The Real Reason We're All Clingy When It Comes To Relationships

Urban Dictionary defines "clingy" as: "A boyfriend/girlfriend or possibly someone who likes you who becomes, let’s say, obsessed.

Signs that your boyfriend/girlfriend is clingy: doesn’t stop calling, constantly tells you how much they love/like you, writes you songs, buys you flowers/chocolate so much it gets annoying, and wants to spend time with you... all the time."

It's a very popular and mainstream term that sounds more like chivalry/being in love, in my opinion. However, I want to change this definition and explain why we are all clingy.

Seeing as the present moment is so unpredictable and the future is unknown, the past has become a place where our minds reside. We know it; it has already happened. We can dissect it, analyze it and form new ideas from it. In the context of relationships, this love for the past is no different.

When we build a relationship with someone, it is said to go through five stages: romance, power struggle, stability, commitment and bliss. Depending on how far into the relationship you get (even though people barely make it past the power struggle), these stages have already left imprints in your memory and influenced your subconscious mind.

This is the reason why we find ourselves nostalgic for times we shared with people in the past. We cling to these thoughts and these memories because they are the only things we are sure of, and when these past experiences have been shared with a significant other, any old John Doe just will not do to fill the void of our hopeless love lives.

Due to the increasing lack of face-to-face communication and its substitute, the username/avi, it has become a lot harder to meet and truly get to know somebody that you can consider 1) trustworthy, 2) sincere and 3) having potential to be in your future.

You may have seen the statistic floating around the Internet that at the age of 16, 80 percent of people have already met the person they are going to marry.

As the popular belief suggests, there really is no point in making new connections. We should instead focus on the ones who have come across with little effort or have been convenient for us.

In a world that is so "connected," why do we instead choose to dwell in the circles we have been comfortable in all of our lives? Why do we treat people who try to get to know us like intruders? Why do we put this guard up and cling to the comfortable?

We invest so much into the people of our past without realizing that they aren’t going to make for a different future. That same guy you knew from college who likes that same old band and wears those same old sneakers will always be the same… just older.

Instead of seeking different and new people, we continuously waste our time trying to fix or change the things about the people we already know to fit our ideals. This is selfish, and as much as you think you can do it, it will never happen successfully.

We have a very hard time coming to terms with the fact that things will just not work out with this person. We believe that because we’ve made it this far, we must keep going and try harder because that is what love is about, right?

I’m sick of this clingy behavior. Why can’t we be satisfied with exploring a person, really getting to know the inner-workings of his or her mind and discovering what they’re all about, and if then things don’t work out, c’est la vie.

There are seven billion of us and counting on this floating sphere. As ironic as it sounds, we romanticize the idea of love too much with all the rom-coms and Valentine’s Days and other insignificant bullsh*t that ensues.

If you truly love somebody, you shouldn’t feel the constant need to change him or her, so stop wasting time on the same people and don’t hold yourself back from finding what or who you truly want. Don't cling to comfort. Memories, along with the people in them, are meant to one day fade away.