Don’t Let Chemistry Develop When Character is Questionable

Attraction doesn’t cancel out red flags

I had a “do as I say not as I do” moment the other day. I was thinking about some advice I’d given a friend. She’d been talking to a man online who was displaying a number of unambiguous red flags. Still, she was attracted and considering meeting him anyway — just to see if there was anything between them. I remember my advice quite clearly:

Don’t go. Don’t give chemistry a chance to develop while entirely ignoring his character.

Then, I realized I’d done the same thing when dating. I’d seen character flaws that I was willing to explain away because of chemistry. I ignored the flaws and kept going, and I ended up regretting it. I hadn’t followed my own advice. Instead, I just repeated this toxic relationship cycle.

We blame attraction or pheromones when we really should be blaming ourselves for ignoring our better judgment. We step closer when we should be stepping back or running in the opposite direction. We allow chemistry to pull us in, and then we stay because we develop feelings and attachment.

There’s an easy way to avoid this, particularly when it comes to online dating. Don’t go. Don’t give chemistry a chance to develop. We ask ourselves, what if this is The One? We should be asking ourselves why we think “The One” would lack integrity, honesty, or any other deal-breaker we’ve already glimpsed in our exchanges.

Part of developing into healthier people who are capable of healthier relationships involves seeing our own cycles and breaking them. For many of us, a part of the pattern isn’t that we don’t see the warning signs but rather fail to heed them. We let attraction take the place of better judgment, and we end up with partners who let us down by being exactly who they’ve shown us they are all along. Are they really letting us down, or did we just let ourselves down — again?

Look Closer at Your Patterns

Breaking cycles isn’t easy. If it was, we’d all be doing it, and no one would be talking about it. It’s hard because we have to look at our own unfavorable patterns rather than insisting that the world change in order to accommodate us.

There’s discomfort in seeing our own faults and then working to fix them.

We need to examine the kind of people we’re swiping right on and look for signs that they aren’t actually good matches. We need to consider the types of people we’ve dated and look for similarities. It may help us identify the traits we don’t like but tend to overlook at the start. It may require asking friends to be honest if we can’t see the patterns ourselves. I guarantee that they can.

Change the Pattern

There’s further discomfort when we start doing new things rather than staying in the familiar patterns we understand. When we’re lonely or simply ready for a relationship, it might be hard to ignore attraction and chemistry even when we see signs of incompatibility.

We proceed at our own risk and usually find we’d have been better off turning around and finding a different way to go.

It’s time to do something different. This isn’t the part where I tell you to find someone you aren’t attracted to. Rather, I feel strongly that compatibility and attraction can exist in the same person. We just have to stop settling for less than we deserve.

When someone shows us a red flag, we change up the pattern. We don’t meet them for a drink. Or a movie. Or dinner. We don’t meet them at all. We don’t continue the interaction. We move on to look for more compatible partners rather than trying to force a poor fit. If we give ourselves the chance to meet them in person, chemistry may take over and tempt us to ignore what we already know is true.

Remember Your Motivation

To stay on track, we have to remember why we’re interested in breaking the cycle at all. It helps to remember all the painful relationships we’ve had because we ignored our intuition or to remember the times when we’ve been with someone and still felt terribly lonely. It may be challenging at first, but it’s a necessary step to cultivating healthier relationships.

I don’t want to go through that heartbreak again. I don’t want to love someone who’s showing me that they are unable to commit or emotionally unavailable. I don’t want to attach myself to someone who lacks integrity or can’t be trusted. It’s better to be uncomfortable and maybe even lonely for a while than to settle and go through that same heartache again.

It’s natural to want attraction and chemistry to factor into our relationships, but we also need compatibility. We need people who share our values and have the type of character we appreciate and respect. When we ignore their character at the start, we don’t desire and respect them for who they are but who they could be if they were different.

I’ve been the person chosen for my ideal rather than my reality, and I can tell you that it doesn’t end well. I didn’t feel valued and appreciated, and I imagine my former partner felt let down by his own expectations. I’ve been on the other side of it, too — expecting more from someone who was doing just what he’d always done.

Getting better requires taking responsibility for our own part in perpetuating patterns.

I’m no longer willing to overlook character in favor of attraction. I don’t want to keep finding myself disappointed by partners when I should have known better. I want what we all want — to love someone for who they are and to be loved for who I am.

I’m taking my own advice now, and I’m seeing the changes. I have a lot more respect for myself now than I did before. I understand that heeding red flags is an act of self-care. When I walk away from someone, it’s not an indictment of their character but a refusal to compromise mine. This is how we break the cycle of unhealthy relationships. This is how we live in our own integrity.