When we pan our worst relationships for gold, there’s often a glittering abundance. There’s also the eerie feeling we should have seen the signs they were going to break our hearts, only we didn’t — or at least, we didn’t want to.
Perhaps if we slow down and reflect more deeply, we might avoid heartache. Anyone who’s dizzy with confusion about the person they’re dating, this pause for thought is for you.
I met D. at a party and was instantly dizzy over his slow-spreading smile and carmine hair.
We climbed onto the roof together and talked while the stars came out above the city. He told me everything I’d ever wanted to hear, over and over until I was giddy. He pursued me relentlessly too. But while he might have said I was “unique”, “special”, “the one” over the dates that followed, in the end, I found out I was one unique girl out of five.
Yes, infatuation can strike fast and red hot, but no, someone can’t know for sure they want to spend the rest of their life with you after 3 hours kissing on a roof — and I could have worked that out for myself.
When someone revs up the charm to 100 when they hardly know you, they haven’t been struck by cupid’s arrow: it’s just their tried and tested method of getting what they want. Intensity should take time.
I once hooked up with the impossibly tall and handsome friend of a friend at a warehouse party.
We kissed all night, awkwardly backed-up against metal scaffolding to the relentless beat of techno.
He texted in the days that followed — only his messages left me confused; while he wanted to meet again, texts were sporadic and fluctuated between flirtatious and terse. I found myself sending them to friends. “He’s probably just not very good at texting,” was their consensus. I wasn’t sure, but I liked him enough not to let that bother me.
Big mistake. When we did meet up his lack of interest was obvious, and of course, the harder I tried the more awkward it got. It was mortifying.
To this day, I still don’t know why he agreed to meet me, but I do know that sometimes a person will try you on for size even though they already know you’re not a fit. Their mixed messages are a get-out clause.
“He’s telling me he’s madly into this, and we’re in touch all the time, but when I try to meet up again he doesn’t give a straight answer.”
When a friend said this about a guy she’d slept with and was falling for fast, my heart plummeted. If we’re infatuated with someone, we become literally addicted: we can’t stop thinking about them and want to see them right. this. second. If that’s not possible, we’ll scramble to find a time that is.
Sure enough, the guy my friend was crazy about faded wordlessly into the ether. It doesn’t matter what they say or how often they say it: if they’re vague about seeing you again, they’re not truly, madly, deeply anything — except perhaps bored.
I passed J. on the way to college for a whole year before we dated.
He was willowy, with so many freckles it looked like he’d had a run-in with a felt tip. I was obsessed.
While he was keen to hang out, he’d often change the time or place at the last minute. I started to notice we often met in odd locations: the darkest corners of parks, workers’ caffs, parts of town no one went. The mist quickly cleared, however, when one day I saw him walking hand in hand with a girl who was clearly his girlfriend. I was devastated.
This wasn’t the last time I was to see this kind of warning sign lead to trouble; over the years, it’s happened to several friends who had no idea their date of several months was already taken. If someone is weird about when and where you meet or hides in the bathroom to take calls, something is off.
. . .
Some of these signs may seem obvious, but when we’re infatuated it can be hard to keep a cool head. We need to start going a step further than just recognising when someone’s leading us down a blind alley. We need to stop, breathe, slow down — and probably step away from our phones.
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This post was previously published on Medium.
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Photo credit: Behzad Ghaffarian on Unsplash