3 Ways Dating Advice Is Sabotaging Your Love Life, By A Psychologist

Is dating advice helping you build a real connection or just fueling your overthinking? Here are ... More three ways it could be getting in the way of love.
Dating advice is everywhere, from pop-psychology tips on social media to well-meaning friends and family ready to jump in with their take on what you should or shouldn't do in the dating world. Whether it's 'never text first' or 'play hard to get,' the advice is endless, often conflicting and very easy to get swept up in.
While it's natural to seek advice, validation or even just a sense of clarity about dating, everyone around you likely has an opinion, often rooted in their own experiences. Sometimes, you'll hear stories that feel strikingly similar to your own, making their advice seem even more appropriate.
It can be healthy to vent, reflect or take bits of advice that genuinely resonate with you, but there's a fine line between using advice to support your clarity and using it to override it.
As relatable as someone's story might be, the people involved, their emotional histories, attachment patterns and communication styles are never identical. What worked in their case may not always be helpful in yours. Their opinion should serve as a mirror, not a step-by-step manual.
This is why it's essential to build awareness around your own relational patterns, what you truly want in a relationship and what feels right to you in your dating process.
At the end of the day, no one else is living your experience. The more you crowd your inner voice with outside noise, the harder it becomes to understand what you want.
Here are three ways dating advice could be sabotaging your love life.
One of the most common ways dating advice becomes harmful is when it teaches you to prioritize strategy over authenticity. You've likely heard suggestions like, 'Don't be too available,' 'Mirror their energy' or 'Always have the upper hand.' While they may sound empowering on the surface, these tips often push people to suppress their instincts and disconnect from their inner compass.
Research published in the Journal of Personality on self-monitoring in close relationships found that people who frequently adjust their behavior to fit the situation (called high self-monitors) tend to form less emotionally connected and less committed relationships. They often build bonds around shared activities rather than deep emotional compatibility.
In contrast, low self-monitors, who remain true to themselves regardless of the situation, are more likely to form stable and meaningful relationships.
Much of the dating advice online encourages high self-monitoring behavior, where you're constantly watching, adjusting and performing to earn love. It pulls you out of your emotional truth and places you in a cycle of self-editing. Over time, this can weaken not just your connection with others, but also with yourself.
While strategy may offer short-term control, it's authenticity that builds long-term connection. True intimacy is only possible if you show up as yourself, and not as a version curated to win someone over.
Many dating tips are packaged in bite-sized, confident one-liners like 'If they wanted to, they would,' 'Just move on' or 'They're not confused; they're just not interested.' While these seem to intuitively make sense, they often oversimplify deeply layered emotional experiences.
Sometimes, such straightforward advice can help bring clarity. But when it's used to quickly label or dismiss what you're feeling, it can lead to emotional suppression rather than emotional understanding.
A 2020 study on thought suppression found consistent evidence of 'rebound effects,' where trying to suppress a thought causes it to return more intensely than before. This means that when people attempt to 'move on' or suppress their feelings too quickly, those emotions can resurface stronger and more persistently.
Interestingly, researchers also found 'immediate enhancement effects,' when someone experiences cognitive overload, where suppression increases the focus on the thought right away.
This can manifest as you dismissing your feelings or pushing them aside to align with oversimplified advice. While seeking clarity is natural, it's essential to process emotions authentically rather than suppress them.
Your emotional experience is unique to you, and one-liners serve as mere band-aids on deeper wounds without addressing what they bring up for you.
Humans are complex; so are relationships. For instance, what looks like 'mixed signals' may be someone struggling with their own emotional capacity, trauma history or fear of intimacy. What feels like confusion on your part may be a sign that something in the situation isn't aligning with your emotional needs and that's worth exploring, not ignoring.
When people are encouraged to jump to conclusions or 'cut people off' without processing their feelings, it often delays healing and lowers empathy. It also creates a cycle of repeated patterns because the deeper emotional work is left untouched.
In reality, rushing the process or adopting someone else's rules often gets in the way of the clarity and emotional resilience you seek.
You may have noticed that a lot of dating advice online can leave you feeling more anxious than reassured, and this may be intentional, to keep you hooked and coming back for more. The advisor creates a problem for you to think about, while establishing themselves as the one that can solve it for you.
Phrases like 'Test them,' 'Don't trust too quickly' or 'Assume they're seeing others' also encourage a mindset of emotional defense rather than emotional connection as you enter relationships.
This kind of advice wires your nervous system to expect a threat instead of a connection. It keeps you hypervigilant, always on guard for signs you might be hurt or rejected. While it might feel like you're protecting yourself, you may be reinforcing cycles of mistrust, anxiety and emotional distance instead.
Over time, this constant state of alertness makes it harder to feel safe with someone, even when they are safe to be around. It chips away at your ability to build intimacy because you're too busy scanning for what could go wrong.
Instead of tuning into your experience with someone, you're likely caught up in your head, overanalyzing every message, delayed reply or tone of voice. This pushes you into performative behavior and away from authentic relating.
Feeling safe in love doesn't come from testing others. Genuine connection is built on calm, curiosity and shared emotional safety. If you're always playing defense, you never get to fully show up and experience the win.
Navigating the dating world can be overwhelming with all the outside noise from well-wishers or self-proclaimed experts. That's why it's important to approach dating advice with mindfulness and discernment.
Here's how to consume dating advice in a way that truly supports you:
Do you bring your authentic self to relationships or keep it hidden out of fear? Take this science-backed test to find out: Authenticity In Relationships Scale

