The Risks of Prematurely Pedestalizing in Dating
They may be more into the idea of you than who you really are
Ever had an uneasy feeling because someone seemed to really like you — and yet they knew so little about you?
Maybe a nagging sense is telling you that things are moving just a bit fast. Some important steps have been skipped over.
Are they truly seeing you and liking you for who you are? Are these feelings for you? Or leftover from a previous relationship?
According to matchmaker Paul C. Brunson, “Projection takes place when based on very little information, you come to elaborate conclusions about the person in question (pulling from your previous relationship experiences).”
I probably did this for the first time at the age of ten. At summer camp my peers and I were assigned “secret buddies” to give gifts throughout the week, delivered by our choice of designated messenger. At the closing campfire, campers would reveal their identities, bestowing one final gift and a “buddy hug” to be witnessed by all.
I didn’t know much about the buddy whose name I’d drawn. I knew we went to the same middle school. I knew he was a year younger, and had eyes that were gently blue, like distilled water in a dentist’s office aquarium. His boyish cuteness appealed to me. But apart from that, he remained mostly a mystery.
I was fine with that; in fact, blank canvas may have even been my preference. It felt very close to “I can be whoever you want me to be.”
As it turned out, the boy had a crush on me as well — and yet we’d barely spoken more than three words to each other.
Every now and then this kid I barely knew comes to mind. When I’m swiping, or when a dating situation fizzles out, I picture those two tweens — sustained by validation and the momentary projection of their desired traits onto another blank canvas of a human.
I picture the light going off the minute they begin to truly see each other.
Idealizing isn’t inherently bad. We all engage in it to some extent. According to psychologist Mariana Bockarova Ph.D.:
“Appropriately idealizing your partner can actually have a very positive effect, known as the Michelangelo phenomenon. Appropriately idealizing your partner is also a completely necessary step in the falling in love process. You can’t fall in love with someone you don’t think highly of.
“As we feel a deep yearning to connect with a potential partner, if we see them in the truest of lights from early on (aka before our brains have a chance to bond, connect, and invest), it would be difficult to justify to ourselves coupling with someone while overlooking their annoying habits and social allergens, positioning them far from our ideal.”
But when done too early on, it can be a disconcerting sign.
Personally, when someone’s treating me like I’m their girlfriend but we never went through the steps of getting to know each other to build a relationship, my alarm bells tell me they’re more into the idea of me than who I actually am. Or quite simply, that the idea of effortless romance in general is what appeals to them — regardless of whom it’s with.
I want someone to see me as a full person, and to accept me “warts and all” as the saying goes. And I just don’t see how they can when they haven’t taken the time to get to know me.
I feel like I’m just a vessel for their feelings carried over from their last relationship onto anyone they’re physically attracted to — no matter this new person’s emotional or personality characteristics.
I don’t feel seen. And If I don’t feel seen it’s hard to feel safe.
Psychologist Jennifer Tomlinson reports a study in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships wherein couples were given questionnaires to fill out. The researchers found that those who felt over-idealized by their partners experienced a threat to their sense of self (“They feel that their partner doesn’t know them, and that he or she has expectations they can’t meet”).
Another reason it gets my light clicking is that I’ve been in situations where the person who initially idealizes then swiftly proceeds to devalue and discard.
“Idealization is often mentioned in relation to splitting. We tend to “split” when we fail to bring together both the negative and positive qualities of a person into a realistic whole — they are either all bad or all good, there is no middle ground.
This black and white thinking process tends to start in childhood, when a child is unable to combine the bad and the good aspects of their parental figures, instead seeing them as either one or the other. When it doesn’t get appropriately integrated during adulthood, idealization is often followed by a pattern of devaluation. This combination is known as the idealization and devaluation cycle.”
Glass expands on this, writing:
“You first project onto these people an idealised partner, someone that is different from who we are hanging out with. Then, once you get to know them a little bit better, you realise that they don’t live up to your vision of an ‘ideal partner’ and, unwilling to commit and aware of the alternative options, you change partners.”
What to do and how to spot it?
That this behavior can be entirely unconscious and seems innocent enough doesn’t mean it’s altogether harmless. It’s still good to get clear on what’s beneath it, for both yourself and the other person — as it can set either of you up for disillusionment.
For example, we’re more likely to idealize when we’re not fully recovered from a previous relationship. Sometimes we’re taking feelings leftover from that connection and putting them onto this new blank slate person. It could be that more than you’re seeing the person in front of you, you’re seeing them through the filter or lingering shadow of your ex.
“Breakups can be devastating. Depending on your previous relationship’s length and intensity, it can leave you feeling like your life is in shambles. It can be tempting to gravitate towards anything and everything that makes those feelings go away when you feel like that. If you are using a new relationship as a way to avoid thinking about the pain and loss of your breakup, you may love the idea of not being alone over the person you’re with.”
As far as identifying it, if someone’s into the idea of you more than they’re into who you truly are, they’re less likely to ask you questions and make space for your answers. You’re more likely to function as a container for them. This makes sense because unconsciously, their goal is to fill a void, more than it’s to get to know you as a complex person in your own right.
I’ve been in situations where a person has displayed a lot of physical affection and cutesy behavior without putting in that conversational effort or showing interest in my inner world or mind. Absent that effort, they’re likely basing their infatuation off physical appearance and their own assumptions derived from their ideas of what they want in a partner.
Sometimes the person engaging in this behavior loves the idea of love, the easy parts of it, the fantasy, the walking hand in hand in the rain. What they may not love so much are the times it confronts them with a real human beyond the glossy image their mind has built someone up to be.
As Asia Lenae put it, “Intoxicated on the heady liqueur of love, we become drunk with delusion, convinced we’ve finally found a Platonic ideal instead of just another pitiful mortal with foibles and frailties of their own.”
This doesn’t make them a bad person. As stated before, some level of idealizing is normal. Regain Therapy acknowledges, “Most of us want to love and be loved; sometimes we jump into relationships too quickly because we want what love brings.”
But who wants to be the vessel for another’s unresolved stuff? Who wants to be not really seen? It can feel nice to be idealized and validated — but if a real relationship is what you’re looking for, it feels nicer when that validation can sustain itself in the form of an enduring connection.
