Of the three ways we push love away, chasing is the most counterintuitive, because it looks like wanting love more. But neediness repels. When someone gets needy — “would you like me? I think you’re just the greatest thing ever” — something in the other person recoils. They don’t want a relationship that requires them to abandon themselves to take care of the chaser.
“Chasing love basically sends a signal that you don’t deserve love. Why would you have to chase it?”
Chasing broadcasts two messages at once: that you don’t deserve love, and that you aren’t loving yourself in this moment. And people sense, beneath words, that loving someone who doesn’t love themselves carries a lot of pain. Joe quotes the line: “There’s no sense in loving somebody who doesn’t love themselves.” The neediness that’s meant to draw love closer is precisely what tells the other person to keep their distance.
Related Concepts
- We push away love by chasing it, avoiding it, or fighting
- We push away the approval we seek
- Draw a boundary to get love without the thing it was married to
- Chasing love is also pushing it away
- Jealousy is a bid for love that pushes love away
- We fool ourselves by blaming the wrong person or circumstance