Emophilia: The Disadvantages of Falling in Love Quickly

Emophilia
In love quickly? So it can be bad for you

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Ever heard of Emophilia? Here you can find out what it has to do with being in love and when it could become problematic.

Butterflies in your stomach, exciting dates and curiosity about someone else: being in love is a wonderful feeling! Some swear by love at first sight, others have good experiences with slow love. But being in love doesn’t always last long …

In love with being in love

There are these people who fall from one relationship into the other, while others need time to process the relationship and the separation. A new love comes back into your life later. In general, people are different and some fall in love more quickly, others more slowly – and of course both are fine. The tendency to fall in love quickly, easily, and often is called emophilia. If you like sentences like

  • “I fall in love easily”,
  • “I tend to rush it in my relationships” or
  • “I love the feeling of being in love”

are not strangers, you may be inclined to emophilia. Being in love is nice, no question about it. So this love in the pan or emotional promiscuity, as it is sometimes called, doesn’t have to be a bad thing. But it can take on unsightly features.

Emophilia and the Dark Triad

Researchers have found that people with emophilia are particularly attracted to people who belong to the Dark Triad. That sounds like a movie from Hollywood, but it refers to the personality traits of narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism. They have a certain indifference towards people in common:

  • Of the Narcissist loves himself and seeks admiration and recognition
  • The (subclinical) psychopath is ruthless, impulsive, willing to take risks and fears no consequences.
  • Of the Machiavellian is risk-sensitive, calculating and manipulative.

The research team asked 257 people not only about their own personality traits, but also what their perfect partner should be. Those who were inclined to emophilia saw in people with traits of the Dark Triad their perfect partner. In a second study with 185 heterosexual women, they were asked to evaluate fake dating profiles. The profiles were men who had previously been assigned by the researchers to the Dark Triad in various forms (from weak to strong). Women with an emophilia tendency felt stronger about themselves all Profiles attracted. And they rated the men with the pronounced negative traits better, than the test subjects with no tendency to emophilia.

The downside of Emophilia

If you fall in love quickly, easily and often, you don’t necessarily do so with a narcissist or the like. Apparently they tend to be attracted to everyone, nonetheless, more than others, they tend to be attracted to people with the negative traits described. The disadvantage? It can lead to that people with emophilia are being exploited by manipulative people. And the researchers suspect that they are so-called Ignore red flags, i.e. warning signs and end up in an unhealthy relationship. Here you can find out how you can recognize a toxic relationship.

How do others deal with emophilia? You can find out about these and other personality issues in the BRIGITTE community change.

Sources used: Lechuga, J., & Jones, DN Emophilia and other predictors of attraction to individuals with Dark Triad traits. Personality and Individual Differences, 168, psychologytoday.com, lehmiller.com