A Lesser Known Reason Why You Can’t Let Go Of Your Crush

The psychological effect preventing you from moving on — and how to overcome it

Eventually, everyone falls for a person they can’t have. It could be someone who is already taken, a friend who doesn’t feel the same way, or a person from a wildly different culture. It’s a shitty feeling, but it happens to all of us.

Unfortunately for most, moving on isn’t that easy. No matter what our friends say or what seems logical, we struggle to let go. Often, our emotions get the better of us, and we become stuck obsessing over what went wrong and things we could change. This leads us to repeat the same mistakes and put ourselves through more pain instead of moving forward.

I’ve written before about the psychology behind why we struggle to move on from unrequited love. In that piece, I focus on three areas — Cognitive Dissonance, the thrill of the chase, and Limerence. While all the above is relevant, I want to introduce a lesser-known psychological concept that underpins them all — The Zeigarnik Effect.

This quirky cognitive bias significantly impacts our perception of closure and makes it tough to walk away — even when we want to. Let’s explore how it could be affecting you and how you can overcome its influence.

What Is The Zeigarnik Effect?

The Zeigarnik Effect can be defined as follows — the psychological tendency to remember an uncompleted task more readily than a completed one.

The phenomenon is named after Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik. In 1927, Zeigarniks professor noticed that waiters appeared more able to recall the details of unpaid orders than those that were completed. Zeigarnik investigated with a series of experiments, culminating with her research report “On Finished and Unfinished Tasks.”

The findings were as follows:

Unfinished tasks are remembered approximately twice as well as completed ones.
The recall value of unfinished tasks is high because there still exists an unsatisfied quasi-need (one based on intent or purpose, i.e., not a biological need)
This quasi-need equates to a state of tension that not only drives a desire to finish the interrupted task but also ensures prominence in the subject’s memory.
The psychological stress persists if the job has not been completed to the subject’s satisfaction, irrespective of whether another person deems it finished or not.

Keep a mental note of these points as we will be referring back to them shortly.

While there was initial criticism of the work, follow up studies such as this exhaustive review by the University Of Michigan gave credibility to the theory. Since then, the Zeigarnik Effect has been utilized extensively in areas such as sales, marketing, and decision making, but what many don’t realize is the impact it has on our dating lives.

How Does The Zeigarnik Effect Influence Dating?

What about this psychological quirk makes it so difficult to let go of our infatuations and crushes?

Rather than a singular reason, the Zeigarnik Effect kick-starts a chain of events that exert a significant influence on our ability to walk away.

Let’s take a look at each of these stages in turn.

1) When You Don’t Think It’s Over, It Doesn’t Matter What Anyone Else Says

Remember the main finding we listed above?

“Unfinished tasks are remembered approximately twice as well as completed ones”

When you read that, it’s written in language geared towards productivity. In reality, that statement applies to anything you are going after in life — your to-do list for the day, a long-term goal, and even the person you want.

The truth is chasing your crush is a task, but what’s equally important is who decides when that pursuit is over. Is it you, the person you want, or some external blocker, e.g., they are taken, a different religion, etc.?

Logically, you would give up if someone rejects you, or there are other obstacles in the way. It makes sense to accept nothing is going to happen and move on. In reality, this rarely happens because of a critical aspect of the Zeigarnik effect — the person doing the task decides whether it is complete or not.

In the original experiment, candidates carried on doing what they wanted regardless of what the researchers dictated. If they felt there was more to do, they kept going on their own volition. Dating is the same — if you lack closure or have reason to believe something will change, you consider the matter incomplete. It doesn’t matter if everyone says it’s hopeless or you’ve been flat-out rejected — until you accept its over, it’s unfinished business.

You might be wondering what could cause hope or prevent closure. Typically, there are three situations:

Mixed signals from the other person — signs that give you hope there is a hidden attraction waiting to be revealed. This could also be a fantasy on your part, e.g., they touched your hand, and therefore they like you.
Inability to fill the void provided by the thrill of the chase — you’ve become so addicted to the game life is dull without it. What will you talk about to your friends or do with your time without this drama?
You could be suffering from Limerence — a cognitive state of obsession and infatuation. You may be fixated with having your feelings reciprocated. You refuse to give up because you know it’s meant to be. Very common in the world of Twin Flames.

This is not an exhaustive list, but they do represent what I feel are the most powerful influencers over the refusal to accept something is done. I highly recommend checking out the links above as there is a lot of detail for each situation I can’t cover here.

