“Red flags”: can you be too careful in love?

Can you be too careful in love?

It's kind of like being at an amusement park and watching other people go on roller coasters while you sit on a bench and hesitate. You know, you think, " what if i threw up? " Or " what if i was scared? "But while you're freaking out, most people are enjoying the adrenaline. Love is the same. If you wait for everything to be perfect, you might end up sitting on the sidelines watching other people have their own stories.

Caution or paranoia?

Okay, taking your time is cool. No one wants to end up in a relationship that's spiraling out of control like a bad B-movie. But if you start analyzing every smile, picking apart every text, every ellipse, or misplaced emoji, you're going to eat yourself up and never get your head above water. If you're constantly freaking out about making a mistake, you're going to miss out on all the fun.

For example, your crush takes three hours to respond to a message… Are you going to conclude that he’s not interested in you, or that he was just busy? The difference between caution and paranoia is the amount of room you give to the benefit of the doubt.

Because deep down, love is more like karaoke. You don't need to know how to sing like Celine Dion (well, if you want to, but it's not obligatory) for it to be great. You can sing out of tune, scream your lungs out until you lose your voice (like me at a party^^), and it will still be a great time.

It's not the "I did things well" What matters is the energy you put into the song. If you freak out at every mistake, if you tell yourself "And if I send him this message at 3am, will he think I'm desperate?"…well you'll find yourself watching the others sing solos while you stand there, on the side, with your phone in your hands, wondering about every word.

Caution or total control?

Love isn't a math lesson where you have to calculate everything. If you try to perfect every moment, control every laugh, you risk missing out on what makes the story so magical: spontaneity. The unexpected moments when you make a huge mistake but it creates a hilarious memory. Like, sending a text without autocorrect, which is worth a slip of the tongue or saying something embarrassing (I will never stop thinking about my blunder with my crush at the time and my "I like thunderous balls" instead of saying "bubbles" and this dehope in my eyes facing a best friend in front of me, hilarious. TRUE STORY) .

And then, sometimes, the mistake is what makes you grow, and it's what makes the story unique and funny to tell. So, don't be afraid to sing out of tune and make mistakes. That's what will make it all unforgettable!

Then there is this obsession with controlling everything… If you say to yourself: "If I do everything right, if I'm perfect, nothing can go wrong.", you're just going to end up stressing out like crazy. Kind of like spending your day checking your watch and waiting for everything to happen exactly as you planned. Spoiler alert: in case you still don't know, love never happens like it does in the movies.

It's cooler when you let things happen without planning everything, right? Because sometimes, it's when things go a little crazy that it becomes epic. You know, those moments when you do something a little haphazardly, like sending a weird text at 2am or going on a trip with no specific plan, just to see where it leads. That's what makes adventure so great.

True happiness in love is not being afraid to let go a little, to say to yourself: “Okay, I might make mistakes, but at least I’ll be myself.”. So forget about total control.

Caution or obsession with the past?

And then, the past… Ah, that old ball and chain that we drag behind us, like a sack of stones. Everyone has had that story that went wrong or that time when we really messed up. And it’s normal to have traces of all that. But if you let this past dictate each new encounter, you’ll spend your time living in the shadow of past failures, and you’ll miss everything that’s beautiful and unexpected. It’s a bit like deciding to always look behind you while walking, preventing yourself from seeing the road ahead.

You don't have to carry the mistakes of old relationships on your shoulders like an unnecessary weight. Each new encounter is a blank page, a chapter where you can write whatever you want. It's not a remake of your last relationship. You can start from scratch, without having to repeat the same mistakes, relive the same disappointments. Of course, we all have our baggage and our wounds from the past. But the idea is not to let them dictate who you are today. It's to stop using them as an excuse not to move forward, not to rush towards what could be a great story.

The past is important to understand what we have learned, but it is not a recipe to follow for every new encounter. So, leave your suitcase where it is, empty it of everything that prevents you from moving forward, and go for it. Open yourself to what comes, without asking yourself what you could lose, but rather what you could gain.

What matters is now. Every encounter is an opportunity to discover something new, to surprise yourself and see where it takes you. Because the real magic is in the unknown, in what you don't know yet, in that feeling of newness that pushes you to take the plunge. So leave it behind and make every moment a unique chapter.

Anyway, caution is fine for a while, but love is not a well-planned plan. Sometimes, you just have to let go and live in the moment, even if you don't know where it's going. Love is a bit like an impromptu party: it can go off in all directions, but at least you're having a good time.

And if it doesn't work? Well, you'll have a story to tell 😉