The Danger of Overthinking Your Relationship

My stories that draw the most attention surround romanticizing relationships and not being able to let go. It’s clear. People struggle with the idea of a relationship in their heads, perhaps more than the actual relationship itself. We fantasize about a potential partner before meeting one. We think about dating them after only seeing them once. We spend our lonely hours picturing our future with them. We magnify the other person and when things don’t work out. We obsess about what we did wrong and what could have been.

We love to indulge in our imaginations. It serves as foreplay and compensation for what we lack in our love lives. The problem is, overthinking about relationships clouds our judgment. We give things more value than it has. We over-analyze unimportant details. The more we think about our relationship, the more we rear off reality.

You start acting weird…

You’ve probably all gone on a date with someone, and you act a bit strange the next time you see them. You’re shyer. More cautious. You hang on to their every word. Afraid to speak your mind. Overthinking about someone hinders your performance, behavior, and charisma.

Overreacting means not responding appropriately to the situation accordingly

You become overly sensitive to their comments or lack of affection. You dissect every text message and certain things they’ve said. Positive reactions make you jump up and down. Negative reactions make you doubt yourself and the relationship. You make everything a bigger deal than it needs to be.

You manufacture extra feelings

Your need for sex and attention is making you desperate. As soon as you find someone who seems to be capable of fulfilling those desires, you place all of your hope on them. Perhaps, it’s the idea of the person who you’re falling for — not the actual person themselves.

The word that shakes all relationships-neediness

You step over their personal boundaries, interrogating them about where they were last night or why they didn’t return your phone call immediately. The person on the other end is probably thinking, “who are you to intervene with my life?”

You get ahead of yourself and make assumptions about the relationships. Because the love affair has already occurred a thousand times in your head. You’ve thought about what cities you two would travel to, and what friends of yours you will introduce them to. You can’t wait until you two hold hands into the movie theater. In reality, you two are only ambiguous friends.

You part the sea for them

You cut off people whom you aren’t that interested in. You adjust your schedule for the potential partner. You drop your important tasks if necessary. You give up on other romantic opportunities because you’ve gone tunnel vision on this one person prematurely.

The ending becomes so much more difficult

It’s been a month since I parted ways with the girl I caught bringing home a friend with benefit at 2 A.M. I still think about her daily. Not because she’s so special or we had something amazing together or even that we’re compatible. It’s simply due to the amount of time I’ve spent thinking about her over the course of our acquaintance. She’s become this angel in my head. Very different from who she truly is.

Rejections and breakups are awful as it is. But to dispose of your emotions with your best friend for ten straight hours, or drinking and weeping in your apartment alone on a Friday night while reminiscing on what you guys had and what could have been will make moving on almost impossible.

Everything is magnified

On one end, your imagination sets you up for disappointment. The romance in your head is always more beautiful than reality. Soon you realize that love is ordinary and your partner isn’t nearly as perfect as you expected.

On the other end, you start to find flaws and cracks within the relationship you wouldn’t have otherwise noticed if you weren’t overthinking. You feel a need to compensate. You feel like your partner isn’t giving enough. You want more trust between you two.

…

You overthink a relationship out of loneliness, uncertainty, and boredom. The feeling of dopamine and oxytocin overwhelm your brain. Sometimes, dating is all you think about, especially at the beginning stages. If not careful, though, it can create more problems than necessary.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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