Psychology says many adults who keep everyone at a distance aren’t loners by nature, and what’s hard is that they learned early that openness invited harm so they built a life that stays sealed off

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Some adults seem comfortable keeping everyone at arm's length. But psychologists say distance is not always a personality trait. Emerging research suggests that for many people, it may be a coping strategy learned in childhood after vulnerability felt unsafe, making intimacy feel far more complicated in adulthood.