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

CNET

43 minutes ago

• CNET

Stop Cooking These 10 Foods in Your Instant Pot

The Instant Pot is an incredibly convenient appliance, especially in the summer when you don't want to spend a lot of time in front of the stove. It offers multiple cooking options and features, but there are limits to its power, and some foods don't fare well in the machine. To save you time, money and having to eat something awful, we've devised this list of foods you should never cook in the Instant Pot. Here are 10 food items and recipes you should never cook in your Instant Pot. And for more cooking tips, check out nine cooking hacks that actually work, why you might be ruining your chef's knife and the top slow cooker mistakes to avoid. Seafood Shrimp is best cooked on the grill or in a sauté pan. David Watsky/CNET In general, seafood such as fish, oysters, shrimp, mussels and clams is just too delicate for pressure cooking and slow cooking modes. They are foods that are meant to be cooked quickly at just the right temperature, which is hard to do with an Instant Pot. A few seconds too long or at the wrong temperature, and you can end up with mush or rubbery lumps. Besides, fish, shellfish and crustaceans are easily cooked with other methods, so breaking out the Instant Pot for them won't guarantee better results as it can for tougher meats. The only exception is octopus and squid. Pressure cooking these tough creatures can make them tender while keeping the meat juicy. Just be sure to find a recipe that is specifically for the Instant Pot. Fried and crispy food Fries and other crispy foods don't work in the Instant Pot. Elevation Burger Unless you've purchased a specialty model, your Instant Pot is not a pressure fryer and isn't designed for the higher temperatures needed to heat cooking oil for something like crispy fried chicken. Of course, an Instant Pot is perfect for a dish like carnitas, but to get the final crisp on the meat, after you remove the meat from the Instant Pot, transfer it to a skillet and brown for a few minutes or on a baking sheet to crisp up in a hot oven. (However, if you're looking for an air fryer that will get your food nice and crispy, you can check out our tested picks for the best air fryers of 2025). CNET Dairy-based food Just like in a slow cooker, most dairy products such as cheese, milk and sour cream will curdle in an Instant Pot, no matter if you use the pressure cooking setting or the slow cooking setting. Add these ingredients after the dish cooks or avoid making the recipe in the Instant Pot altogether. There are two exceptions. One is when you're making yogurt, and that's only if you use a recipe specifically for an Instant Pot. The other is if you're making a cheesecake, and again, only if you're following an Instant Pot recipe. Pasta and noodles A pot of boiling water is the only way to cook pasta properly. Getty/JannHuizenga While you technically can cook pasta in an Instant Pot, it may come out gummy or unevenly cooked. Honestly, unless you don't have the option, boiling the pasta in a pot on a stovetop is just as fast and easy and will yield consistently better cooked pasta. Read more: No, Salted Water Doesn't Boil Faster and 7 Other Pasta Myths Two recipes at once Cooking a roast with potatoes and carrots is a time-honored recipe, right? Not in this case. Don't try to cook a main dish with a side dish in your Instant Pot. They may fit in the pot together, but each food will need its own cooking time. Cooking items together will inevitably result in a dry or mushy mess. Cakes You aren't really baking a cake in an Instant Pot, you're steaming it. The cake will be moist -- which works for something like bread pudding -- but you won't get a nice crust on the cake or the chewy edges that everyone fights over with baked brownies. However, if you do need to throw something together for a potluck or quick family dessert, you can get a moist sponge in half an hour or so, excluding prep time. Foods for canning Canning, the art of cooking and sealing foods in jars, is often done in a pressure cooker. So, it may seem like a good idea to make a batch of jams, pickles or jellies in your Instant Pot. Don't do it. With an Instant Pot, you're not able to monitor the temperature of what you're canning as you would with a regular pressure cooker. With canning, cooking and sealing the food correctly is key. Improper cooking and sealing can lead to bacteria growth that can cause food poisoning. While you want to avoid canning with an Instant Pot, some of the newer models (like the Duo Plus) do have a sterilize setting that lets you clean baby bottles and kitchen items like jars and utensils. Good steak A pressure cooker is not a barbecue. An Instant Pot does great with tougher cuts of meat -- which the pressure cooker can easily break down -- but not so good with ones that are best eaten medium-rare, like a steak. Save those for the grill. Yellow and red lentils Not all lentils can stand up to an Instant Pot's pressure. James Martin/CNET We love lentils, but not all of them can be cooked in an Instant Pot. Brown and green lentils can hold up to pressure cooking, but the more delicate yellow and red versions turn to mush because they cook so quickly. Unless you're purposely making lentil soup or dhal, stick to cooking red and yellow lentils on the stove to preserve their texture and shape. Cookies Cookies aren't going in your Instant Pot, are they? Getty Images Cookies are another baked food that doesn't work when made in the Instant Pot, either on pressure cooker or slow cooker mode. Instead, try your luck with convection heat by way of a wall oven, toaster or air fryer.

