Are You Using Emotional Intelligence as a Weapon? 🧠

How Insight Turns Into Armor (And Why Men Keep Pulling Away) (10min Read)

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TL;DR Summary

• Using emotional intelligence to read people is not the same as being emotionally available to them

• Diagnosing someone’s wounds before you’ve created safety isn’t intimacy — it’s a power move

• Any nervous system — avoidant, secure, anxious, doesn’t matter — will shut down when it feels seen before it feels safe

• Leading with insight instead of presence signals “I’m ahead of you,” not “I’m with you”

• This pattern usually comes from fear, not superiority — it’s a nervous system that learned to scan for threat

• Emotional intelligence without emotional availability doesn’t make you evolved. It makes you untouchable.

• 3 tools to turn your perceptiveness into connection instead of armor.

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The Pattern I Keep Seeing in Brilliant Women

If every man you date says you’re “intense,” “a lot,” or “hard to read”…

It might not be because you’re too deep.

It might be because you’re interrogating intimacy instead of participating in it.

I work with brilliant women. Lawyers, doctors, therapists, founders, teachers, high-performers of all kinds. Women who’ve done years of inner work.

They’ve done the therapy. Listened to the podcasts. Read the books. She knows her attachment style, she knows yours, and she can clock an avoidant at fifty paces.

Which she’s proud of, as she should be.

And… she keeps ending up alone.

Every time she meets someone interesting, they pull away. Or they go quiet. Or they stay for a beat and then disappear, and she tells herself some version of:

“Men are just intimidated by women who are self-aware.”

Or:

“They couldn’t handle being seen.”

Or the classic:

“He was avoidant. That’s his issue, not mine.”

And she’s not entirely wrong about any of it.

But she’s also not asking the harder question.

Which is: What if the way I’m using my emotional intelligence is the thing creating the distance?

What This Looks Like on a First Date

Some of the smartest, most self-aware, therapy-literate women I work with are absolutely terrifying on first dates.

Not because they’re mean. Not because they’re cold.

Because they’re scanning. Clocking. Tracking. Mapping. Diagnosing.

Within 20 minutes, they’ve:

• Identified his attachment style

• Noted his mother wound

• Detected his emotional avoidance

• Spotted his conflict pattern

And sometimes… they say it out loud.

“I can tell you struggle with emotional intimacy.”

“You deflect when things get vulnerable.”

And then they come to me and say:

“He just couldn’t handle how perceptive I am.”

Maybe.

Or maybe his nervous system felt like it just walked into a performance review.

Why does this happen? And more importantly, is there a way to shift it and actually get the connection you’re looking for?

Let’s get into it.

A Quick Note on Agency

Let’s just get this outta the way quick.

I work with women. That’s my audience, that’s who reaches out, and that’s who’s mostly reading this right now.

So that’s who I’m writing to.

This is not me saying men don’t do this; they absolutely do.

It’s not me saying this pattern is a woman thing. It’s not me saying the men in these stories are blameless or that their avoidance, their emotional unavailability, or their own baggage isn’t real.

It’s me saying: I’d rather talk to you about what you can do than spend our time cataloguing everything that’s someone else’s fault.

Because here’s what I’ve noticed: the “he’s just avoidant” narrative feels validating in the moment, and it’s sometimes even accurate, but it leaves you with nothing.

No agency. No leverage. No next move.

And if you couldn’t tell already, I’m not interested in leaving you there.

I believe in your power to change your results.

Not by fixing yourself because you’re broken, but by getting honest about the patterns you’re running, because you’re capable and it’s worth it.

Alright, now let’s talk about emotional intelligence…

Emotional Intelligence Isn’t the Same as Emotional Availability

There’s a version of psychological knowledge that opens people up.

And there’s a version that keeps them at arm’s length.

One says: “I see you, and I’m here.”

The other says: “I already know what’s wrong with you, and I’m watching to see if you’ll disappoint me.”

The second one feels like insight. It presents as confidence. It can even look like depth.

But what it actually is? A nervous system scanning for threat.

When you walk into a room, and your first instinct is to read everyone in it, their wounds, their defenses, their attachment patterns, you’re not connecting.

You’re conducting surveillance.

And people can feel that.