Summary

Chasing your crush is the equivalent of a task
Only you can decide when that pursuit is over — your closure matters more than opinion or rejection
Typically people don’t believe it’s over because of mixed signals, a feeling it’s meant to be, or an addiction to the chase
When you don’t accept the outcome, you have an unfinished task

2) Your Brain Wants To Finish The Chase, Making You Analyze The Situation Constantly

As your brain considers this situation unfinished, you remember it twice as well as other aspects of your life.

While you have an unsatisfied need, you will find yourself thinking about this person and replaying memories in your head. You might remember the mistakes you made, such as being too needy or confessing feelings over text. You could recall the moments you wish you could change, like the time you should have made a move. And then there are the signs that still give you hope — the way they look at you differently to everyone else or laugh at everything you say.

This is also where those factors we discussed previously come into play. If they give you mixed signals, you’re going to dissect them. When you think it’s destiny, you’ll want to read into signs that mean nothing.

As you can see, this is all counter-productive to you letting go. You find yourself in a tricky situation where you want to move on, but your brain is feeding you constant thoughts and memories that make you wonder one question — am I giving up too soon?

Now you find yourself delving into past interactions and becoming convinced there were signs of attraction. Your thoughts shift from accepting the outcome to changing it. You can’t help but think if you changed a few things, then everything would be different. Why would you walk away when there is still hope of getting what you want?

Summary

The brain allocates additional memory to unfinished tasks leading you to remember them twice as well as those that are completed
This ensures the situation is always on your mind and you can’t help but think about missed opportunities and what went wrong
Increased memory recall helps you to remember about all the mixed signals that give you hope — things you can read into like body language and texting patterns
You begin to believe that if you did things differently, you might get what you want this time — you don’t have to move on yet when there is hope

3) The Mental Conflict Between Moving On And Trying Again Drives You Crazy

What happens next is that you develop Cognitive Dissonance — the psychological discomfort experienced when you hold two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values simultaneously. This distress is characterized by a nagging mental tension — a feeling of helplessness and agitation that constantly occupies your mind.

You experience Dissonance because of two opposing beliefs:

Move on with your life because you’ve been rejected, or something else blocks what you want, e.g., they are dating someone.
Keep trying because you now remember more reasons to have hope and things you could change to get a different outcome.

Cognitive Dissonance is miserable. When present, its extremely difficult to focus on anything but your situation. You become incredibly agitated because you want to make the right decision on what to do next, but there are compelling arguments either way. The tension can drive you crazy — like there is someone pulling strings in your mind.

Typically, this experience is often the catalyst for what I call cracking — where you succumb to your emotion. You might find yourself wanting to scream at your crush with anger for what they have put you through or dramatically declare your feelings.

Unfortunately, the dissonance will persist for as long as you have opposing beliefs in your head.

Summary

The opposing ideas of moving on and continuing to chase creates psychological tension (Cognitive Dissonance)
Until you decide on which direction to take, you find it impossible to focus on other areas of life — you continuously think about the pro’s and con’s of each situation
Eventually, mental tension will become too much to handle and you will either crack with an outburst or look for another method of resolution

4) You Continue To Chase Your Crush Hoping Something Will Change

That leads us to the final stage — choosing to resolve the tension by continuing to chase your crush.

Why do you do this? There are three ways to reduce the Cognitive Dissonance in this situation:

Accept the outcome and move on
Test your new approach to see if it makes a difference
Reduce the importance by focusing on other areas of your life

In this case, the natural choice is option two.

Your brain has been making you think about this situation constantly because you feel there is hope. Why would you walk away when you genuinely believe things could change? It’s also likely that your repeated thinking about the person has probably convinced you that you are deeply attracted to them. When you add that to mixed signals and the feeling it’s meant to be, you can be sure you will keep trying to win them over.

All you need is a rationalization compelling enough for you to keep pursuing. We always want to believe a person likes us, so we incline to seek evidence that confirms that rather than look at the situation honestly. For most, it’s as simple as believing there are signs of feeling, and small changes in tactic might change the outcome — perhaps playing hard to get or learning some seduction techniques.

Unfortunately, all this does is create a more profound attachment and make it harder to move on later. The more time you spend thinking about someone, the more you become invested in them. You continue reading into things that mean nothing and work yourself into a violent loop of dissecting all your encounters and projecting what you want to be true into all of them. All of a sudden, a smile or accidental touch becomes a sign of secret attraction.

Summary

The most natural approach to resolve your stress is by giving it another go with new tactics
We want to believe people like us, so our cognitive bias looks for signs of attraction even if they are imaginary
Instead of moving on, we continue to chase the person who doesn’t want us
This causes us to become more invested and attached to the infatuation, making it harder to move on

How Can We Combat The Zeigarnik Effect And Avoid The Chain?

