Love and affection incite feelings of vulnerability so are threats - avoidants avoid love to avoid hurt, and when they encounter reliable love are drawn to try to spoil it to prove to themselves it can't be real. They will hurt the people who show they care about them the most.

Why do Avoidants act like they don't care?

What is Dismissive-Avoidant Attachment Style? Dismissive Avoidants have apparently high self-esteem and low assessments of others in a relationship. Unreliable caretakers in childhood have left them with a deep subconscious fear of intimacy, and close attachments are seen as unneeded.

Are Avoidants cruel?

Terrified of abandonment, they still choose partners who will realize their deepest fear. The love avoidant, however, seeks to control and manipulate others by withholding affection, attention, and sex. He or she is not inherently cruel; rather, the love avoidant is terrified of intimacy and cannot tolerate it.