Ask yourself: Do you suffer from "catching feelings"?
"I have fallen for him, his smile is infectious".
Defining falling in love as "catching" a particular affective state, is giving into the illness model. We relinquish our agency and sense of control and whole-heartedly hand over the reigns to the other. Sometimes it is nice to be lead along, to be seduced into a mystery, a pleasant surprise, but this should always remain a minority occurrence.
Life is a charming inter-play between control and chaos.
Sometimes the more one focuses on control ie. becomes overly obsessed on a particular outcome, one misses the bigger picture and it's associated opportunities. This is due to a heightened state of anxiety which impairs performance (in Psychiatry speak "an anxious affect").
The Curse of our Crush
Now interestingly the control-chaos equilibrium can also be modulated by the other. After-all, every interaction we have with another, and how we feel about it afterwards, is a net product of the various emotional entanglements at play. Henceforth, the more control our crushes seek over our lives, the more our internal equilibrium shifts towards chaos—shifting our mental states from controlled & ordered to one that is chaotic & disordered, where we can no longer think for ourselves, where we doubt our every..single..action and with enough time under such a reactive process, we become an explosive mess!
This is the dark territory of coercive control, a form of emotional abuse in relationships.
Advocacy for Wholesome Love
It is not bad to fall in love, in-fact it is one of life's golden moments. But don’t forget to get your Cognitive Behavioural Therapy booster jabs prior, to secure the psychological immunity, and the mental safeguards.
We should endeavour to firmly hold on to our mental reigns with the dominant hand, while allowing the love interest to pull us gently with the other.
In this way, we can both maturely play, the 'game of love' as independent adults, always with a safeguard to tap out and walk-away, unscathed.
