Playing hard to get is bad for your mental health

It is an age-old tip when it comes to love: play hard to get. But is that really a good thing to do? Psychologists still can’t agree on whether this is truly the most effective way to win someone’s heart, but there is one thing they do warn about: it wouldn’t be good for your mental health at all.

And there are several reasons for that. The main reason is that when you play hard to get, you don’t show your true self at all. You show a different side, which is actually quite manipulative — you pretend to be someone else so that a person will like you. You can’t keep that up, and continuously pretending to be another person doesn’t make you happy.

That’s why it can also lead to some struggles when that person falls for you. Because what happens then? You can’t keep up the façade of that other character, who seemed so cool at the beginning, and that makes you insecure again.

But what psychologists also warn about: it could also be that your hard to get attitude doesn’t attract the right people at all. Maybe you absolutely don’t want your crush to see how much you think about him/her and want to present a persona that is very independent and needs no one. Sounds really cool, but the consequence could be that you also attract people who are like that and fall for that, while that’s not at all what you’re looking for in a relationship.

The ultimate tip? Very cliché: just stay yourself. That’s much easier to maintain than pretending to be someone else, and it also gives you a lot less stress.

Source: PsychologyToday & BusinessInsider