“I just get attached quickly,” people often tell me in therapy. Usually, they mean that after two or three dates they are already thinking a lot about the person they met, waiting for a message, wanting to see them again and feeling they have a great deal to lose if the relationship ends. But when I hear that sentence, another question interests me: What exactly have you become attached to?
Because not everything that feels like rapid attachment necessarily develops into love. Anxiety can bind us to someone. Sex can bind us. The fact that someone wants us can bind us. Loneliness and the desire to finally be in a relationship can bind us too. Sometimes we become attached to a fantasy about a person we barely know.
None of this means a relationship will necessarily develop. In fact, most early dating situations do not end that way. So why do we become attached so quickly?
Our attachment system is designed to connect us to other people. It allows a stranger to gradually become someone whose presence we seek, whom we miss and beside whom we feel safe. But sometimes, because of anxiety, loneliness, age-related pressure, powerful attraction or simple excitement, our attachment system races ahead of the actual process of getting to know someone.
That can create a difficult situation: We are already deeply attached to someone we still do not really know. So if you find yourself attaching quickly, rather than simply surrendering to that feeling, it is worth asking what exactly is pulling you toward this person.
When anxiety creates attachment
For some people, attachment anxiety is the driving force. At the beginning of a relationship, we still do not know whether the other person wants us, whether they will call tomorrow or whether the relationship will continue. For someone sensitive to rejection or abandonment, that uncertainty can activate the attachment system very quickly.
Suddenly we are checking the phone, analyzing messages and struggling to think about anything else. This is where a common confusion occurs: We think we are preoccupied with the question, “How much do I want this person?” when much of our preoccupation is actually about, “How much does this person want me?”
Fantasy is another force that can accelerate attachment. At the start of a relationship, we know very little, leaving plenty of room for our imagination to fill in the gaps. A look can become sensitivity in our minds, confidence can become stability and one deep conversation can become proof of emotional intimacy.
Before long, we are imagining vacations, a home and children with someone whose behavior when they are at their worst, for example, we have yet to see.
In particularly intense cases, this process can take on the form of “limerence,” an almost obsessive preoccupation with another person, sometimes fueled precisely by uncertainty and by the gap between the real person and the person we have constructed in our imagination.
At that point, it is worth asking: What do I actually know about this person, and what am I filling in myself? Which qualities have they genuinely demonstrated over time, and which qualities am I assigning to them because I want this story to work so badly?
Another important question is this: If I knew with certainty that this person wanted me and was not going to disappear, would I still want them just as intensely?
If some of the emotional intensity fades once the threat of rejection is removed, it may not be love alone at work. Anxiety may also be binding you to them.
When we become attached because someone wants us
There is an important difference between wanting another person and wanting that person to want us. From the inside, those experiences can feel remarkably similar.
When someone wants us, we feel desired, attractive and valuable. Their attention feels good, and it is easy to mistakenly conclude from that feeling that we must want them too.
If I knew for certain that this person wanted me and wasn’t going to disappear, would I still want them just as intensely?
(Photo: Shutterstock)
This confusion becomes stronger when something inside us desperately needs to be chosen. Fear of rejection eases when somebody chooses us. Fragile self-esteem receives a boost. And after years of searching, pressure to marry or a growing sense that time is running out, meeting someone who wants us can bring enormous relief.
We feel better because of their desire for us, and it is easy to confuse that good feeling with our own desire for them. But these are two different psychological processes. The other person’s desire tells us how they feel about us. It does not yet answer the question of how we feel about them.
You are allowed to enjoy being wanted while still not knowing whether you want the other person. Sometimes it is enough to remind yourself: It feels good that someone wants me, but I still need to figure out what I want.
Ask yourself: If I did not know how much this person wanted me, what would I feel toward them? Do we actually seem compatible? Would I choose them even without the wonderful reassurance that comes from being chosen?
There is a subtle but important difference between wanting someone and wanting them to want us.
When the experience itself creates attachment
Another thing that can bind us quickly is the experience we create together. Sex, for example, can generate an intense feeling of closeness. So can a night of deep conversation, a weekend together, restaurants, alcohol, trips or several intense days spent almost constantly together.
There is nothing unreal about that enjoyment. It is part of the relationship. But sometimes we confuse the person with the way we feel inside the experience.
A simple thought experiment can help: If we were not having sex right now, would I still find this person interesting? If we temporarily remove the restaurants, travel and excitement, would I still look forward to talking to them? Could we spend an entire evening sitting together at home and would I still want to be there?
Sex deepens the attachment process
(Photo: Shutterstock)
This happens to many men and women, especially after years of being single, or when age, the desire for children and the sense that time is passing create urgency.
The new person is no longer simply someone we have just met. They become a possibility: a relationship, a family, a home, belonging and an end to loneliness.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to move forward, get married or have children. The problem begins when our desire for the relationship becomes stronger than our curiosity about the person with whom we are building it.
We enjoy finally having someone to sleep beside, go out with, travel with, introduce to friends and plan a future with, and we may confuse our enjoyment of the relationship “package” with compatibility with the person inside it.
Ask yourself: If you were not afraid of being alone again, would you still choose this relationship? Sometimes we genuinely feel good with the person in front of us. At other times, much of what feels good is simply the fact that we finally “have someone.”
All of these questions are not meant to extinguish excitement. Love requires us to allow ourselves to become attached. But it is useful to distinguish between three things we often mix together at the beginning of a relationship: attachment, desire and compatibility.
Attachment can happen quickly and almost automatically. Desire requires us to examine what we truly feel toward the person in front of us, beyond anxiety, the need to be wanted and everything the relationship seems to promise. Compatibility requires something else that cannot be rushed: time and familiarity.
You can be attached to someone, want them intensely and still eventually discover that they are not right for you.
So when attachment seems to be racing ahead, there is no need to stop it altogether, but neither do you have to make decisions at the pace it dictates. You can continue getting closer and enjoying the excitement while still giving reality enough time to reveal itself.
Feelings are allowed to race ahead. Decisions do not have to race with them. Emotion can move quickly, but truly getting to know someone takes time. So if you already feel attached, it is worth asking along the way exactly who you are attached to, and whether that person will truly suit you in the long term.
Roy Tzur is the founder of Derech Hakesher, a practice specializing in individual, couples and online relationship therapy.