The Validation Trap

The Dopamine Hit of the Chase

Your brain was not built for dating apps. It was built for a world where being chosen by the group meant you ate tonight and being rejected meant you froze to death. That wiring is still running.

It does not care about your long-term fulfillment or whether you both want the same things in five years. It cares about status and belonging, because for most of human history those were the same thing as survival.

So when someone pulls away, or gives you just enough attention to keep you starving, your brain does not calmly assess the situation. It does not think, Oh, they have an avoidant attachment style, I should move on.

It turns dating into a courtroom where you are the defendant. You don't actually care if the judge is a good person; you just want to win the verdict. You want the person who is making you work for it, because if you can flip them, if you can make the person who didn't want you suddenly want you, that's the ultimate high.

It is the same mechanism that makes slot machines addictive. Neuroscience research (Schultz, 1998) shows that dopamine neurons fire more during anticipation than during the reward itself — and that uncertain rewards produce roughly twice the dopamine of guaranteed ones. Your brain does not light up when they finally text back. It lights up in the hours of wondering whether they will. The uncertainty is the drug.

A note here: this does not mean the other person is manipulating you. Most of the time, they are not. They are just living their life, responding when they feel like it, unaware that their inconsistency has turned your nervous system into a roulette table. The intermittent reinforcement is usually accidental. That makes it harder to spot, not easier.

It feels like love. It's actually just validation.

Intensity is a Liar

We mistake anxiety for chemistry all the time.

If you are around someone and your heart is hammering, your palms are sweating, and you feel like you're walking on a tightrope... pop culture tells you that's romance. But usually, that's just your nervous system screaming at you.

In polyvagal terms, your body has two modes that matter here: ventral vagal (safe, connected, present) and sympathetic activation (fight, flight, perform). Butterflies usually mean you are in sympathetic mode. Your body is mobilizing, not relaxing. The person who makes your stomach flip is often the person who has put your nervous system on alert. The person who makes your shoulders drop is the one your body actually trusts.

The person pursuing you with the most intensity often isn't the one who sees you. They're the one who needs to win. Intensity usually signals infatuation or insecurity, not the kind of slow-burn compatibility that actually survives a mortgage and three flu seasons.

Here's a test that cuts through the noise:

While you're busy tallying points for the person who makes you feel 'won,' you might be stepping over the person who just makes you feel safe.

How to Spot the Pattern

Most people don't realize they're chasing validation until they've done it for years. The pattern hides behind reasonable-sounding explanations: 'I just like a challenge.' 'They're complicated but worth it.' 'The chemistry is incredible.'

Here's a quick way to check what's actually driving you:

If the left column looks familiar, you're not broken. You're just running on old wiring.

If you grew up with love that was inconsistent (a parent who was warm one day and distant the next) your subconscious learned to associate unpredictability with intimacy. Chaos feels like home. The person who makes you anxious feels right because they feel familiar. The person who makes you calm feels boring because your nervous system doesn't recognize safety yet.

Therapist John Kim puts it bluntly: "You are not bored. You are regulated." The absence of drama feels like the absence of connection, but it is actually the presence of safety. Your system just has not learned to tell the difference yet.

That's not a life sentence. It's a pattern. And patterns, once you see them, lose their power.

The Only Question That Matters

If you want to stop cycling through situationships that burn hot and burn out, you have to override the instinct to chase the validation.

You have to stop asking, "How much do they like me?"

Flip it. Ask this instead: "Who do I become when I am around them?"

This is the only metric.

When you are with them, are you the Cool Girl? The Chill Guy? Are you auditioning? Do you find yourself mentally editing your sentences before you say them so you don't sound 'too crazy'?

Or do your shoulders drop?

Breaking the Loop: Three Exercises

Seeing the pattern is the first step. Interrupting it is the second. These are not theoretical. They are things you can do this week.

The Biology of Fitting

Here's the thing about your validation-seeking brain: it doesn't know what's good for you. It knows what's exciting. Those are different things.

But underneath the social noise (the status games, the who-texted-first calculations, the Instagram story surveillance) there's a deeper signal. And it has nothing to do with who makes you work hardest.

It's in your DNA. Literally. MHC genes influence attraction through scent and immune system compatibility. Your body has a mechanism for recognizing "this person fits with me" that operates entirely below conscious awareness. It doesn't care about their follower count or how long they waited to text back.

Using something like DNA-based compatibility matching isn't about replacing romance with a spreadsheet. It's about quieting the social noise so you can actually hear the biological signal. When you start from a place of genuine compatibility rather than social performance, you skip the part where your brain wastes months chasing validation from someone who was never going to fit.

The Quiet Truth

Before you send that text. Before you obsess over why they viewed your story but didn't reply.

Pause.

Look at what you are actually chasing. Are you chasing a partner? Or are you chasing the high of proving you are good enough to be chosen?

The right person doesn't make you feel like you've won a prize. They make you feel like you can finally stop running.

How to recalibrate

Recalibration is not a one-time event. It is a practice, and it is annoying. You will catch yourself chasing intensity over peace and have to ask: 'Is this excitement, or is this anxiety wearing a mask?' You will go on a date with someone kind and feel almost nothing, and you will have to sit with that instead of reaching for your phone to find someone who makes your chest tight. One more date. Not forever. Just long enough to see if 'boring' is actually what safety feels like when you are not used to it.

The threshold shifts slowly. Flat starts to feel warm. Electrifying starts to look suspicious. You will not notice it happening, and then one day you will realize you are not checking their response time anymore. That is the recalibration. It does not come from reading about it. It comes from choosing differently enough times that your body stops flinching at calm.

Related Reading

• Dating Fatigue: Why You Feel Numb After Years of Swiping
• I Saw My Partner on a Dating App: Now What?
• Am I In Love? Understanding Your Feelings
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