From one simple psychological quirk — remembering incomplete tasks well, we can easily fall into a cascading process of repeating the same mistake.

Lack of closure that convinces us there is unfinished business, therefore:

The key to overcoming the Zeigarnik Effect is tackling the root of why you don’t think it’s over despite rejection or other obstacles.

I’d love to prescribe a one size fits all methodology, but the truth is this will vary by individual. With that said, here are some of the most common situations, and the actions you can take for each.

When You’re Getting Mixed Signals

Mixed signals are the most common cause of hope because it’s hard to walk away when there is evidence of attraction. It’s also dangerous because mixed signals are open to interpretation. You can imagine that your crush looked at you a certain way, or read too much into platonic activities like daily texting and phone calls.

Remember the following:

Mixed signals cause Cognitive Dissonance because you don’t know what to believe.
The best way to resolve this tension is NOT trying to find evidence they do or don’t like you, but rather to reduce the importance of the scenario.
The way you do this is by replacing dating as your primary life focus and creating finding passions that provide internal validation — read more here.
When in doubt — people who want you don’t make it difficult. There may be some hard to get, but not months on end.
Don’t try to be friends with them — it’s not going to work.

When You Think It’s Meant To Be (Destiny, Soulmates, Twin Flames)

Sometimes you might feel destiny — a once in a lifetime connection that you know will happen with time. How can you walk away when your heart tells you its fate? In this case, I highly recommend you check for signs of Limerence — the cognitive state of infatuation and obsession.

Are you experiencing any of the following symptoms:

Do you obsessively think about your crush to the point you can’t focus on daily activities without linking it to them?
Do you want them to return your feelings more than a sexual relationship?
Are you compulsively reading into the person’s behaviors and drawing conclusions?
Do you refuse to take no for an answer and view rejection as a challenge to be overcome?

If any of the above applies, then it’s well worth reading about Limerence further. It’s a real condition that affects more people than we know, but it can be overcome.

It’s OK if this describes you. More people suffer from the condition than we know. The key to overcoming it is two simple steps — knowing you are affected and taking action to focus on other things in your life. You’re most impacted when you don’t know what’s happening and buy into the notion of destiny. Diagnosis is the most potent catalyst for change here — be honest with yourself.

When You Love The Chase And Don’t Want It To End

Everyone loves the chase because it’s unpredictable. The uncertainty releases euphoric dopamine, which makes us feel amazing but also creates addiction.

If this describes you, I recommend the following steps:

Check out this post here to understand why this drives you wild.
Find ways to get your dopamine from non-dating related activities.
Try as many new things as possible and see what makes you feel great because it helps you grow as a person and be a better version of you.

Yeah, it feels great, but that’s not an excuse to waste your life away.

When You Just Don’t Understand Why They Don’t Want You

Finally, sometimes we can’t let go until we understand why someone doesn’t feel the same way. Maybe you have fantastic chemistry, and everyone around you says how perfect you are together. Or perhaps you think that person isn’t seeing things clearly and just needs time to realize how they feel.

Either way, this is usually a sign that you take rejection personally. You might begin to wonder if you’re not good enough, whether you’re unattractive, or what you did wrong.

I recommend the following:

Accept that nobody owes you reciprocated feelings — you don’t control other people, and you wouldn’t want to be controlled either.
Re-frame the rejection as an opportunity — what lesson can you learn from this experience, or how can you grow from it?
Embrace abundance — there are nearly 8 billion people on Earth, you don’t need to waste your life on one.
Rejection does not define you — everybody goes through it; what sets apart winners is how they respond.

You can find a more detailed overview of the above here, but for now, those key points are enough to set you on your way and challenge your thinking.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, you learned how the Zeigarnik Effect can make you struggle to let go of a crush. You should now understand how the process works, and more importantly how you can start to deal with it. If you’re interested in a more detailed guide on how to move on from someone, then feel free to check out my in-depth post here which builds on everything we have talked about today.

Whatever your next step, know that you are the only person who can change your life. Take responsibility for controlling your emotions and getting the closure you need to move on. No one will do it for you.

Make it happen.

Fed up with repeating patterns in dating? Or perhaps you’re ready to attract the love you deserve.

I’ve helped 100s of clients crush overthinking, heal the pain of rejection and become their most attractive selves.

If that sounds interesting, why not book a FREE Breakthrough Call — let’s see how we can make it happen.

You can also pick up a copy of my FREE eBOOK, “Three Essential Keys To Move On From Heartbreak”, here.