“Should I block my ex’s number and social media?”
It’s a good question, and some people would say to simply block the ex and be done with it. But it’s not so simple.
Category: Love
The term “limerence” was coined by professor and psychologist Dorothy Tennov in 1979.
Limerence is the emotional craving that a certain person will love you as much as you love them.
In most cases, limerence strikes a person before a relationship begins. One or two meetings can often be enough to trigger limerence.
The person who suffers from limerence experiences obsessive fantasies and thoughts involving them and their romantic interest. No matter how much they try, they simply cannot stop their obsession with the romantic interest from occupying their minds.
Limerent sufferers also experience a distorted sense of reality. They often believe the romantic interest can be either a saint, a person without flaws, “a good person deep down, just deeply misunderstood”, their soulmate etc.
Because of this distorted sense of reality, Limerent sufferers often mistakenly believe the actions and behaviors of their romantic interest show interest towards them. In reality, the romantic interest was simply polite, without any romantic intentions.
Another major symptom of limerence are the brutal emotional mood swings. Signs of interest can send limerent sufferers in a state of drug-like euphoria, while rejections or indifference can induce depressive symptoms and bring the sufferer to despair.
So you find yourself dating a white man or a black woman for the first time, and are wondering what to expect. At least in the United States, statistics show that interracial relationships are still a small (but growing) minority. In other words, you’re special! As a rule it seems, most people prefer to date someone of the same skin color as theirs.
In the past, interracial relationships were (even legally) frowned upon, but attitudes have changed considerably for the better in the past few decades. Even glass-half-empty people will be pleasantly surprised to discover just how easily accepted their new relationship will be. This really is 2020 and not 1950.
What is unconditional love
In its true, semantic meaning unconditional love equals affection without any sort of limitation. Love simply flows towards someone (or even an ideal) without any sort of restraint. One might even call it “true love”.
But this definition raises some tough possibilities that beg the question: “without any limits? Seriously?”.
Is it worth waiting for someone you love?
Most people would say it is a black and white problem: “never wait for someone, you are too precious to do that; if they love you, they will come”.
Self-respect is an awesome thing to have. But there are some situations which are truly hard to navigate and require time and effort to get out of. Only after can a person commit.
It’s one thing to wait for a person who makes an honest effort for you, but quite another to wait for somebody who doesn’t seem to care.
Another thing to keep in mind is that waiting for someone allows to clear your mind and figure out if you yourself actually like that person. It could just be a temporary moment of passion that will quickly evaporate once you get over it.
5 reasons to wait for someone
1. They are making a true effort to come to you
New relationships are very fragile in the initial stages of courtship. They become even more uncertain when the other person cannot commit 100% because of the circumstances in their life; think moving and setting up in another city, family obligations, long work hours, temporary long distance situations etc.
Should you wait for him / her in this case?
Maybe you’ve got it wrong and the real question isn’t if you should wait or not.
A better way to look at things is to consider these initial challenges as tests of character and commitment.
If the other person is making a genuine effort to solve their problems and come towards you, that is a major green flag. It shows that they are both capable of solving tricky relationship issues in the future, and that they like you enough to hold on.
The same logic applies to you as well. Chances are your crush is also looking for signs of support, a confirmation that his or her efforts aren’t being wasted.
2. They clearly communicate their intentions and commitment
Sometimes you can meet the one right after a difficult moment, such as an ugly breakup or other forms of emotional trauma.
You’re ready to commit, but the other person isn’t. They’re still figuring out their emotions and are unsure if they like you or not.
The best approach in this case is to wait and see how they communicate. A green flag is if they make it clear at all times how they feel about you, and warn you not to invest too much. This shows they care and don’t want you to get attached too quickly, too early and risk hurting yourself. They respect you enough to not use you as a backup or emotional crutch.
In these types of situations it can end either way. But you have the privilege of making an informed decision.
3. You know the type of person you want, just haven’t found it yet
Should you wait for the right person, or should you settle for someone that is “just right” for you? Popular wisdom says you should hold out and wait for “the one”, but there are a few major considerations:
1) How well do you know yourself and what type of person do you feel compatible with? A common approach to this question is “I’ll know it when I see it”, but having a few well-defined criteria can go a long way into figuring out the type of person you can see yourself with.
2) How can you make the relationship awesome? Relationships become fulfilling thanks to the efforts of both people involved. It won’t really matter much that you’ve found the one if you can’t carry the relationship from your end as well.
3) By having a clearly defined type, you’d be doing other people a favor by not wasting their time.
The only major downside of waiting for someone you can love is if your criteria are too restrictive, which leads to rejecting people you might otherwise be compatible with.
4. It’s ok to wait, if you’re open to meeting others
On occasion, you’ll get hung up on a person because you think they are your only option for an awesome relationship. That’s fine, it happens. Hearts have a strange way of getting fixated on somebody in particular and ignoring everybody else.
In these situations, it’s perfectly ok to wait a while for the other person to become available or make a move on you.
Until then however, you should really be open to meet other people. Keep going out, flirt, chat with people when out at get-togethers etc.
If the logistics in your life don’t allow you to be particularly social at this point in your life, another option is online dating. If you prefer something more serious than Tinder, consider dating services that match you with people based on a personality test, such as eHarmony.
There is really no downside in doing so. You might even find someone who is emotionally available that you like better than your crush.
