Jumping the gun

They say that love makes you feel invincible. And that’s a problem because, well, no one is ever invincible. But they make decisions based on that false feeling, and can end up feeling like fools. When you’re in the early stages of a relationship and are falling head over heels, the things you and your new mate reveal and do with each other can make and break a couple with the quickness.

7) Travel Together

If you travel together too soon, you become exposed to all of the things that could potentially bother you about that person—things you otherwise would have just slowly been exposed to over months and wouldn’t have found so annoying if you just learned them one at a time. And quick overexposure isn’t a good thing. Think about it—don’t you usually come back from trips with your family or friends significantly annoyed with somebody? You don’t want that to happen when your romantic relationship isn’t even that solid yet.

6) Meet the parents

You get excited about someone. It’s only been a couple of weeks but it’s going so well you think—what’s the harm in introducing them to my parents? The harm is that, all relationships are great in the first few weeks! But introducing the person to your parents only gets your parents hopes up. And if they like your boyfriend or girlfriend, they’ll start talking about that nearly every time you chat on the phone–and if they don’t like them, well, they won’t talk about him at all (that’s not really a good sign). And there will suddenly be more eyes and more pressure on the relationship to the point where, you might not have a clear perspective anymore on how much you actually like the person.

5) Prioritizing one another

“Oh I don’t know. I’ll have to see what plans my boyfriend has that weekend.” There is a time to say that. But, that is after a lot of time has passed. Don’t start skipping out on time with friends—or in general with other things you love—so that you can spend more time with the person you’ve only been dating for a few weeks. It makes you look silly to your friends, and you also could just be shooting yourself in the foot. Your friends will stop asking you to hang out, and you don’t even know if you and your man are really going anywhere for the long-term or if you’re going nowhere fast.

4) Get a dog together

Sharing a responsibility—like one as big as a dog—can really bond you. But sometimes it can break you because it ends up bonding two people (literally, as in forcefully since you’ll both lay claim to a living, breathing creature) who really shouldn’t be bonded. You feel closer because of the dog, meanwhile, other little things are popping up that are proving that maybe you and the person you got the dog with are not a great match. Don’t get a pup together unless you’ve been together for at least half a year. A year is better…Don’t put the poor pup at risk of losing one of its owners!

3) Have sex

Well, this isn’t necessarily something couples do too soon but something a lot of people dating do too soon. Often, when you sleep with someone—particularly when you orgasm—your body releases chemicals that make you feel bonded to them and more trusting of them. These chemicals are so powerful that, they can overpower your ability to see whether or not you’re actually compatible with someone! A lot of people sleep together within the first couple of weeks and spend months thinking they are on cloud nine when really, it’s just sex that holds them together. And they find out pretty soon that that was the case.

2) Bringing them along

To your yoga class, your pottery class, on your hiking group—whatever used to be YOUR thing. This is bad to do very soon for two reasons: One, if the two of you break up, those activities are kind of ruined for you—so you really don’t want to risk it until the relationship has shown potential for the long haul. Two, say goodbye to any chance you had at dating someone else in that class/on that hiking group—they’ll consider you taken!

1) Make it “official”

On Facebook, that is. This is a bad thing to do too soon because you often don’t realize just HOW many guys—guys that you could be potentially interested in—see that, and say to themselves, “Well, she’s off the market.” And that’s it. You run into them at a party, or at the grocery store, or at yoga class and you have a great chat but…why didn’t they ask me out?! Literally—hundreds if not thousands of people see it when you make it official on Facebook. So, make sure you want it that way. On top of that, if your new partner doesn’t have the same enthusiasm about being public on Facebook or doesn’t do when you do, that’s a whole other can of worms and drama right there for two people that aren’t even on stable footing yet.