Emotional self-sufficiency is not apathy.

Apathy protects you from negative emotions, and blocks you from what you want.

There’s a big difference between emotional independence and apathy, but they’re easy to confuse. Sometimes, people will seek to induce an emotional reaction from a lover, just to enjoy the reassurance that their partner has feelings for them.

Apathy is without feeling.
Apathy does not want.
Apathy has no desire.
Apathy is without motivation.
Apathy is the opposite of love.

For many people, anything — even abuse — feels like an improvement on apathy.

Emotional independence is different from apathy because it is possible to communicate desire, even while being emotionally independent of the outcome.

It takes courage to communicate what we want to the world, lest we be made fun of, criticized or ostracized for wanting the “wrong” things. So we learn not to ask or not to declare our desires.

The old elementary school defense against hurt feelings is to declare, “I don’t care.” To declare apathy.

Emotional independence says, “This is what I want. If you don’t want those things, too, that’s OK with me. I’ll find someone else who does.”

Many people will confuse emotional independence, which is a healthy, well-adjusted state, with apathy (which is a dangerous state) and reject expressions of emotional independence as offensively apathetic.

That’s a mistake.