Have you ever asked for emotional depth, only to watch someone quietly retreat into distance?

Emotional depth asks for presence, not perfection. It’s the invitation to be seen — and that can feel terrifying for someone who’s learned to survive through control or containment.  Depth is a tender request. It’s not a demand — it’s a doorway.

It asks, Can we meet where it’s real?
But not everyone can.

I once loved someone who treated emotion like weather — something to observe, not enter. When feelings rose, he’d tidy them into sentences, fold them into logic. I mistook that calm for maturity – the composure for safety, not realizing it was distance wearing discipline’s disguise. What I really needed was connection — a space that allowed for the messy and the meaningful to coexist.

When we ask for depth, we’re not asking for drama. We’re asking for aliveness — for the pulse beneath the practiced responses, for truth instead of performance. But not everyone knows how to stay in that space. Some have only known love as transaction, not transformation.

Still, I keep choosing depth. Because even if it costs me comfort, it gives me connection — the kind that feels like prayer. In that space, soul speaks, and love becomes something holy.

When you ask for honesty of the heart, do you find people lean in — or away?