A Relationship Requires Both Butterflies And The Boring Stuff

Hi, I’m Amanda. Welcome to my blog, where I share online dating advice, tips, tricks, and strategies, all based on my professional training and personal experience.

You’ve had five dates with someone, and you’re floating on cloud nine. You’ve never felt a connection like this before. It feels easy. It feels natural. You wonder how you’ve only known this person for a few weeks. It feels like it’s been years. It feels like they’ve been in your life forever. This is it, you think. This is your person. You’ve found your soulmate. You’ve got all the feels - the butterflies, the chemistry, the dopamine hits. It feels like taking the best drug in the world.

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But there are these tiny, little, miniscule things. They’re really nothing, no big deal, you tell yourself. He didn’t call when he said he was going to, but he has an incredibly busy job. It’s okay if that happens sometimes. It kind of bugs you that he plays video games for eight hours a day on Saturdays, but you’re not going to pass up a connection like this for something that minor. You didn’t love that he made a jab at your appearance the other night, but it’s not that big of a deal. No one’s perfect, right?

When the chemistry is through the roof with someone, it becomes SO easy to ignore the fact that it takes a lot more than chemistry to make a relationship work. Chemistry is necessary, absolutely. Without it, you feel like you’re going out with a friend or a roommate, which is pointless if what you’re looking for is a romantic relationship. But it’s kind of like buying this amazing car that you can’t wait to drive off the lot, just to find out that the engine is missing. Most people don’t actually think too much about the engine of the car. It’s not very glamorous compared to the comfort of the seating, the shiny exterior, or even the mileage on the car. But it’s absolutely crucial.

So what is the engine of a relationship? Well, it sometimes feels like the boring stuff. It includes whether the person is actually a GOOD person. Are they reliable, honest, forthcoming? Do they have the emotional maturity to work through issues that arise? Can they own their own stuff? Are they actually compatible with you? Chemistry doesn’t tell you any of this.

If you’ve read any of my other posts, you might be thinking, “But wait Amanda, you talk all the time about listening to your feelings. Are you telling me now that I can’t trust my feelings when I’m feeling the butterflies?”

Not at all. Again, the chemistry piece is crucial to a relationship. If you’ve found chemistry like this, then it’s okay to do a little happy dance. What often happens though is, because the chemistry feels so good, we tend to ignore the not-so-positive feelings when the “little” red flags start arising. It probably doesn’t feel very good when you start noticing a pattern of someone not calling when they say they will, but do you really allow yourself to feel that? Do you bring it up with the person that this is problematic to you? If you’re like most of us, you might not. Instead, you shove it down or push it aside, not wanting to risk the amazing chemistry. You think that something that feels this good can’t possibly be bad. (If you ever have this thought, remember that drugs are a thing. Something that feels really good can also feel REALLY bad.)

There’s no shame here. We’ve all done this. One of my biggest heartbreaks in online dating was because I did this. I got so swept up in the chemistry that I brushed away the small things. It didn’t sit right with me that all of his past relationships ended because of something wrong about the other person. He wasn’t mean or demeaning about it though, so I just pushed those feelings down and ignored them. He often got lost in his hobbies for 10-12 hours at a time. It seemed like a lot, but I’m independent right? I would prefer that over someone who is needy and clingy. It’s really hard to pay attention to the negative feelings when the positive ones are overwhelming in a good way.

So what’s the solution here? You need to be willing to pay attention to BOTH. You absolutely want and need the chemistry and the butterflies. But when you find that, you also need to hold space for the fact that this isn’t a guarantee. You need to look for the less fun stuff. You need to make sure that the engine is actually in the car and working properly.

When you don’t do this, it’s all too easy to end up feeling like you’re crashing to the ground. When you stay in a relationship because of the chemistry and the high, and you ignore the nagging feelings saying that something isn’t right, it’s inevitable that the problematic stuff is eventually going to rear its head. In my case, I got blindsided. I was told that there was actually another woman in the picture. It turned out that this guy got easily swept up in whatever brought the biggest high for him at the moment. When I was no longer bringing him that, he moved on. And these crashes? They’re incredibly painful.

Second, you lose sight of what is actually important to you in a relationship. Chemistry is great, but it’s kind of one-dimensional, and it takes your attention away from the things that you might actually need in your connections. Are you truly okay with someone who has different political beliefs from your own? Can you manage being with a highly extroverted person as an introvert? Is it really okay with you if your partner is gone half the year traveling for work? Ignoring all of this means that months into a relationship you can find yourself in a situation you’re not happy in, wondering how you got there in the first place.

