Have you noticed when you start dating someone you like, you can’t stop thinking about him. You become hyper aware of the time you spend apart and you obsessively check your phone waiting for his texts or his calls. You are attracted to him like glue and you find yourself wanting to spend every waking moment together. This is a normal reaction, and a lot of it has to do with biology. The chemicals and hormones in our bodies start being released in overdrive and it’s hard to resist the wave.
As women, we have the natural instinct to mate for life. One of the substances we produce is Oxytocin. This is what bonds mothers to their children and brings about that unconditional love. This also affects us in our romantic relationship with men. It drives us to settle down, mate and nest.
Here’s where it gets challenging. When we find a potential mate there’s the tendency to get tunnel vision, focusing on the guy and trying to determine if he’s “the one”. We jump way too far into the future, checking off our mental list, and try to get to that safety zone of established commitment and security.
The problem is we end up putting pressure on the developing relationship, and greater your interest the more this pressure can build. Often the guy can feel this pressure, it feels clingy (often called needy) so he responds by withdrawing. This starts an uncomfortable push/pull relationship where you pursue and he withdraws. If you don’t recognize this dance or don’t have tools to effectively navigate it, his withdrawing will often cause greater uncertainty and discomfort for you, leading you to pursue even more in hopes to create closeness.
How do you avoid this? You date more then one guy at a time! Watch the video for more on this.
This disperses your focus and energy, so you don’t unintentionally put so much pressure on a man that you push him out of your life. This also gives you an opportunity to explore your options, make sure you’re not settling, and not get caught up in a push/pull cycle where you are the pursuer.
You don’t have to want to spend the rest of your life with them or like them all equally. That isn’t the point. You can even have a male friend you throw in your dating rotation. It’s all about keeping yourself in check. Plus if you’re in high demand, keeping your social calendar full will let you know how interested each of the men are. They will make sure to ask you for another date in advance so you aren’t waiting around for them to plan something with you.
Always keep your options open and be open to dating other men until the man you’d like to develop a deeper relationship asks you for a monogamous commited to be in a monogamous relationship. Until he does so, it’s better to assume that he is also dating and possibly sleeping with other women.
Leave a comment below. Have you ever been caught up in pursuing a man or a push/pull relationship? Let me know what happened!
All the best,
Interesting perspective. I can see how this might work. When I was dating I was given similar wise advice, but slightly different: Get busy in other interests! When someone has enjoyable and even intense commitments outside of relationships, they don’t have time to spend with one person. They’re too busy!
The busy person is also attractive – more to talk about and more to be curious about.