infatuation: 5 ways to tell if you are infatuated and not in love

We talk so much about love but you don't hear a lot  about INFATUATION. As a date coach, I hope I can share my perspective and bring some light to your curiosity. 

1. They make you feel good 
It's easy to fall for people that make us feel good. So many times we fall for the actions and words we are told with out really loving the person. I know it's confusing, so many people tell us to focus on how they treat us but the truth is that the value we give on how someone treats us can also stem from your past. Maybe you didn't have the attention in your last relationship like this person gives you. Maybe you have identified love to be solely what poeple do for you. Maybe you feel flattered when this person does these things for you, making it comfortable to stay despite not truly loving the person. I will add that another basic human need is to feel loved. Ask yourself, if they loved me but weren't able to do these things for me, would I still feel the same way for them?

2. You create ideas and visions that haven't happened
You are probably really excited to have met someone you have chemistry with! "Finally, someone that gets my sense of humor, likes what I like and someone I actually find attractive!" You get so wrapped up in the excitement that it is easy to start painting a future that isn't there. I've come to learn that when you start to visualize with strong emotion, your mind can't distinguish the difference between what is reality and imagination. Because of this, you start to wire signals to the brain to put this love interest in the "What's important to me" pile of your subconcious mind. You start to become hypersesnitive to events that are associated with this love interest because of the visualizations you have done. These ideas we create manipulate our feelings about the person instead of allowing these emotions to grow authentically based on the reality you are experiencing with them. Remember, your brain doesn't know the difference, so for all your brain knows, these events you made up actually happened! Therefore, you develop feelings based off what they do and what they don't actually do! Hence the reason you grow infatuated.  

3. Ego 
Yes, your ego. You have probably found numerous reasons on paper why this love interest is a perfect match. Maybe your social group are faund of them and this boosts your ego. Maybe you are convinced that this person needs you and this makes you feel needed and valued. Maybe this love interest is someone others have always found attractive and now this person seems even more attractive than you thought before. Come on, I know it's hard to fess up but we must face the truth to get to the bottom of things. Plus, there are a numorous of human needs we have. One of them being, significance. Which is why you could grow infatuated. "If that person makes me look valuable, I want them."  This is EGO. 

4. Focusing on the potential 
You constantly fall for the "what could be" to make excuses for "what it actually is". I have been here many times before! You can see their potential, "If only they could be the person I know they can be!". Always finding reasons why not to leave because you just might miss the moment when they finally change. This illusion is extremely impactful to the relationship. Why? Well, you start to create ideas and illusive visions of a life with a person who is non-existent. I know that is a hard pill to swallow but they don't exist. 

5.History Attachment 
I have seen this many times. Two people have been with each other for years and they have now gained pride over their history. They may fall under the college sweethearts or highschool sweet hearts category and now they can't imagine letting that go. You have grown comfortable with the relationship and despite seeing how different you have both become, you can't cut ties. When we grow an attachmenet for things especially people that have been in our lives for years, we can create the illusion that it identifies us as an individual. Not being able to distinguish who you are in life with out them.

NOTE: What I am trying to make clear on this blog is that whether you find yourself relating to only one or all, if more than 50% of your relationship is based on either one, you feel Infatuation and not Love.
Feel free to comment your perspective so others can find their own!