick (2007) adds that our early relationships teach us how to get attention or feel safe. If a person grew up with inconsistent or overwhelming caregivers, they might learn to use big emotions or dramatic sharing as a way to feel connected. Later in life, this can look like emotional storytelling that grabs attention but doesn’t lead to lasting closeness.
Several stories from Dating Disturbed show how this plays out. In Masks and Mirrors, emotional talk is constant but lacks genuine connection. It becomes a way to avoid rather than relate. In Tantric Disconnect, spiritual language and ritual feel intimate at first but are more about performance than mutual presence. And in The Almost Date, intense sharing comes too early and feels more like a flood than an invitation. In all of these, emotional openness creates confusion, not connection, when it’s not backed by emotional availability.
Vulnerability vs. Availability
There’s a key difference between being vulnerable and being emotionally available. Vulnerability means opening up in a way that invites connection. Availability is the ability to stay open and connected over time, not just during emotional moments.
According to Siegel (2010), healthy relationships rely on mutual regulation, where both people can stay present and flexible in response to each other’s emotions. Performative vulnerability often lacks this balance. It can show up as oversharing, emotional flooding, or needing constant reassurance, without making space for the other person’s experience.
In The Cutest Aggression, we see how vulnerability can become a tactic. The emotional sharing is real, but it’s used in a way that pulls the narrator into a caretaking role. The partner shares openly but doesn’t regulate or reciprocate. As a result, the narrator ends up managing their partner’s emotions without any support for their own. It feels more like emotional pressure than connection.
Identity, Control, and Emotional Curation
Sometimes, emotional performance is tied to how someone wants to be seen. Statements like "I’m the emotionally intelligent one" or "I’ve already done the work" are less about connecting and more about building a self-image. Vulnerability in this context becomes a kind of personal branding. It signals depth but doesn’t necessarily invite real engagement.
This curated expression can quietly control the dynamic. The more emotionally expressive partner sets the tone, draws empathy, and keeps the other at a distance by staying in the role of "the insightful one."
Across these stories, a common thread emerges: one partner appears emotionally open, but the other is left carrying the invisible weight of the relationship by trying to interpret, adjust, and stabilize, often without support.
Recognizing Authentic Intimacy
Authentic intimacy emerges not through volume or immediacy of emotional sharing, but through co-regulation, consistency, and pacing. Signs of real presence include:
Mutual responsiveness to emotional expression
Space for both partners’ inner worlds
Shared regulation in emotionally charged moments
By contrast, emotional performance often feels dramatic but isolating. It centers the expressive partner while marginalizing the other’s experience.
Moving Forward
Attraction to emotional performers is common, especially for individuals who are highly empathic or attuned to emotional nuance. But change begins when we learn to differentiate between connection and activation. As Siegel (2010) and Levine & Heller (2010) argue, secure relationships are built on safety, predictability, and co-regulation, not intensity or performance.
When we become attuned to emotional presence rather than emotional display, we stop confusing being impressed with being understood. And in that shift, we open ourselves to something deeper: relationships that nourish, rather than exhaust.
References
Goleman, D. (2006). Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships. Bantam.
Siegel, D. J. (2010). The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are. Guilford Press.
Levine, A., & Heller, R. (2010). Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love. TarcherPerigee.
Tronick, E. (2007). The Neurobehavioral and Social-Emotional Development of Infants and Children. Norton.
