Is there someone you know you want in your life, but they’re not particularly interested? It could be anyone, like a distant or absent family member or even someone you have a crush on. It might even be a clique of people who you wish would be your friend. Whatever the case, you should stop chasing people who might reject your friendship.
But this is an effort already doomed to either fail or hurt you. It’s an endeavor that isn’t worth embarking on, no matter how badly you want those people in your life. Here are six reasons why you should stop chasing people.
1. When You Stop Chasing People, You’ll Have The Room For Good People In Your Life
If you focus all your energy on chasing someone, you miss the chance to use that energy on more positive people.
This is because:
- You feel emotionally and mentally drained and can’t invest in relationships with anyone else.
- You actively shut out the possibility of other relationships by only wanting one with the person you’re chasing.
- Red flags stop looking red; you’re less likely to notice questionable behavior in other interactions.
- You become more likely to lash out at those around you, driving the people who matter further away.
- You’re not fully present when spending time with other people, as your mind is on that person you’re chasing.
- You don’t get to enjoy the improved self-esteem and positive effects from healthy relationships, which furthers a destructive cycle.
This behavior can form a highly destructive cycle in your relationships. If you’ve ever wondered why people who leave toxic relationships often end up in more unhealthy bonds – well, this is why. You get used to putting in all this effort for nothing and lose sight of what authentic connections should be like.
Your self-esteem also tanks when you spend all your time chasing people. You’re used to not receiving anything positive in turn. This means you’re less likely to seek out other healthy relationships. You don’t even remember that you deserve those excellent bonds with others!
The people you have to chase are not people who deserve your time. Those who will be kind and good to you will not require any chasing down!
2. You Stop Wasting Time When You Quit Chasing People
Think about all the time you’re wasting on the person you’re chasing. There are so many valuable seconds you’re giving up in favor of someone who won’t return your energy! Instead of spending all your time chasing people who don’t want you in turn, you can use that time to:
- Take up hobbies, classes, and seek out new experiences.
- Spend time on your improvement and growth.
- Dedicate yourself to valuable “me-time” for self-care and rest.
Nothing can be gained from all the resources you spend on making yourself acceptable to people. At the end of the day, “getting” the people you want in your life rarely pays off. You’ll often realize just how pointless all your spent energy was. If your time isn’t spent on something productive that makes you feel good?
3. You’ll Be Happier If You Stop Chasing People
Many people believe they’ll be happier once they finally get the person they’re chasing. But that’s not the case, because:
- You build up an idealized idea of what life would be like when you “win” that person. Reality can’t live up to those expectations.
- Your idea of the person you’re chasing becomes romanticized and incorrect.
- It can serve as a foundation for unhealthy, codependent relationships, where one person’s happiness hinges to an extreme degree on the other.
- You seek the validation of the people you chase instead of focusing on your self-esteem and self-respect.
- Life never turns out happier when your entire universe centers around another person.
- You become less authentic as a person in your effort to chase people and appeal to them, losing parts of yourself in the process.
- You spend all your time focusing on what you don’t have and how rough you feel. This prevents you from being optimistic and focusing on gratitude and good things.
But here is the truth:
The truth is that we often convince ourselves that achieving specific goals will genuinely make us happy. You may have convinced yourself of that fact. But true happiness is something that comes from within. In reality, happiness is very much a personal choice, and it will never work if it’s so dependent on various factors like this.
Studies genuinely show that you can actively choose to be happy. Of course, factors like mental illnesses and mood disorders can affect this. But for the most part, deciding to be more comfortable will work way better when you make the personal effort to enjoy your life. Focusing on the person you don’t have is decidedly not the way to respect yourself enough to achieve that.
At the end of the day, if you chase people, you’re forming an unhealthy and toxic connection to them. The people who want to be around you will not make you run after them. No one’s happy in a toxic relationship, even if it’s one you thought you wanted.
