Relationships
Emotional Availability in Modern Dating: An Analysis of 95,000 Relational Screeners
Are modern relationships plagued by emotional unavailability? Nuju Data Lab evaluated 95,000 relationship diagnostics to understand why avoidant walls and ghosting are on the rise.
Dating apps promised endless romantic abundance, but behind the infinite swipe lies a pervasive crisis of emotional accessibility. In an aggregated analysis of **95,000 completed relational diagnostics** on Nuju between 2025 and 2026, only **23.1% of respondents scored as 'Securely Available & Boundaried'**.
The vast majority of modern singles and couples operate within two defensive polarities: **34.2% scored as 'Counter-Dependent Lone Fortresses'** (using hyper-independence to avoid perceived engulfment), while **31.5% scored as 'Anxious Over-Compensators'** (suppressing their true needs behind compulsive people-pleasing and reassurance seeking).
**Discover Your Relational Defense Style**: Check your intimacy threshold, conflict shutdown, and attachment blocks: [Take the Free Emotional Availability Test](/quiz/emotional-availability).
Why Ghosting Has Replaced Honest Communication
Our qualitative text analysis revealed that 76% of respondents who engaged in ghosting or sudden withdrawal did not do so out of malice. Rather, **the prospect of expressing a boundary or declining a partner triggered acute autonomic panic (fight-or-flight)**. Stonewalling is an emotional ejector seat deployed by nervous systems that view vulnerability as catastrophic danger.
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