Third, getting caught up in the chemistry can lead you to ignore potentially dangerous red flags. Narcissists are known for being charmers, and they can make you feel seen and heard in ways that are downright scary. When you get caught up in these feelings without checking them, and you ignore any “little” red flags, you can later find yourself at the receiving end of abusive behavior. I want to emphasize here that this type of behavior from someone else is never your fault, AND, yet it is our responsibility to try to be aware of it and to keep ourselves safe when dating.

When you pay attention to all of the pieces, you get a more holistic and comprehensive picture of what’s going on. It’s not necessarily fun to acknowledge the tapping on your shoulder saying something’s not right, but it also prevents you from riding the highest high to crashing into the lowest low. It’s a steadier ride that allows you to experience the good, the bad, and everything in between.

You also get to learn more about what you really need and want in a relationship. If there’s a little voice nagging at you saying that something isn’t right when you have such incredible chemistry with someone, imagine how loud that voice would be without the chemistry. It’s there trying to tell you that there’s something that you need or want that isn’t being addressed in the connection. If that voice is telling you that you didn’t love that he didn’t call you when he said he was going to, even as the chemistry is through the roof, you better believe that reliability is important to you in your relationships.

This also gives you a chance to see if the other person will show up in the relationship. When I was first dating my current partner, he would often seem distracted while I was on the phone with him. For longer than I wish to admit, I didn’t bring it up. When I finally did, it turned out that he was multitasking while talking to me without realizing he was doing it (we later learned he had ADHD, which put a whole lot of pieces together). The point though is that he was willing to work on it and change his behavior. If he had gotten defensive, told me I was overreacting, or that it was all in my head, it would have sucked, but it would have been important data for me. If I had never brought it up, I wouldn’t have learned any of that.

Finally, paying attention to all of the cues protects you. When you’re willing to acknowledge everything that you’re seeing, hearing, and feeling, it’s less likely that you’re going to rationalize away the really problematic behaviors, like gaslighting, criticism, contempt, and abusive behavior. You’re more likely to choose relationships that are healthy for you, to choose people who treat you well.

So how do you not get completely caught up in the wave of chemistry? How do you stay honest with yourself about everything that you’re seeing, hearing, and feeling?

To be honest, it’s not easy. I was humbled in my own experiences by how easy it was to ignore the red flags when the chemistry was so high. Looking back now, it’s somewhat embarrassing to think about how much I dismissed, ignored, and rationalized away, all in the name of chemistry. It’s a powerful thing to feel something that strongly.

What would I have done in hindsight? I would have reminded myself more strongly that it takes quite a long time to really get to know someone. Even if you talk about anything and everything within a short period of time, talking about things and experiencing things in a relationship are completely different. Someone can tell you that they’re not a jealous person, but what actually happens when you introduce them to your male friend? Does that hold up? Someone can tell you that they’re close with their family, but how do they actually interact with and treat their family when you meet them for the first time?

In the worst case scenarios, you can get people who intentionally lie about these things. But you can also get people who aren’t being honest enough with themselves in order to be fully honest with you. Someone might desperately want to not be a jealous person. It might even be aligned with their values. And yet that doesn’t mean that they’ve necessarily worked through their own stuff enough to not behave in jealous ways. You can’t know this until different situations arise that might make this apparent. If you want evidence of this, watch “Love Is Blind”. It’s the perfect example of this: people experiencing intense chemistry and connection with another person without even seeing them, all through conversation with distraction. And yet once they’re actually able to have experiences with one another in the real world, incompatibilities become apparent that just couldn’t be known in the pods. Experiences are the key to really getting to know someone.

Another thing I would have done? Reminded myself of my own worth. One of the things that can lead women to get caught up in chemistry is scarcity mindset, which is the fear of not being able to find someone else. Fear, low self-worth, and loneliness can all make us fall into the scarcity mindset trap, making us want to latch on for dear life to the chemistry that feels amazing, making us want to ignore that nagging little voice telling us something is wrong. Because if that voice is right, that means we’re back to square one, back to being lonely, back to being fearful of meeting someone. We’re all vulnerable to those feelings or fears, whether we want to be or not. It’s a difficult thing to willingly let go of something that’s not working and start over, but as painful as it is at the time, it will save you hurt in the long run. It’s also slightly less tortuous when we can remember that we deserve the chemistry AND everything else that makes a relationship go round.

It’s okay to be excited when you experience such amazing chemistry. It’s okay to let yourself feel this. It’s also important to remember that chemistry is half the battle.

*Don’t forget to grab my free Red Flags Checklist! You’ll learn everything you need to know to scan for red flags in your swiping, conversations, and dates.