Are You Actually In Love, Or Are You Just In Love With The Idea Of It?

For many of us, falling in love is something we’ve been looking forward to for as long as we can remember. We watched movies that made us yearn for a love like the one we just watched unfold. We read books where two unlikely lovers couldn’t keep themselves from falling for one another. We listened to songs that expressed a kind of love for someone that we couldn’t wait to experience for ourselves.

And so we spend the next years searching and hoping to find a love of our own. Of course, this desire isn’t a bad thing. It’s natural to want to find a life partner. But if we aren’t careful, our pursuit of finding love becomes more important than actually finding a good man and falling in love organically. We get so obsessed with the idea of falling in love that we almost force ourselves to believe we’re in love, even if we aren’t. We begin to fall more in love with the idea of being in love than with an actual person.

So what are the signs that we’re not actually in love, but more in love with the idea of being in love? 

You Think Your Life Will Begin Once You Find “The One”

Finding and falling in love with the man we’ll one day marry is something we all look forward to. It’s a phase of life that, once it begins, will influence quite a bit – from what we value to how we spend our time to our goals. With that being said, before we ever come across our future husband, we’re still living a life of our own.

If we think of meeting our future spouse as the thing that will give our life meaning and purpose, we’re putting far too much importance and pressure on the idea of falling in love – and that can only lead to disappointment when we find out that being in love requires loving a person who will inevitably make mistakes, annoy us, and challenge us.

You Can’t Seem To Take Things Slow

Falling for someone is a process. We first have to meet a guy we’re attracted to and click with, then we have to go on enough dates, have enough conversations that go deeper than “So what Netflix shows are you watching?”, and discover that there are more things we like about them than things we dislike. On the whole, actually falling in love with someone takes time, as well as taking the step of saying, “I love you,” to each other. 

Falling in love and feeling in love are two different things.

If, with every new relationship, we’re ready to exchange those three words relatively quickly (within a few months) and can’t stop thinking about how perfect he is, or we’re secretly looking at apartments we can imagine as our future home together, or even daydreaming about what our wedding will be like, these are all signs that we’re rushing our relationship, focusing more on feeling in love than organically falling in love with our boyfriend.

You’re Kind of a Serial Dater

Being single can feel lonely, especially if all of our friends are in relationships. And if we just went through a hard breakup, there’s probably nothing we miss more than having a boyfriend, someone to text and laugh with who isn’t just a girl friend. But for the most part, it’s in our best interest to take time to heal and be okay all on our own after a relationship ends.

If we’re constantly finding ourselves in new relationships, each following on the heels of the last one, this is an indicator that we’re placing more value on feeling like we’re in love than on actually finding a special person we want to be with, even if that means staying single for an extended period of time.

You’re Willing To Ignore Red Flags

A relationship’s early days are filled with revelations about how wonderful our new boyfriend is. He’s the funniest guy we’ve ever met, the most handsome one we’ve ever seen, the most perfect match we’ve ever come across. But then, slowly but surely, our rose-colored glasses come off, revealing a more truthful version of our boyfriend, and we begin to see his faults, and if they’re present, his red flags.

However, if we’re more interested in saying we’re in love than truly falling in love, we might be willing to ignore the red flags and refrain from ever taking off our rose-colored glasses. In this case, maintaining the idea we have in our head of our boyfriend becomes more important than actually knowing him for who he is – which is a key part of really being in love with someone.

Or You’re Out at the First Sign of Conflict

A huge part of being in love with someone is fully, intimately knowing them – including their faults, shortcomings, and bad habits. If we’re truly in love, we won’t be under any impression that our boyfriend is perfect. But we’ll also understand that imperfections, challenges, and conflict come with the territory of being in a relationship.

If we’re truly in love, we won’t be under any impression that our boyfriend is perfect. 

The flip side of not allowing ourselves to see our boyfriend’s red flags is running from a relationship at the very first sign of conflict. In this case, our idea of love is that it should be effortless, come totally naturally, and never ask anything of us – a key sign that we’re more in love with the idea of love than we are with a real person. 

You Constantly Wonder If Someone “Better” Will Come Along

When we choose to devote ourselves to a relationship with the intention of eventually marrying this person, we stop caring about any other “potential mates” that come along. We’ve made our choice, and no one else matters anymore.

But when feeling in love is higher on our list of priorities than being in love, we won’t be able to get rid of the nagging feeling that someone better could come along – that we could be more “in love” than we currently are. We’ll find ourselves constantly chasing the high of feeling in love by continuing to search for someone new to fixate on.

Closing Thoughts

Falling in love and feeling in love are two different things. And while our desire for love is beautiful, we should check in with ourselves as we search for that special someone, making sure that we’re valuing real, mature, true love over a false idea of it.

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