You’re mad about one another and you can’t stop thinking about each other and the next time you’ll be able to meet. Emotions are high, physicality is off the charts, and you’re generally filled with an unshakeable sense of bliss.
However, as time goes on, those feelings become less intense. It happens to everyone, love or not, so that’s nothing to worry about in a general sense. However, perhaps you begin to notice that those feelings have also changed a bit. Perhaps you’ve begun to question whether you’re really in love.
If that’s the case, there’s a good chance that you were confusing infatuation with love. The sooner you notice this, the better, particularly if you’re actively in search of real love.
So, let’s talk about a few signs you should look for if you’re still unsure about whether you’re feeling the real thing.
I don’t think love should make you feel uneasy. When you feel sick, I don’t think that’s love — that’s infatuation.
– Alexa Chung
1. You’ve only known each other for a short while– and the energy has already begun to fade
While not a strict sign of infatuation, pure infatuation only exists in young relationships.
For that reason, if you’ve been together for a short while and the energy between the two of you has quickly subsided, that’s a pretty decent sign that you might have just been infatuated.
2. You’re focused on your needs, not theirs
Compared to love, which is more selfless and involves truly caring for the well-being of the other person, infatuation is more of a mutual leeching off one another. The whole relationship is based on “I see something I want -> I got what I want -> continue to feed the hunger (your needs).”
If you notice yourself rarely taking their needs or desires into consideration– or notice the same behavior from the other person– that’s probably infatuation and not true love.
3. All you want is to be physical with the other person
Easily one of the biggest signs of pure infatuation is the desire to be physical with the other person constantly– with little desire to do anything else.
It’s common for new couples who are in love to want to be physical more frequently. However, to go along with this desire for frequent physical contact are equal parts deep emotional and intellectual experiences as well.
But if your relationship (if you can call it that) is missing that latter half and revolves almost– or literally– entirely around sex and other physical contact, that’s a big sign it’s infatuation.
4. You get really jealous
When someone is infatuated with another, they tend to be very possessive of that person.
So, when someone or something threatens to take that person away from us, we become defensive or jealous, depending on the situation.
If you’ve noticed yourself becoming intensely jealous frequently or seen that behavior in the other person, that’s a sign it’s infatuation and not real love.
5. You think they’re perfect, even when it’s completely irrational
When you’re infatuated, the other person appears absolutely perfect to you. And while this happens to some degree with every relationship, the level of this belief when infatuated is much more intense.
In fact, it’s so intense that if your friends attempt to tell you negative things they’ve heard about the person, you brush them off and make an excuse for it. To you, everyone is clueless and you’ve found the absolute perfect specimen.
True love is accepting of imperfections. In fact, it’s part of what makes love true, you’re fully accepting of the other person even being aware of their “flaws”.
However, infatuation seeks perfection and it projects that desire off onto the other person even to the point of deceiving yourself, typically until it’s too late and you’ve been hurt as a result.
Matt Valentine is a father, husband, and a self-published author. He writes weekly on his blog, Buddhaimonia.com, about everything from spirituality to self-mastery.
