9 Ways to Tell if You're Falling in Love for Real, According to Experts
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Loading... - Jarmila Beranek
- 14 Jul 2022
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It’s a classic story: You meet someone, feel butterflies, and start pondering a future, whether it’s Friday’s dinner or next year’s proposal. You’re pretty sure you’re falling in love—or are you?
However strong the feeling, it can be tough to decipher whether it’s grounded in something real or something more fleeting. After all, plenty of things can look and feel like love. Lust, for example. Or infatuation. Or toxic love bombing. And even if it does seem like 100% genuine Love, that doesn’t necessarily mean it is. You may be able to think back to a time when you were sure you were falling hard and then reversed course when you saw them, say, be a jerk to a waiter.
To help you untangle it all and decipher your emotions, we consulted a few relationship experts on this particular matter of the heart. Here are ten signs that it’s the real deal and you are, in fact, falling in love with someone—so you can declare your feelings with confidence.
1. You know them well (or at least pretty well).
While there’s no set time for how long it takes to fall in love, the experts we talked to agree that getting to know someone is a key part of developing deep feelings. When you’re really hot for someone in the early stages of dating, it sure can feel like you’re in love (see middle school crushes for reference), but according to Megan Fleming, PhD, a clinical psychologist and sex and couples therapist, “the difference between infatuation and love is knowing a person.” Meaning that when you’re merely infatuated, “it’s a projection because you haven’t learned much about them yet.” Essentially, you’re projecting all the things you hope are true onto this person—a lovely but still largely blank canvas.
Whereas when you’re in love, it’s typically based on a deep connection and shared values, which requires at least some understanding of who this person is and what makes them tick. You have a sense of their personality: cautious or daring, outgoing or shy, even-keeled or excitable. You can largely predict their reactions and rely on them to be consistently themselves.
Even if you don’t know everything about them yet, if it’s “true love,” you’ll probably want to: A 2021 research review in the journal Frontiers of Psychology found that “preoccupation with the partner,” the “desire to know the other and to be known,” and “studying the other person” are all common components of romantic love. In other words, when you’re falling in love you tend to become fascinated by anything and everything you learn about your new partner. (What was their third-grade teacher’s name, anyway?)
2. The phrase that best describes your feelings is in love rather than just love.
When it comes to feelings of love, it turns out that what you call your emotions might matter. Ty Tashiro, PhD, psychologist and author of The Science of Happily Ever After, tells SELF that in a 1997 study conducted, which is just one reason why this oft-cited study is among his favorites—researchers parsed the differences between “love” and being “in love” and the associations people have with each term. The research may be old, but its findings stand the test of time, according to Dr. Tashiro.
“The researchers found that the two most common predictors of being ‘in love’ are liking the person and feeling lust for them,” he says. “They found that 86% of the time, if both of those things were in place, people were in love,” and not just feeling more general love for the person. If you just like the person but feel no heat, Dr. Tashiro says, “then what you have is a friend, and there’s nothing wrong with that. And if you just have physical attraction, that’s a booty call, and that’s okay too.” In other words, if you combine the positivity and goodwill one feels toward a loved one with the attraction one feels to a lover, you’ve likely got yourself a match.
3. You can see their quirks and look past them.
The 2021 Frontiers of Psychology review also found that romantic love is marked by “a tendency to perceive one’s relationship and one’s loved one in a positive light or bias.” Dr. Fleming notes the importance of removing those rose-colored glasses when it comes to real intimacy, though—since in a state of infatuation, we’re often so dazzled by the person we can’t even register their quirks and shortcomings. “It’s about the good, the bad, and the ugly,” Dr. Fleming says. “When you hold love and fondness and affection for someone who is flawed and human, that’s love.”
That said, there’s a difference between overlooking imperfections and excusing behavior that’s abusive or otherwise toxic. Paying attention to and trusting your instincts if something feels unsettling in your partnership can help you distinguish between flaws you can accept (they hate talking on the phone or leave used floss around the house, say) and warning signs of an unhealthy bond. On that note. Read More...
