Forcing Love: What To Avoid

Have you been with someone for a long period of time, but you can sense that they’re no longer into you? Do you notice a lack of interest in their eyes? Are you spending an inordinate amount of time with someone you love, only to find that they don’t feel the same way back?

You can’t force someone to love you, and you shouldn’t attempt to try forcing them either. Not only are you making a situation toxic, but it can come off as really creepy when you try to repeatedly force yourself onto someone who has no interest in you.

What Does It Mean To Force Love?

There’s not really a clear explanation of what it means to force love. It’s certain behaviors that can, in other circumstances, be read as an affectionate husband or wife taking care of their significant other. But when you do it to someone who clearly has no interest in you, you’re trying to force them to love you.

This can be true of married couples, and it can be true for single people. If you find someone you have an obsession with, you might find yourself thinking that you can make them see the light. What follows is an example that should help you understand this faulty reasoning.

There’s a man and a woman, and the man loves the woman very much. The woman, however, feels nothing for the man. The man can sense this and will try to shower the woman with attention and gifts. He will consistently try to communicate with her and will start exhibiting borderline stalker behavior.

He thinks to himself, “I will show her that I’m different from the other guys. I’m a really great guy, she just doesn’t see it yet.” He’s trying to force her to love him. The woman starts to worry about the behavior of the male.

She will block him on social media, and he will proceed to make new accounts to explain his love to her. She starts to feel fear, “This man is unhinged.” she says to herself. It all spirals out of control from there.

A worried woman lying on sofa.

Forcing love is essentially trying to cause someone to have Stockholm syndrome without actually kidnapping them. It goes like this: “If I spend all my time with this person, they will love me. If I don’t talk to them enough, they won’t notice me.”

It’s a toxic mindset that is prevalent throughout the incel community. It borders on danger, especially when people who aren’t mentally stable develop an obsession with someone they like.

For a more tangible example that you can witness in reality, grab two magnets. When you have your magnets, try pressing the two magnets together at the ‘south pole’ part. They will push each other away.

Now lay one magnet on a smooth table and hold the other one in your hand while you try to push the one into the one on the table. What happens? The magnet on the table moves further and further away the more you try.

How Do You Know if Someone is Forcing Themselves to Love You?

If you’re already in a relationship that has been going on for years, you might find it difficult to know if the person you’re with you is out of fear of being alone, or if they’re with you because they genuinely love you. There are a few tell-tale signs that the person you’re with has lost a great deal of interest in you.

The first, and probably the most obvious for the observant, is the way they look at you. If you catch them looking at you, there will be disappointment or boredom in their eyes. They’ll fake smiles. They’ll always look dead in the eyes.

They might also stop wanting to go places with you. They may stop asking you how your day went at work. They might even try giving subtle hints about the way they’re feeling. You can’t force yourself to love someone, but you can give the illusion that you’re trying.

People simply get bored of other people, and that’s okay. What’s not okay is holding onto the person you love when it should be fairly obvious that they aren’t happy with you. In situations like this, it’s best to have a heart-to-heart with the person you love. Tell them that you’ve noticed that they don’t seem as enthused about the relationship as they were in the past.

Couple not having a good conversation.

They will, out of some atavistic reflex, deny that they’re bored of you. They’re as afraid of being alone as you are, but you should make it clear that it’s better to be alone than it is to be with someone who doesn’t make them happy. The ultimate sign of love is giving your person the ability to be free.

Trying to hold onto someone because you love them is selfish, arrogant behavior. Tell them how you feel about them, then give them the key to their cage. Let them make the decision on whether or not you two will stay together.

They’ll either leave or stay, and you can say you did all that you could to sort the situation out without resorting to desperate behavior. Be an adult, and don’t throw an emotional tantrum whenever they leave you. It may hurt, but in the long run, you have a 99% chance of getting over them and moving on.

Don’t Force Them to Love You! Let Them Come To You

This was covered briefly in the previous section, but not at length. You can’t force someone to love you, nor should you even attempt to do such a thing. This is true for marriages, long-term relationships, and people you’ve never even dated.

Love is like a Chinese finger trap. The harder you try to force it, the more stuck you’re going to be. But as soon as you relax and just let life take its course, you’ll find that it’s much easier to navigate your way out of these sticky situations.

