6 Red Flags That This Is Lust, Not Love

There’s nothing wrong with lust. If you’re looking to have a fun time, then it doesn’t matter whether the relationship is built to last or will end eventually. However, if you’re only interested in a serious relationship that has potential to last a lifetime, here are some signs that your connection is more about lust than love:

Your attraction to them is (much) more physical than emotional. There should be a ton of passion in the relationship, but if the only thing you like about this person is the way their body looks and the sound of their voice, then something is missing. You need to be invested in this person romantically, too. You need to enjoy their personality and consider them a real friend if you want your love to last. Remember, it’s cool if you’re both looking for fun flings, but if you want a serious commitment, you’re looking in the wrong place.

Your positive emotions about them are super strong, but so are your negative emotions. It’s wonderful if you’ve never been this attracted to someone before – as long as you don’t switch to hating them with a passion as soon as something goes wrong. In healthy relationships, you never hate each other. You might get annoyed with each other, but you’re able to talk things out without turning it into a screaming match. If your negative emotions about them are as strong as the positive, it could be a bad sign.

You’re viewing them with rose-tinted glasses. It’s natural to put your person on a pedestal early on in the relationship, but it’s important to come back down to earth and realize that they have faults, too. They aren’t perfect. They are human, and if you’re going to last in a relationship, you need to accept their flaws – which starts by acknowledging those flaws.

You only know the basics about them – and they know the basics about you. Mystery can feel fun in the early stages of the relationship. But if you’re never getting into deeper conversations about your lives and your thoughts and opinions, then the relationship is going to remain surface level. You deserve someone you feel comfortable talking to about anything that crosses your mind. There shouldn’t be any secrets in between you after a while.

Your plans for the future don’t align in any way. If you want totally different things from this world – and want to live in different towns and have different views on marriage and children – then you aren’t going to last for a long time. You need someone whose dreams align with yours, who will be able to bring you closer to your ideal life, not pull you further and further away. If your plans for the future don’t align, and there’s no compromise that would make you both happy, then you’re both better off apart.

You’re embarrassed to introduce them to your family and friends. If you haven’t been bringing them around your friend group, and they haven’t been bringing you around either, there must be a reason. If that reason involves how embarrassed you are to be with them (or how indifferent you are to them, so you don’t see the point in introducing them to anyone), then the relationship is probably temporary. You probably won’t be together too long.