The only thing you should truly consider is to not lead on the other people you’re seeing, in case the crush comes back and you choose them instead.
5. Wait for somebody to fall in love with you
Perhaps you’re already in a relationship with the person of your dreams. They’re available, kind, mature, have their lives put together and are fun to be around.
The only problem is, they haven’t said “I love you” or you feel they haven’t yet fallen in love with you.
Hearing those words isn’t a shallow whim that’s supposed to make you feel good. Ultimately, a person that says “I love you” communicates that they are invested enough in you and the relationship in order to navigate it through good and bad times.
Someone who isn’t in love you with simply doesn’t have “skin in the game” as it were. Even if the relationship ended tomorrow, they’d feel only a small sting and be back to normal within a week.
So how long should you wait for somebody to fall in love?
This one is probably the hardest of all to answer because there are simply so many variables.
- Perhaps the person doesn’t experience love very intensely?
- What if they were hurt in their past relationships and are overly cautious?
- Maybe they don’t love you, but don’t want to be lonely?
- What if they do love you, but are playing mind games to keep you on your toes?
- They want to be “certain”.
Those are just a few possible scenarios. Some of them are not very pleasant to think about.
In the end however, true love is an overpowering emotion that can break through any rationalizations one may have. Sometimes, it requires many experiences, shared moments and time to get there so consider waiting if you haven’t had them.
However, if you and your SO have been through a lot, and they had the chance to see you at your best and worst and still haven’t fallen in love, then there’s a good chance they never will.
5 reasons NOT to wait for someone
1. You’re waiting for them to breakup with someone
To a large degree, who we fall in love with can be an uncontrollable reaction. Sometimes, this can lead to falling in love with someone already in a relationship.
Should you wait for them to breakup and be with you instead? When it comes to love there are no absolutes, however there are a few major reasons why you shouldn’t wait for someone already in a relationship.
For instance, you’ll never know if the relationship is ever going to end or not. Because of this, you risk missing out on someone who is just as compatible with you (if not more so) than the person you’re waiting for.
2. They are in a relationship with someone else and involved with you at the same time
The situation becomes even more complicated if you’re already emotionally or physically involved with them.
They may be leading you on, promising a potential relationship as a way of keeping you around. Even if they do breakup, you have no guarantee they won’t move behind your back as well.
3. They already had the love of their life, and it isn’t you
Should you wait for someone to sort out their feelings after a nasty breakup? The answer is: it depends. Most people do need a cool off period after the end of a relationship, especially if it was a committed one.
However, some relationships are much harder to recover from than others and require extensive time and emotional support to get over them.
If the other person hasn’t fully resolved his or her emotional baggage, you risk becoming an emotional crutch and entering a rebound relationship.
The other person won’t truly see you as an equal romantic partner, but more as an emotional distraction, someone who can keep their mind occupied while they figure things out.
As a result, chances are they won’t even treat you with the respect you deserve. For instance, they can draw painful comparisons such as “my ex was better because they did X”. Other times can copy paste behaviors or routines from the past relationship, into the one they have with you (even if you don’t like them).
However, the idea of mending a broken heart and waiting for someone to figure out they actually love you is very seductive. Unfortunately, chances are very high things won’t turn out that way.
Even if the other person does make an effort to treat you kindly, there is a good chance they will come to the conclusion that the two of you aren’t that compatible. Or that they need more space.
4. “I’m not ready for a relationship (with you)”
If there’s one phrase that’s a clear signal not to wait for someone, then that would be “I’m not ready for a relationship”, since it is just a very polite rejection of a relationship with you. It’s one of those weird phrases that means something else entirely than what it actually says.
Ultimately, there’s really no point in waiting for the person to be ready, because they’ve already made up their minds. They just try to make the problem about them so as to not hurt you, which is commendable, even if not fully straightforward.
5. Taking a break from a relationship
Some couples take breaks in their relationship. Basically, they’re still “together”, but they don’t see each other much (or at all) and are free to date other people.
Breaks in a relationship usually happen when there is too much emotional turmoil. Emotional turmoil exists because of underlying problems that create relationship conflict.
A break is an easy escape from the emotional turmoil, but without solving the underlying problems. Even after ending the break and getting back together, chances are the relationship will be haunted by the same problems that caused the break in the first place.
Still, some breaks are successful. Again, they don’t solve the problems by themselves, but they give the people in the relationship time to grow, to figure themselves out, learn more on how to handle relationships, interpersonal conflict and so on.
Some couples can flourish after breaks. This is because they learned the valuable lessons they needed to make the relationship work.
The problems with breaks however, is that they aren’t always done in good faith. Some want breaks in order to date others without dealing with the guilt of cheating, yet still staying together with their “main” partner.
In the end, it’s best to treat relationship breaks as a proper breakup. If things are meant to be, the people involved will reconnect, make up and come back together again.
If you are like me, you’ve probably been taught that fulfillment in one’s personal life means connecting with someone who you love and loves you back, marrying them and creating a stable and happy family. It seems so simple and natural, something inherently human and common to all of us.
But is it?
Sex at Dawn authors Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha delve into our ancestors love lives and sexual relationships in a time when monogamy didn’t exist yet as a generalized way of life, and through their findings put forward a thought provoking theory in regards to our sex lives and relationships.
What you can learn from this book:
- Why monogamy is unnatural for humans
- Why women moan during sex
- Why men and women have a different path to orgasm
