You like someone. They like you. You continue liking this person. This person pulls back. You wonder why and push a little. This person continues to pull back. You get anxious and obsess. Sadly, in dating, this is a common occurrence.
Why might a person’s feelings actually grow the less someone reciprocates those feelings? In truth, it’s usually the anxiety talking, but there are a few theories on this:
1. Overinvestment
Elite Daily described this theory in detail. A principle on which our minds work is reciprocity. If we do something for someone, even if we haven’t asked for something in return, we subconsciously expect the person to do something in return of about equal value. These things could range from dinner to something as simple as a text response.
When the person of interest does not reciprocate, however, rather than retreating, we instead tend to invest more, in the hopes of the other person responding. And then once we’ve invested more, the amount of reciprocation required in our minds increases. As Elite says, “Annoyingly, investing too much time and energy in someone without the person wanting it will usually push the person away.”
2. Perceived value and scarcity
The less someone responds or reciprocates to one’s advances, the more perceived value the pursuer thinks this person has, so we try harder since this person must really be “worth it” if they are in such high demand. In other words, this person is a scarce resource.
And often, the higher we perceive this other person’s value, the lower we perceive our own. A person’s lack of response, though, should not imply a higher value. Rather, at its simplest, it should imply a lack of proper communication (“I’m simply not interested”), or just rudeness.
3. Defense mechanisms
If there are 20 people you can “get” or “date,” and one person you can’t, some people will go for the unattainable because there will be no accountability for it not working.
Let’s say you date someone who actually likes you, and after a number of months, the relationship fizzles. It’s no one’s fault, but you took an active role.
If you chase the unattainable, though, you can never say that you took the active role. Rather, you never made it to the point of the relationship and thereby never allowed yourself to succeed or fail.
4. Lost possibilities
If things were going swimmingly and then someone changes the cadence of communication (as in, used to text daily but now texts every three days), many people will bank on the thought, “I know what it could be like … because it was.”
Rather than accepting the current status, they dwell on the past and try — often futilely — to get things back to the way they were at the pinnacle. But we can’t, and that’s hard to understand sometimes.
5. Science
The brain’s happy drug is dopamine. Our brain craves this feeling. So, by going for someone we know we can’t have — or we can only have sometimes — our brains love the unpredictability because the highs are higher. This is why “breadcrumbing” has entered our lexicon. Our brain says, “Yes! We want this!”
With the extra dopamine, though, comes added anxiety. “When is he going to text?” “I haven’t heard from her in three days, and I know she’s back from her weekend trip by now.” Is that a worthwhile trade-off? I say no.
In all, it’s best to devote time and energy to what you do have and not what you don’t — or can’t. It’ll save time, energy and heartache in the end.
Erika Ettin is the founder of A Little Nudge, where she helps others navigate the often intimidating world of online dating. Want to connect with Erika? Join her newsletter, eepurl.com/dpHcH for updates and tips. This column was distributed by Tribune Content Agency.