4. You Can’t Change People Or Their Minds
There’s a toxic idea floating around that any single person is capable of “changing” another. The reality is that people are responsible for their actions. They are the only ones who can take steps to change their selves. There has to be a conscious decision on their part to do this.
No matter how much you chase someone, you cannot change their mind. They have already decided they don’t want to spend their time with you. If you try to convince them otherwise, even if they agree, there will always be a part of the interaction that isn’t authentic. Doing someone just for them isn’t the same as doing something because you want to do it for them.
The sooner you realize that you can’t change someone, the better. If they won’t accept you by switching, why are you changing yourself to chase them?
5. Stop Chasing After People, You’ll Be Healthier
We’ve already discussed the way that chasing people can often result in toxic relationships. And unhealthy relationships come with all sorts of terrible effects! Worse still, you don’t need to end up successfully “getting” someone to suffer from a poor bond.
People often think that the only bad “unhealthy relationships” are committed, long-term romantic ones. In reality, all forms of poor social connections, including familial and platonic ones, can negatively affect health. So even if your primary bond with someone is chasing them, that can be enough to trigger poor results. Here are some things that happen to your health when you’re in a poor relationship of any kind:
· Heart Disease
Research shows that those in poor relationships are at a higher risk of developing heart disease. This includes increased risks of fatal cardiac episodes. All the stress and tension from dealing with toxicity can be bad for you! This includes increasing your blood pressure, say other studies in long-term unhealthy dynamics.
· Increased Inflammation
You enter fight-or-flight when you’re in a stressful relationship – including one where you’re chasing someone. This worsens inflammation in your body. If you spend all your time chasing that person, this can become chronic, according to research, damaging your immunity.
· Shortened Lifespan
Your social relationships can have a significant effect on your overall lifespan. If you interact poorly with others, you’re cutting your life short, say studies. Since chasing someone distracts you from forming truly positive relationships, you’re putting yourself at risk in this context!
· Worsened Chronic Illness
If you deal with chronic illness, a bad relationship can worsen their symptoms, say studies. You’ll notice that you’re in more pain and have more trouble functioning just because of your poor interactions with others!
This isn’t even getting into the mental health effects of toxic relationships. Even just chasing someone forms an unhealthy dynamic, and that dynamic can already be fraught with:
- High levels of anxiety as you worry about how they think of you or what they might want.
- Sadness or even depression due to an inability to “get” the person you’re chasing.
- Decreased self-esteem because this person’s disinterest in you affects your confidence.
- Stress from the repeated strain in your relationship with that person.
- Potential trauma from poor treatment if the relationship develops.
6. You Won’t Chase Something You Don’t Want
Have you ever seen an animal chasing after something that it thinks it wants? Consider a cat chasing a toy. They suddenly leave it once they have the toy because it’s only fun when it’s in motion. Or think about a dog that chases after a car. It doesn’t want to catch the vehicle! There’s nothing it can do with it, and the dog’s actions are putting it in danger!
The purpose of these metaphors is this. Sometimes, the momentum of chasing someone is what keeps you going. If you never stop to question what you’re doing and why you’ll keep going. Chasing someone can be surprisingly mindless for something that takes up so much of your time, effort, and energy!
Now, think about what you’ll do once you “get” this person. Consider this person’s actions and how they’ve treated you thus far. Don’t you think that this treatment will continue, even if they let themselves get “caught” by you? Don’t you have more self-respect than that? They’re disinterested now and’ll be disinterested when they stop running. Your bond will always be skewed.
Keep yourself grounded in reality. Do you know anything about this person you’re chasing? Do you truly know who they are? What will happen if they’re not like the idealized version of them that you have? Don’t chase after the idea of someone so much that you lose sight of the truth.
Final Thoughts On Some Reasons Why You Should Stop Chasing People
People are complex individuals. You can’t ever really honestly know what people are thinking and feeling. What you can know is your worth. Don’t diminish yourself or dull your shine so that you can chase other people. Remember that those who truly matter will not string you along, and they certainly won’t need to be pursued.
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