When “Awareness” Feels Like Exposure

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

You think you’re connecting. He feels evaluated.

You think you’re creating depth. His body feels exposed.

And exposure without safety equals threat.

This isn’t about attachment labels.

This isn’t about him being avoidant.

This is basic nervous system wiring.

When someone you barely know names your wounds before they’ve created safety?

Your system doesn’t go: “Oh wow, how insightful.”

It goes: “Am I being judged?”

Cortisol spikes. Sympathetic activation rises. Micro-defensiveness shows up.

Even secure people close when they feel seen before they feel safe.

Read that again…

Safety is built through co-regulation, through cues that say: “I’m not a threat. I’m not here to expose you. You can relax your nervous system around mine.”

Diagnosis doesn’t do that.

Walking into a conversation with the energy of “I can already read your trauma” is essentially throwing a shame grenade into someone’s inner world and then acting confused when they run.

You didn’t see them. You dissected them.

There’s a difference.

What You’re Actually Saying When You Lead With Insight

Let’s slow this down, because the message is subtler than it looks.

When you open with psychological analysis, naming someone’s patterns, pointing out their wounds, demonstrating how quickly you can figure them out…

Here’s what their nervous system hears:

• “I’m ahead of you.”

• “I have the upper hand here.”

• “I already know what’s wrong with you.”

• “I’m watching to see if you’ll prove me right.”

That’s not intimacy.

That’s a power structure.

And it usually comes from fear, not superiority.

Which, honestly, makes complete sense.

If you’ve been hurt, and who hasn’t, it makes total sense that you’d learn to see people coming before they could hurt you.

Read the room before the room reads you. Know the exits.

That’s a survival adaptation. A really smart one, actually.

But survival adaptations aren’t intimacy strategies.

And if you’re running that program in your relationships, you’re not protecting yourself from pain.

You’re just making sure no one ever gets close enough to cause it.

The “I’m So Perceptive” Trap

There’s a specific kind of person who intellectualizes their fear into a personality.

They tell me they’re not avoidant, they’re discerning.

They’re not guarded, they’re self-aware.

They don’t push people away; people just can’t handle their depth.

Imma say this gently…

Insight used as armor is still armor.

If your emotional intelligence is primarily deployed in service of staying one step ahead of people, staying safer than them, staying more evolved than them, you’re not actually relating to anyone.

You’re posturing.

And posturing is lonely, no matter how sophisticated it looks from the outside.

You Can Be Perceptive AND Still Choose Presence

Bottom line? Anyone can read a nervous system.

It takes safety and presence to hold one. That distinction is everything!

Reading someone means: I can identify your patterns, name your wounds, see your defenses.

Holding someone means: I’m regulated enough that my presence helps yours soften.

The most emotionally intelligent thing you can do in a new connection isn’t to demonstrate how much you understand.

It’s to make them feel safe enough to show you.

People don’t open up when they feel analyzed.

They open up when they feel: seen, heard, understood, and safe.

And safe isn’t created through exposure.

It’s created through consistency, warmth, and the repeated experience of: “My inner world is welcome here, not a problem to be solved.”

Why This Pattern Happens

The women who do this are not villains.

Here’s what I’ve noticed in my clients.

This pattern usually forms in women who:

• Grew up needing to read the room to stay safe

• Were blindsided in past relationships

• Learned that insight equals protection

• Pride themselves on being emotionally literate

At some point, their nervous system decided:

• “If I can see it coming, it can’t hurt me.”

• “If I can read it, I can control it.”

• “If I can name it, I won’t be blindsided by it.”

• “If I stay one step ahead, I won’t be abandoned.”

So now they scan. They track micro-shifts.

They detect emotional inconsistencies like bloodhounds.

And they name them early, not to dominate, but to preemptively protect.

It makes sense.

It also keeps you alone.

Because when your nervous system is scanning for danger, you’re not actually available for intimacy.

Let Me Drag Myself Into This Again…

Before anyone thinks I’m preaching from a mountaintop…

Again, I struggle with this too.

Because of the work I do, I can map relational patterns fast.

Too fast.

I’ve been on dates where I’ve internally diagnosed someone’s attachment history before the apps arrived.

And I’ve had to physically bite my tongue to not say: “You learned to detach early, didn’t you?”

