She said it out of the blue. After two months of living together, being super close and living filled with all kinds of blessings. She disappeared for like an hour, and when I ran into her, she said this enigmatic: "Don't romanticize me."
Turns out that she fits the criteria of what I've been seeing on social media as an avoidant. Avoidants feel in danger when things get real. When real intimacy begins to happen, they panic and run.
We managed to continue as friends with benefits kind of relationship, but things begin to get weird. My self-esteem dropped to the ground, and all kinds of distances began to grow. I began chasing, trying to prove myself, and she ran further and further.
According to my YouTube psychologists who, by the way, seem to know my whole story as if they lived it themselves, avoidants tend to return once you've taken your attention from them and put your energy back into yourself. Also, they appear in one's life to trigger the wounds of the inner child who feels unworthy of consistent love as it was never experienced before.
All in all, it is a very interesting process. At first, I was drowning in disappointment, and this feeling that giving love in the way I did was wrong. But it seems I did nothing wrong. Being generous with your love is no sin. The good news is that now I have time for me, and more of the layers of complacency are falling, leading me closer to the core of who I truly am.