You were too available. You came on too strong. You slept with him too soon. You didn’t sleep with him soon enough. You let it slip that you want to get married. You told him you loved him. You were too clingy. You were too emotional. You were too desperate. You were too independent.
Chances are you have heard one or more of those things from supposed guides/friends more than once. You likely came upon those stunning nuggets of insight after complaining to your confidant that someone you were interested in seems to be acting askew.
They likely told you any of the aforementioned things but also likely made it sound as though men and women were somehow predisposed to love differently. That in order to “get” him you had to behave a certain way, dress a certain way…speak a certain way.
The problem with this line of thinking however is that eventually if you do get him through that tactic you eventually find it’s rather difficult to keep up the façade without little snippets of your true personality coming through at some point. This also means that the person you are doing all of this for is not falling in love with “YOU” but rather the version of yourself that you feel HE or SHE wants you to be.
The fact is that in love these days we play so many games we hardly know how to navigate our lives anymore. There are so many so called mistakes that could send the object of our desire running that the path towards love becomes so narrow that you either end up stuck somewhere in the middle or unable to proceed forward at all. We end up playing game after game trying desperately to “win” that we end up hurting ourselves and the person we are with even more.
Why do we play these games? Well in some cases I admit that it’s sometimes needed. You can use certain things to illicit a reaction. The issue with this is that there is a very fine line between eliciting a reaction and total fakery. Doing something solely for the purpose of eliciting a reaction is an appropriate thing in the moment, for the moment. It’s not something that is supposed to become the way in which you traverse a relationship.
The fact is if you have to resort to changing too much about yourself to get the attention of another then that person is not worth your attention. It sounds trite but the fact is you don’t have to work that hard if you feel secure and confident in your ability to be loved and desired by another. When you begin to try too hard you essentially place them on a pedestal above you saying “I have to do all this because you’re obviously that much better than me and thus these things are required of ME for YOU to love me”
No relationship can sustain itself under those parameters. If you are clearly missing that much within yourself that you feel that to get someone you have to analyze your every step…or worry about changing who you are because it may not be “good” enough for them then you are placing attention on the wrong thing. You should instead take some time to see how you can foster security and confidence so that your life becomes full and secure without a man/woman. So that you can have a relationship that becomes a welcome addition to an already full life...not a life which becomes full because of a relationship.
If you cannot be your unadulterated self in the presence of someone you are interested in then what exactly does that say about that person, and the connection as a whole?
Sure you can alter your behavior, tone down your dress, cuss less and walk at a certain pace but the fact is that isn’t you…and as such you cannot expect that anything you are attempting to build with have any foundation whatsoever.
Another fact is that men and women love the same. THERE! I said it! Whether you take five days to call after a date or 5 minutes really matter not. You can get locked into that manipulative game playing but in the end it only results in becoming so emotionally woodened that we are unable to feel or express true love.
You don’t need to question whether a man or woman wants/loves or thinks about you if you haven’t heard from them in 6 week or even 6 months. When we, whether male or female, love someone truly we cannot just walk away from that. We will generally (barred certain circumstances) move Heaven and Earth to get what we want. Obstacles may slow us down but they do not stop us. If you find that you cannot get them to pick up the phone save for when THEY want something…or if you find that they cannot be made to commit even though you have been through hell and back with one another and stuck in this undefined area for years then trust me STOP bending over backwards for them. If they wanted you, TRULY, WHOLEY and ETERNALLY, then they would have you. They know how you feel. They know you want them…the only thing that is stopping them from having you is the fact that they don’t want you ENOUGH but don’t want to let go off all that you provide them with.
Disillusionment is a rather intrinsic aspect of falling in love. We meet someone we have a connection with, we want to see how far it can go and sometimes this causes us to play endless amounts of games that end up not only failing to deliver us what we want but hurting our self in the process.
Stop playing the game…stop worrying and stop questioning your every move. The more you try to control the path love takes, the more you try to domesticate it the more unruly it becomes. The more you try to second guess everything and foresee everything before it happens the more you take the fun out of the entire experience. The entire reason we fall in love is so that they can experience and touch parts of us that typically we keep hidden from the world. If we constantly guard ourselves with games of manipulation or become dismantled because of the actions of someone else we rob ourselves of the experience of that connection.
Yes, perhaps by coming on too strong, or slipping that you want to get married and have children you may see him leaving dust in his wake but then doesn’t that tell you that he/she was not the one for you? Stop running around in circles trying to win the affections of another or playing game after game to keep a relationship going. It’s not going to result in the relationship you want and chances are it’s going to cost you the most important relationship you will ever have…the one with yourself.
Be strong. Be confident. Be YOU!