CBS News

an hour ago

• CBS News

Long Island teen Finn Schiavone overcomes paralysis, credits Navy SEALs as inspiration

A Long Island teenager says a Navy SEAL museum, and the people who run it, inspired him to overcome an unthinkable challenge. Finn Schiavone overcame paralysis after a traumatic brain injury he sustained during wrestling practice almost three years ago. "I lost my ability to walk, talk, read and write," Schiavone said. He says the bravery on display at West Sayville's Lt. Michael P. Murphy Navy SEAL Museum is what inspired him as he went through rehab. "It's like, truly amazing - what people were able to put their mind to," Schiavone said. After two years of slight improvements, one day his aide rolled him into the museum in his wheelchair. Schiavone said something within its walls lit a new spark. "I was dazed out, half the time. But I remember coming here, and I was like, this is the place. They're going to be with me," Schiavone said. He was right. "Every time he came back, something new changed" "This kid had this infectious smile and charisma to him, but he couldn't relay his message," Lt. Michael P. Murphy Navy SEAL Museum Executive Director Chris Wylie said. Wylie said the two developed an instant connection, and as Schiavone frequently returned to the museum, that bond grew. "Winded up making this museum a normal spot, monthly or every other month, to come and visit and give him a little more inspiration," Wylie said. Each time Schiavone showed off his progress. His rehab, six days a week, were helping him. "Every time he came back, something new changed," Wylie said. Finn Schiavone takes his first steps during a race in 2024. Schiavone family Last year, during a race, Wylie was there to help Schiavone take his first steps on his own. "He ended up surprising his mother, taking a couple of steps. She never saw him get out of his wheelchair and be able to move on his own," Wylie said. Schiavone made these significant improvements after two years in a wheelchair, which is when doctors say significant functional recovery is rare. Now Schiavone is fully recovered, and competing in strength challenges at the museum. "I have nothing but gratitude for this place," he said. His next goal is to finish up high school and, once he graduates in two years, he wants to go into the Naval Academy and pursue special warfare.

