Their Mixed Signals ARE A Signal
If there’s any place we’ll find ourselves stuck in the dating game, it’s here…
Believing that mixed signals are mixed signals.
That because someone is acting inconsistently, it must mean they’re indecisive; that their lack of communication is down to a lack of time, or that their inability to commit is something worth overlooking.
Without sufficient awareness and some personal growth, most of our behaviours will follow our thoughts and feelings. It’s why many of us turn to avoidance behaviours in the face of anxiety. Our outer world reflects our inner world, after all.
Behaviors in the relationship realm are no different. When someone is giving us mixed signals, it isn’t the result of someone’s genuine interest that happens to be blocked by other circumstances — it’s simply due to a lack of interest. Sure, they may enjoy spending time with you sometimes — albeit, on their terms — but they aren’t interested enough to give you everything you want.
If someone you care about wants you, they will show it.
Unfortunately, mixed signals set the stage for a dating environment that can be extremely difficult to resist.
Why Mixed Signals Draw Us In
If you’ve ever been caught in a dynamic with someone conveying mixed signals, or you know of anyone who has, you’ll be familiar with the dysregulation these relationships can cause.
You may have observed/experienced any of the following;
Feeling compulsive in your need to reach out.
Frequently asking friends/family for their opinions on the relationship and the other person’s potential motives.
Feel good when you are given attention and anxious/sad/depressed when you’re not.
Cancelling plans with friends or not having any in the first place to free your time for them potentially choosing to see you.
Frequent phone checking/social media stalking.
Otherwise consumed with thoughts on the relationship/their intentions.
Mixed signals bring with them the potential to draw us away from our real life and into the life of the hot and cold relationship — if we let them.
But what’s occurring in the brain that makes these relationships so all-consuming? And why is it so difficult for us to break free from them?
Mixed Signals In The Mind
Mixed signals play on the Achille’s heel of the human experience; our need to feel loved, and our need for control.
Individuals with low self-esteem are more likely than others to fall into drug addictions. Why? Because the need for satisfaction externally overpowers the little good they can give themselves. It’s no different when it comes to love.
Low self-esteem drives our need for connection. We become almost compulsive in our need for outside validation and it presents itself as a desire: A desire to find connection, and a desire to be appreciated. The problem with mixed signals is that they throw a further wrench.
They’re unpredictable.
We don’t know when we will feel good again, so we want it more; hence the phone checking, the reassurance-seeking, and the utter distraction from our everyday life. The validation hidden in the potential YES of their mixed signals makes us crave it above all else. We become consumed by their decision.
On a neurological level, these attractions play on our minds, not unlike gambling addictions do - something I have spoken about in other articles such as this one:
Where Feeling Takes Over
The entirety of the sub-section above has origins in a brain area predominantly involving our emotions: The limbic system. This brain area is particularly important in governing our responses to potential threats through motivating certain behaviours — see our fight/flight response, for example —.
The problem with hot/cold dynamics is that our mental state is likely to be consumed by one fear. After all, your emotional well-being is being threatened by them potentially not choosing you. If they don’t choose you, your thoughts/feelings about yourself are confirmed and you feel bad.
The result is an emotional response that drives you away from fear and into chase mode. You seek reassurance from friends/family to ease that fear you have within yourself. You also, critically, let go of your boundaries and DON’T speak your worth out of fear that if you do, you’ll lose them.
The heightened responses we experience from this area of the brain cloud what rational judgment we may have — not only practically but scientifically, too. Fear in the brain is known to cut off key circuitry that governs logical parts of our brain leaving us impaired in our ability to see “clearly”. This is why many individuals caught in these dynamics are unable to break free from them.
They’re running on emotions and not logic.
Our Intuition Knows The Answers
We’ve all seen a troubled friend fail to listen to advice whilst the writing is clearly on the wall. We offer our advice but nothing seems to get through to them. It’s easier looking in from the inside and one only has to go through it themselves to understand how tightly wound we can become with our emotions.
But beneath it all, we still have a sense of what’s right and what’s wrong. In my personal experience, the times in which I’ve chased out of a need to feel secure, I’ve known the outcome all along. I knew they weren’t that into me, yet I failed to listen.
It’s interesting how in our pursuit of validation we can trick ourselves. How we can drag ourselves away from the truth and into a false fantasy where they will choose us. It’s this false hope that keeps us chasing long after we should have stopped.
Getting Clear On Mixed Signals
The secret to seeing clearly when your mind is confused is stepping back and giving yourself time to think. It’s difficult to see straight when the magnifying glass is so close to the page just as it is when we’re fine-combing someone else’s behaviours amidst our own dysregulated emotions.
In giving ourselves time and space from the relationship, the energy generated by our emotions begins to dissipate and with it, our logical brain kicks into gear again. If you are actively engaging with someone who is giving you mixed signals, you are searching for validation to calm your emotions.
There may be genuine care for the person there, but we have to question if someone with one foot in and one foot out is someone we want to build a relationship with anyway. You deserve more.
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