In other words: you HAVE to let them come to you. There’s nothing you can do to make someone see you as valuable to them if they’ve already made up their mind. In fact, you’re going to make your situation worse by trying to show them how great of a person you think you are.

You HAVE to let them go. As previously mentioned, your best course of action is to just tell them how you feel and then drop it. If they feel the same way, they’ll find their way to you. If they don’t then it’s incumbent upon you to not press the issue. If your feelings are that strong, you need to delete your social media and their number.

You don’t want anything in your life that’s going to trigger you into begging for a chance/second chance. If you go down that road, you are going to affirm every belief they’ve ever had about you is unhealthy for them. And if you press the issue after they tell you to stop, there’s a good chance you’ll chase them into another person’s arms.

If you tell them that you’re walking away, then walk away. Otherwise, you’re going to be seen as pathetic or insane. If they want you in their life, they will let you know. They will contact you first.

If they don’t, you need to move on. Find other people to hang out with and keep your time occupied. Don’t spend precious moments worrying about someone who couldn’t care less about you.

If you maintain an aura of calm, cool, and collectedness then the person you want will notice that you can live without them. This behavior is great to have in general, but it’s especially good for making it clear that you don’t need the person in your life.

You don’t have to be a dick to them, but you should make it known that you’re not going to get hung up on them. When they see that you’re serious about your convictions, they’ll start to gradually make their way back towards you. If they don’t, then you did all you could do and it’s time to move on.

Why Can’t You Force Someone to Love You?

Humans are strange animals because of our psychology. There are few animals capable of loving others and none of those animals are as complex as humans when it comes to love. People are born with different personalities, and we tend to pick mates based on social status or financial status.

There was a point when only the strong had the option of finding mates. Love wasn’t as complex back then. Now there are social dynamics that make love a very strange emotion to deal with.

People love different things based on where they are in life. Are they young? They may be attracted to physical fitness, and love for them starts at the appearance. Mature people tend to fall into love based on repeated interactions with someone they click with. Physical appearance diminishes as we get older, so it becomes more about the emotional bond you can form with someone.

Middle aged couple dancing at the kitchen.

For example, an introvert cannot, under any circumstances, force an extrovert to love them. The reverse is also true. Their personalities are diametrically opposed and it doesn’t matter how hard you try, you cannot change a person. They will have different interests than you, and if there’s no common ground then there’s really nothing that you can do about it.

They say opposites attract. This is crap reasoning, and it’s also why a lot of people think they can force their polar opposite to love them. Opposites do not attract, and you cannot make them attract. Humans are not magnets, they don’t stick to walls. They don’t stick to nails and screws. They don’t stick to metal in general. We do not have the innate ability to make our opposites love us.

Even if you have a ton in common with the person you love, just a few key differences are enough to ruin the entirety of the relationship. If these differences are substantial then there’s nothing you can do to rectify that.

An example: Person A has social anxiety, and person B is a charismatic extrovert. Persons A and B have been together for 2 years, but person B is getting bored of not being able to take person A anywhere. But person A loves person B and is willing to try to conquer their social anxiety.

Eventually, this is going to backfire and person A has a panic attack from being out of their comfort zone. Person B then decides they have had enough and breaks it off with person A.

Even if you try changing yourself to better your relationship with the person you love, you’re still going to end up falling short of their expectations. This is exactly why it’s impossible to force someone to love you.

Personality traits cannot be overcome in pursuit of love. They are innate within all of us. With the advent of modernity, we’ve made love as complex as it’s ever been by expanding it to everyone who wants it.

This does not mean that you get to decide for someone else whether or not they love you, especially if you know for a fact that you two are just not compatible on an emotional level.

Young happy couple on seashore.

In Conclusion

Love is a complex (possibly the most complex) emotion on the emotional spectrum. It’s not something we can turn on and off whenever we want to, and we for sure aren’t capable of turning it on in other people.

It’s something that we all deal with in life, and it’s better if you handle it by keeping your public/private face calm. You shouldn’t try to buy their love, nor should you try and show them how perfect you are for them.

Stop digging holes for yourself by acting like an ass to your love interest. This isn’t a romantic comedy. This is real life. It’s time to start acting like it.

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About Hugh Vinson

Hi there! My name is Hugh, and I am the owner and founder of GentlemenCenter. From Texas, USA, and with 2 sons in recent years I have had the experience of raising 2 young men. I am here to share my experiences with you, and help you with any questions you may have!

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