Why You Need To Stop Chasing Sparks In Dating

Are you chasing sparks in dating? This post breaks down what the spark is, what happens when you chase it and what to do instead.

What’s the spark?

In dating, the spark is instant physical attraction. It’s more about lust and desire. The spark is a short-term heightened feeling of excitement. It’s the beginning of attraction.

I hope we can all agree that feeling a spark is a strong feeling of initial attraction. But is chasing sparks the best strategy? No.

Why are we so obsessed with chasing the spark?

Have you ever gone out with someone and decided to not see them again because you didn’t feel the spark?

Or maybe someone has said they didn’t feel the spark in an anti-ghost text? I feel like when we start dating, we get wrapped up in this, and then as you learn more about dating you understand that the spark doesn’t have to be present for a strong connection and it can take time to show up.

Here’s one of the reasons focusing on initial sparks and attraction is so dangerous. Have you ever watched any dating reality TV shows? Love Island, F-Boy Island, Love Is Blind, and Bachelor in Paradise are all great examples.

On these shows, typically in the first episode, everyone shows up looking incredible and contestants size each other up based on looks and a little banter. There’s a lot of focus on “what’s your type” and people typically pair off with whoever matches their physical type. Then as the season progresses, each couple tends to face a good amount of conflict. Why? Well, mainly their decision to pair off was based on attraction and chasing sparks alone with no regard to compatibility or connection.

I don’t want this to happen to you.

What happened when I chased sparks in dating

It happened to me. My ex and I had insane sparks on our first date. It was one of those first dates where in the middle of the date, he asked me if he could kiss me and that just blew my mind. Talk about fireworks. I was extremely attracted to my ex early on.

At age 23, I didn’t care about compatibility or emotional availability and didn’t know what my needs were. I just knew this guy was really attractive to me. And we went from there.

Looking back, the signs of long-term incompatibility were there in the beginning, especially on an emotional level. We had some major conflicts very early on that I swept under the rug to keep things going, but also at 23 I really didn’t know better.

I know this is just a personal anecdote. But we see it over and over again. We meet someone and sparks fly, only for the relationship to burn out. That doesn’t mean if you have sparks with someone, it will always crash and burn. It just means maybe prioritizing it and looking for that alone is not the best approach to finding a healthy long-term relationship that lasts.

What happens in your brain when you feel the spark

When we feel the spark, our brain releases chemicals that create both a stress and reward response. Does that sound familiar? Like when you feel a little anxious around someone you find very attractive?

What’s happening is your brain is releasing hormones that trigger strong feelings of happiness combined with your fight, flight, or freeze responses at the same time. So that’s a fun little neurotransmitter cocktail that makes you feel really good, but also a little on edge. When we develop more of an attachment bond with someone, there are different neurotransmitters in the mix. At the end of the day, everything that’s happening inside of us and our brains when we feel attracted to someone and develop emotional bonds is meant to help us survive as a species.

Here’s the thing about the spark, which is truly just a series of chemicals being released in our brains – however you want to define it, I need you to stop not going out with people just because you didn’t feel it on the first date.

If you had a good time and if you didn’t run into any major deal breakers, then go on the second date!

Your search for a spark is making it harder for you to date and find a compatible match. I also want to point out that you don’t need the spark to feel physically attracted to someone. It’s part of attraction for sure, and attraction is very important. But if you’re dating someone and you don’t feel an overpowering sense of attraction, that’s not an immediate deal breaker.

Expert advice on why to avoid chasing sparks

Here’s what author, behavior scientist and dating expert Logan Ury has to say about the spark, just in case you’re still skeptical that the spark must be present in order for you to explore a relationship.

In Logan Ury’s book, How To Not Die Alone, there’s a chapter called fuck the spark, where she talks about three myths of the spark.

The first one is that the spark can’t grow, which it totally can, the second myth is that the spark means something, which it doesn’t. Because some people give everyone the spark, especially the attractive, charismatic, and charming types. And the third myth is that a spark leads to a viable relationship. When in reality, the spark accounts for such a small percentage of the whole of a relationship.

We feel the spark when we meet someone, but there’s a lot more to a relationship than how you felt when you met them.

How you feel when you meet someone honestly doesn’t say a lot about whether the relationship will be stable or not.

At the end of her chapter, Logan, who I hope to have on the pod one day, encourages folks to look for a slow burn over a spark because a slow burn-type connection is more likely to last. It might take more time spent with them to feel romantically drawn to them, but it will likely last longer. Logan talks about how a lot of people pass on potentially amazing partners because they don’t feel an initial spark.

So if this is you, I hope you can curb chasing sparks and focus on other aspects of building a connection with someone, like compatibility and chemistry which I’m getting into more later too.

Why do we feel the spark with some people and not others?

When I say attraction, I mean physical or sexual desire.

There are five aspects of attraction:

physical attractiveness
similarity
reciprocity
proximity
familiarity

When you think about it, it makes sense. We develop an attraction to people who are kind of like us in some ways or remind us of loved ones, whether that’s a close friend, past love, or family member.

We also tend to feel attracted to people who probably share experiences and traits with us like race, culture, education, etc. Another aspect to feeling attraction is that we’re influenced by what others define as attractive – like how today’s beauty standards for everyone are set by movies, TV and social media. A

nd the last thing is that we’re more likely to feel attracted to people we believe will feel the same way about us, or people we have repeated exposure to. Have you ever developed a work crush? Part of it is because you see and interact with them daily. There’s that proximity coming into play. All of these factors of attraction kind of add up to choosing people we think we’d feel safe around, especially if there’s that familiarity and similarity in the mix.

One takeaway I have from learning about attraction and chasing sparks and all this stuff is the importance of repeated exposure and familiarity. We might need to meet someone a few times before we start feeling any familiarity! Sometimes we need to spend more time learning about someone to discover other similarities when it comes to our cultures, backgrounds, and beliefs.

So how can you apply this to dating? Give people a few more dates, even if the initial attraction isn’t strong, and even if you don’t feel the spark.