Most times, catching feelings is so surreal and beautiful.
When you catch feelings for someone, life becomes more fun and enjoyable.
However, catching feelings so fast can be a big problem.
It goes two ways – you end up with people who are wrong for you, or it scares people away from you.
Because of this, you need to know the major reasons you catch feelings so fast.
If you can find out the reasons, getting the solutions is easier.
If you are asking, ”Why do I catch feelings so fast?”, you’ll find answers in this article.
Why Do I Catch Feelings So Fast?
1. You’re mixing up physical attraction with love
You may be catching feelings fast because you are prone to mistaking infatuation or physical attraction for love.
All it takes to be ‘in love’ is to feel an intense physical attraction to anyone interested in you.
You’ll notice that your answers lack substance when asked what you like about them.
Someone can be the most handsome or most beautiful person you’ve dated and the evilest person you’ve ever met.
They can possess qualities that are out to leave your life in shambles.
Don’t ever assume that someone will make a wonderful partner or is a good person just because they are good-looking.
Catching feelings for someone because of their looks happens mostly due to a lack of experience, and you’ll keep falling in love with every good-looking person who gives you attention till you see their bad side.
2. Your standards are low
There are a lot of workable options that are readily available if your standards are low.
So, if you’re all about finding a good-looking partner, many people fit the description and can make you catch feelings for them simply by being around them.
However, it’s more advisable to set and have high standards for yourself to help you sieve out all the people who are incompatible with you and invariably wrong for you.
3. You don’t want to be lonely
Are you afraid of loneliness?
It can be why you wonder, ‘why do I catch feelings fast.’
As the saying goes, ‘you’re in bad company if you can’t tolerate being by yourself.’
Loneliness is usually painful because you think about your life, past, regrets, fears, and insecurities whenever you’re alone.
It’ll leave you feeling sad, depressed, or anxious.
However, the solution isn’t to surround yourself with the wrong people.
What you have to do is to remain alone till you have made peace with yourself.
Your life will change unimaginably if you make peace with yourself and become comfortable in your company.
It’s also true that people who do not want to be lonely tend to catch feelings faster than those who don’t mind being alone.
4. You’re immature
Knowing what to look for in a partner will be difficult if you barely understand who you are.
Also, you can’t know what you don’t know.
It’s hard to have the wisdom that’ll help you get a good partner if you’re immature.
The only things that can fix immaturity are time, experience, and knowledge.
Until it happens, you’ll keep catching feelings so fast because you barely understand what you’re feeling.
5. You have low self-esteem
We all want to feel good about ourselves, and the right way to develop healthy self-esteem is by achieving your dreams and goals and accomplishing your tasks.
Some of us feel that our worth comes from and is tied to the validation of others.
People like this seek praise and acceptance from outsiders to believe they are worth something.
In the actual sense, you need to immerse yourself in pursuing self-actualization to be worth something.
You’re bound to catch feelings so fast when you have low self-esteem because you’ll feel accepted with any validation you get.
You’ll even feel grateful to anyone who shows a bit of interest in you because you don’t believe you’re worth more.
6. You’re afraid of being abandoned
When you’re afraid of abandonment, you’ll always be eager to form alliances and attachments.
To put it mildly, you hold on to someone quickly because you’re scared of being abandoned by them.
If you’ve ever been abandoned, you might feel you’re not worthy of love.
It won’t take time for feelings to come into the picture whenever you meet someone who makes you feel accepted and loved.
Fear of being abandoned by them also kicks in simultaneously, causing you to cling tightly to them even if you barely know them.
How To Stop Catching Feelings So Fast
1. Build a healthy relationship with yourself
You’ll experience true peace and freedom when you learn to love yourself.
Then, the anxiety and insecurities that arise from loneliness begin to disappear.
You’ll notice the overbearing desperation to be loved by someone else to get validation and feel complete as an individual will die a natural death.
All the voids that you thought you needed the presence of another person in your life to fill will get filled automatically.
On the journey of self-actualization, expect to encounter some level of loneliness.
While it’s not an easy journey, it is worth every effort you’ll invest.
Many people have attained great rewards when they went through serious training to grow mentally and in character.
Learn how to be kind to yourself.
Rather than judge yourself, use words of affirmation.
If you want to reduce your self-criticism, you need to be understanding and gracious towards others.
Adopt a mindset of growth by re-evaluating beliefs you feel are sabotaging your person.
2. Be picky about who you want
One of the easiest ways to stop catching feelings so fast is by being particular about the things you want in your partner.
This means you need to be specific (although flexible and open-minded) about the kind of person you want as a partner.
It’ll help if you make a list of the things you want in your partner, such as character, likes, physical appearance, and dislikes.
You can take a step further by listing your green and red flags in a partner and letting the list guide you.
It won’t take long for you to realize that many people do not tick your boxes, and that’s fine.
With your list as a guide when looking for a partner, you’ll escape catching feelings so fast anymore.
3. Exercise emotional self-control consistently
Do you want to stop catching feelings so fast?
You need to practice emotional self-control always.
Don’t express emotion or act without considering your morals, values, and goals.
Liking someone and enjoying their company shouldn’t give you the ticket to discard your reasoning and logic.
Continue being observant, take things one step at a time, and keep yourself in check whenever your emotions spiral out of control.
Putting yourself in check may require you to cut down on communicating with someone or staying away from someone completely to focus on yourself.
Whichever is the case, practice emotional self-control always, and catching feelings so fast will be in the past for you pretty soon.
4. Take things slow
Even when you meet someone who is your type, take it easy.
Take it slow.
Rushing into a relationship or getting emotionally invested too quickly can make it harder to control your feelings.
Try to take things slow and get to know the person better before investing emotionally.
5. Be objective when you meet someone new
When we meet someone we’re attracted to, we usually project our idealized expectations onto them.
We may see only their positive qualities and ignore any negative traits or red flags.
This is a natural part of the initial attraction process, but it can also cloud our judgment and lead us to make impulsive decisions.
Staying objective means trying to assess the person’s qualities and character realistically.
Take the time to get to know them better and observe how they act in different situations.
This can help you see them more accurately, enabling you to make more informed decisions about whether you want to pursue a relationship with them.
For example, instead of focusing only on their physical appearance or the initial chemistry between you, take the time to get to know their interests, values, and goals.
Pay attention to how they treat others, especially those who may not be in positions of power or privilege.
Consider their communication style and how they handle conflicts or disagreements.
By staying objective, you can approach your interactions with your new love interest more thoughtfully and mindfully.
Doing this will surely help you avoid getting too emotionally invested too quickly.