It can be difficult to avoid falling too hard or too fast for someone, especially if you're new to dating or have been out of the game for a while. It's easy to get swept away with the new person you're seeing— and it's a completely natural instinct— but it can be good to slow things down. My mom always says I'm far more pragmatic than romantic, and I certainly like to protect myself, which is maybe why I find this so important. But I do think keeping some distance early in the relationship set you up better for the long run.
It's all about keeping perspective, but that's so much easier said than done. Even being a pretty pragmatic person when it comes to love and romance, I certainly get the urge to spend loads of time with my girlfriend and skip yoga or cancel plans. But I also really love my friends, and want to spend time with them, and know there's a good reason I go to yoga and bootcamp and do standup. So when I want to disappear into my blankets and spend all day in bed, I remind myself how much I love the other things that I do. And more important, I remind myself that I want this relationship to actually be a part of my life, rather than a flash in the pan.
So how do you keep yourself for falling to hard? Here's my best advice:
1. Talk To Your Friends
When it comes to gauging our relationships, friends are a great asset. If you have people you trust, who can give you tough love when you don't want to hear it, you're really lucky and should use that. Ask them outright if you're losing perspective or being unrealistic, and if they think you are— don't get defensive, just listen, and remember you trust them for a reason.
2. Don't Start Spending All Of Your Time Together
It's the quickest way to fall too hard. Obviously in the honeymoon period of a new relationship, you feel like you're in an amazing little bubble when the two of you spend time together. That's completely natural. But if you spend all of your time in that little bubble, you're going to fall too hard. Come up for air every once in a while. You don't need to go on five dates a week from when you meet each other, there'll be plenty of time down the road.
3. Keep Your Hobbies
Yeah, those things like your pilates workshop or your art class may not seem so important when you can stay curled up with your new favorite person, but it is. You can't let these things fall on the wayside, because for you to keep from getting in too deep, you need to keep some things that are just yours. It may not seem so important in the first month, but months down the line you'll be grateful you kept up with what you love.
4. Remember This Feeling From Other Relationships
Romantic memory spans are weirdly short. People that you used to think you couldn't live without, you probably laugh about as so ridiculous you don't know why you were ever with them. Yet when it comes to a new relationship, you forgot that your emotions could ever switch so quickly, or you convince yourself you've never felt this way before. But you almost certainly have. The funny thing about love is that yours always feel unique and special, but you have to remember it's not— falling in love is not special or unique— it's universal and most people will do it more than once. It doesn't make what you're feeling any less lovely and incredible, just bear it in mind.
5. Don't Ignore Their Flaws
There's nothing scarier than when your friend starts saying their new S.O. is "perfect". Because nobody's perfect. We all do dumb things and have weird personality traits and that's totally fine. But if you're convinced the person you're with is just perfect, you're just not being realistic and instead you're falling really hard for the idea of a person rather than the person themselves. Maybe the person you're with talks too much or likes music you hate— that's fine! And no reason not to be with them. You should love them with their flaws, rather than just be pretending they don't exist.
6. Remind Yourself You Want It To Last
The only real problem with falling too hard too fast is that it's not really sustainable, and could probably lead to you getting hurt. Yes, you love spending time with that person and it feels like it would be amazing to be around them every second, but if you really want things to last you need to find out how to integrate into each other's lives rather than dropping everything for each other. Because that won't last. So don't think of it as holding back or not being romantic, it's actually showing how much you care about the person, because you want to be with them for a long time.
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