Washington Post

an hour ago

• Washington Post

15 sets of twins are graduating from one New York high school

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — A high school in the suburbs of New York City will be seeing double on graduation day this weekend: Among the nearly 500 students in its graduating class, 30 are twins. It's a tight knit group. Some of the students at Long Island's Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School have known each other since kindergarten, their parents meeting through a local twins club. Some even still plan family vacations together. These days, some of the twins are on a group text chain, which has helped them cope with their newfound notoriety as graduation day approaches. 'Honestly when we're together, the room is electric,' said Sydney Monka, as she attended graduation rehearsal with the other twins earlier this week. 'We're all very comfortable around each other and we all have these shared experiences so we're all bouncing off each other. It's really cool.' Save for the shared last names, though, the pairs may be hard to spot as they walk the stage Sunday at their high school graduation, held at Hofstra University in Hempstead. The students are all fraternal twins — meaning born from different eggs and sperm — so none of them are identical. Many of the twins are different genders. That doesn't make the bonds any less tight, says Bari Cohen, who is attending Indiana University in the fall. 'Especially for boy-girl twins, a lot of people think it's just, like, siblings, but it's more than that, because we go through the same things at the same time,' she said of her brother, Braydon Cohen, who is headed to the University of Pittsburgh. Most, when prodded, give a playful shrug at the curious phenomenon in the high school, which is located in an affluent, largely white district about 35 miles (56 kilometers) east of Manhattan. 'I guess there's just something in the water,' said Emily Brake, who is attending the University of Georgia, echoing a common refrain among the twins. 'We're all just very lucky. I think it's just a coincidence,' added her sister, Amanda Brake, who will be attending Ohio State University. Others acknowledge there's more than Mother Nature at work. Arianna Cammareri said her parents had been trying for years to have kids and in vitro fertilization was their last option. Back then, it was more common than it is now for IVF babies to be twins or triplets. There also may be a genetic component at play. 'There's a few twins in our family, like I have cousins that are twins, so I guess that raised the chances of having twins,' added the incoming freshman at Stony Brook University, also on Long Island. Large cohorts of twins are not unusual at Plainview-Old Bethpage. The high school had back-to-back graduating classes with 10 sets of multiples in 2014 and 2015, and next year's incoming freshmen class has nine sets of twins, according to school officials. Among the other schools around the country with big sets of graduating twins are Clovis North High School in Fresno, California, with 14 pairs, and Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, Maryland, with 10 pairs. Last year, a middle school in suburban Boston had 23 sets of twins in its graduating class, though that's still far shy of the record for most multiples in the same academic class. New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois, had a whopping 44 twin pairs and a set of triplets in 2017, according to Guinness World Records. Most of the twins at Plainview-Old Bethpage are heading off to different colleges. An exception is Aiden and Chloe Manzo, who will both attend the University of Florida, where they'll live in the same dormitory on campus and both study business, though with different majors. 'We're going to see each other a lot,' Chloe said wryly. 'Deep down, my mom knew it would be easier if we went to the same school,' she added. 'You know, like moving in, graduation, going to sports games.' Some were apprehensive about living far from their longtime partner in crime. Emma and Kayla Leibowitz will be attending Binghamton and Syracuse University, respectively. The fifth generation twins say they're already making plans for frequent visits even though the upstate New York schools are some 80 miles (130 kilometers) apart. 'I think it's gonna be really weird because we really do everything together. She's my best friend. I really can't do anything without her,' said Emma. 'We're sleeping over every weekend. I'm coming for football games — like all of it,' said Kayla. Others were looking forward to getting some breathing room. Sydney and Kayla Jasser said they're both studying fashion design — but at different colleges. Sydney is attending the University of Delaware while Kayla will be attending Indiana University. 'We could have went to the same college, but we just wanted to be able to be independent since we've been with each other forever,' Kayla said. 'It's good to get out there and have our own experiences.' ___ Follow Philip Marcelo on X at .