by Julia Austin

Whether you’re stealing a guy right out from under a friend’s nose, or dating one of your friend’s exes, it takes a certain delusional quality to believe this is ever worth it.

“All you need is love”? Sorry Beatles but, you need much more. If you put every last drop of energy you had into your romantic relationship, that relationship itself would crumble because you’d wake up one day realizing you were miserable because you had no friends, no career and no identity of your own. Here are signs you’re on your path to that scary epiphany.

You’d steal a friend’s guy

This is one of the lowest things you can do. Whether you’re stealing a guy right out from under a friend’s nose, or dating one of your friend’s exes, it takes a certain delusional quality to believe this is ever worth it. If you’re willing to steal a friend’s man, which inevitably will lead to the death of not only your friendship with that friend but all the others that take her side, then you are buying into the fantasy that this one person will fill the void that all those friends left. And that thinking belies a host of other issues.

You’ve moved a lot for love

We’ll all do it once or twice in our lifetimes. But if you’re a rational, well-balanced person, you only move for a guy that you’ve been with for a long time, and if you know there are career opportunities for you where you’ll be going. But if you have moved multiple times for guys you barely knew, and/or to places where the only thing for you to do was be that guy’s sidekick, you pin far too many of your hopes on just one person.

You always hang with his friends

It’s great for you to get to know his friends and accompany him to events so he can show you off. But, if you are constantly persuading your girlfriends to go where he and his friends are going, you’re going to lose friends fast. You might follow your man around like a puppy, but you won’t get your entire posse to do that for long.

You won’t cancel a date. No matter what.

Even if your friend desperately needs your help moving. Even if your friend is sick. Even if your friend just went through a breakup and wants company. You always look for excuses, reasoning in your head, “My friend will be fine,” just so you can go on your date. But, if you had a healthy set of priorities, your thinking wouldn’t be, “My friend will be fine” but “I want my friend to be more than fine! My friend has been in my life for years, and this date of mine has only been around for a couple of weeks. My energy should go into the person that has shown her loyalty already.”

You often get back with exes

Let’s just say it: getting back with exes is an action for the desperate, the relationship-addicted, and the dumb. It’s called a breakup because it’s broken. But people that prioritize love have lost the ability to function without a relationship in their life. And where can you get an insta-relationship after a breakup, when you’re flailing around unable to function? An ex. Only those that have pinned so much on love, that they have nothing left, backslide to an ex.

You’ve abandoned big events

Whether for a date, or to continue a fight with your boyfriend, or to go with him to one of his big events, or because you’re so devastated due to a fight with your boyfriend, you’ve abandoned big, career-building or otherwise good-for-your-personal-development events. You let your relationship compete with your own wellbeing. That’s the ultimate sign of overpriotizing love.

You fight with your friends about your relationship

Your friends want the best for you. However, if you’re the type of person that desperately needs a boyfriend, as a defense mechanism you create a lie in your head that says your friends don’t want the best for you. There’s no other way a sane woman could possibly get angry when all of her close, loyal friends share the same opinion about her man. If you were okay being alone, you’d be much more open to your friend’s words.

You relationship hop

Like all things that are healthy for you, properly processing a breakup doesn’t taste too good. That’s why many people choose not to process it but instead bury their feelings deep, deep…into someone else’s bed. But any woman that puts herself first, would take the time (as painful as it is) to be alone, reconnect with herself and become whole again, before becoming somebody’s half again. A woman that does not take that time and simply jumps into a new relationship prioritizes having a relationship, over being mentally and emotionally sound.

You make big plans after one meeting

When you really want to be with somebody, when given an inch of good signs you take a mile. You don’t go through the healthy, normal steps of getting to know someone slowly, and actually seeing if you are thoroughly compatible before planning a trip together, or meeting the parents, or moving in together, or eloping. But somebody that overprioritizes love skips those steps and just projects all the qualities onto the other person that they want to be there. And from there, they feel they are allowed to plan a month long trot through Europe with this person that they just met.

You’re not where you wanted to be

You didn’t go to graduate school like you wanted. You didn’t get promoted like you’d told yourself you would. You didn’t travel like you promised yourself you would. You’re not the person you thought you’d be today. Well, either you’re lazy. Or, something else was taking all of your energy and attention. And that was probably love.

You’ve spent a lot of money on love

I don’t just mean little gifts. I mean plane tickets for long distant relationships, elaborate presents, moving fees because you’re constantly moving in with someone or out, money you’ve lent to boyfriends that should have been able to pay for themselves. If you end most of your relationships with your palm to your forehead going, “Damnit! I really wish I hadn’t spent money on x, y or z” you probably overprioritize your relationships. Someone with a level head keeps their wits about them when making large financial decisions. Even when love is involved.

You “hate” a lot of things after a breakup

You hate peas, a certain restaurant, a certain actor, a color, an entire country. It’s normal to avoid certain things that remind you of an ex at first because they cause a bit of pain. But if you leave each relationship despising a whole list of things, then odds are you gave too much of yourself to that relationship. You were obsessed with the restaurant that was “your restaurant,” you were the loudest cheerer when watching the NFL team that was “your team.” To keep a man loving you, you felt you had to throw yourself whole heartedly into anything he was into.

You’d fight over a guy

What do you really know about a guy you just met? Nothing. And yet you’d be willing to risk your friendship for him? That is overprioritizing love—when you and your friend meet a guy you both find attractive one night, and you’re willing to fight for him. Anytime you’d rather fight for a guy, than fight for the survival of your friendship, you’re overprioritizing love.

You don’t have close female friends

As you’ve probably gathered by now from this list, women that overprioritize love don’t keep female friends for long. So look around: how many friends can you actually say you have, that would be at your door in a second if you were crying, would happily be your emergency contact for a hospital, would ask you to be their maid of honor?

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Read more: Madam Noire

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.