Because I’d probably be right.

But being right doesn’t build intimacy.

Regulation does. Presence does.

Sometimes insight is just anxiety dressed up as intelligence.

Yeah. I said it…

And I’ve had to learn the hard way that insight delivered without safety feels like a spotlight, not warmth.

Even when it’s accurate.

By now, you’re probably thinking, “Ok, Cody, I get it. What do I do about it???”

So, glad you asked :)

How to Stop Using Insight as Armor

Alright. You know I wouldn’t leave you hanging with just insight.

Let’s get practical, baby!!

Here are 3 tools you can start using today.

Tool 1: Notice When You’re Reading vs. When You’re Relating

Start paying attention to what’s actually happening when you’re interacting with someone new.

Ask yourself: “Am I in my head right now? Am I analyzing, assessing, predicting, or am I actually here?”

There’s nothing wrong with noticing things. The question is what you do with that information.

Are you using it to understand them, or to stay one step ahead?

You don’t have to fix this in the moment. Just catch it. Awareness starts to interrupt the pattern in your brain.

Tool 2: Practice Staying in the Conversation Instead of Above It

Analysis happens from a distance.

Connection requires you to come down from the observation deck and actually be in the room.

This means saying something vulnerable before you say something insightful.

Asking a question you don’t already know the answer to.

Letting yourself be surprised by someone instead of predicting them.

Getting curious about them, not as a case study, but as a person you genuinely haven’t figured out yet.

These are small reps. They’re boring. They’re unsexy. And they’re how actual intimacy gets built.

Tool 3: Let People See You First

I bet you felt a chill run down your spine just reading the title of this one…

This one might sting a little, but if you’re always the one doing the seeing, you never have to risk being seen.

That’s the payoff.

AND that’s the problem.

Real connection is mutual. It requires you to come out from behind the framework and be a person, not a lens.

That means sharing something true before you share something smart.

It means saying “I don’t know yet” sometimes.

It means letting your nervous system be visible, not just your insight.

That’s scarier than reading someone’s attachment style on a first date.

It’s also the only thing that actually works.

Your Perception is a Strength

Emotional intelligence without emotional availability doesn’t make you evolved.

It makes you untouchable.

And untouchable is lonely. Even when it looks impressive.

If you want connection instead of control, lead with warmth instead of diagnosis.

Let people reveal themselves.

Let them feel your steadiness before your insight.

Connection is not built through being right.

It’s built through being safe.

And safety doesn’t come from proving you’re ahead.

It comes from showing you’re here.

If you can do that, your emotional intelligence becomes magnetic.

If you can’t, it becomes a weapon.

And people don’t fall in love with weapons.

They fall in love with safety.

You got this.

And, as always, until next time… Live Heroically. 🧠

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Want to Work With Me? Here Are a Few Ways I Can Help You

1. Going through a breakup? Check out She Rises. It’s a post-breakup protocol based on neuroscience to help you regulate your nervous system in the days and weeks right after a breakup.

2. Check out my FREE webinar on The ONE Skill That Attracts Secure Love Fast. If you’re smart, attractive, successful, and self-aware, but love still feels like a minefield, this is for you!

3. Grab my new ebook: Exactly How to Become Emotionally Available: It’s a step-by-step guide for attracting and keeping the love you seek, built for the success but single among us!

4. Become a paid subscriber to the Mind, Brain, Body Lab Digest: You’ll get subscriber-only video posts, email replies, access to my entire blog archive, early access to new products, workshops & tools I create!

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Supporting Research

• Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. W. W. Norton & Company.

• van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking Press.

• Schore, A. N. (2012). The science of the art of psychotherapy. W. W. Norton & Company.

• Brown, B. (2012). Daring greatly: How the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent, and lead. Gotham Books.

• Dickerson, S. S., Gruenewald, T. L., & Kemeny, M. E. (2004). When the social self is threatened: Shame, physiology, and health. Journal of Personality, 72(6), 1191–1216. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2004.00295.x

• Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2016). Attachment in adulthood: Structure, dynamics, and change (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.

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This article is educational in nature and not a substitute for therapy. If attachment wounds or relational trauma are impacting your well-being, working with a trauma-informed therapist can help your nervous system relearn safety in connection.