If you’ve never being in love before, the question of real love and clingy would never even arise. At the same time, you may have been in love before and still not know the difference between real love and clingy.
The differences between the two might be subtle and therefore hard to pinpoint or detect. On the other hand, these contrasts might be as clear as the distinction between black and white.
It all depends on the personalities involved and the peculiar circumstances they find themselves in.
Recognizing real love and clingy is one of those instances in life where hindsight gives clarity. It is after the event we nod our heads in regret and understood we did certain things in a particular way because we were too clingy.
Or we did them because it was real love but did not know it at the time.
For those who are really interested in putting labels on everything, it is easy to label some situations wrongly as either true love or clingy. For instance, hanging out with a girl too much could easily be defined as real love.
While a different person might say, ‘No, that ain’t true love. Jake is too clingy. He’d better get a grip on himself because he is losing it.’
So that is the problem with something that is best defined with the combination of hindsight and perspective. Generally though, these 5 ways are the best indicators between real love and clingy.
Humility
Real love makes you very humble. That fact cannot be overemphasized I must say.
Parents with kids will understand that very well. No matter what their kids throw at them, they can never allow their egos to take over their personality in responding.
Everything is done in the best interest of the kid no matter how humiliating.
That is what happens in real love. Your ego, which is different from self-respect, is buried way down for the relationship to flourish.
Clingy on the other hand mostly serves to boost the ‘clinger’s’ ego. Every move they make is done to satisfy their voracious ego.
This is one reason people who are too clingy are hardly ever happy in a relationship no matter how many times they get involved.
Even if they eventually get the narrative that their love life is filled with the debris of many unhappy incidences, one could be forgiven to think the union is the definition of problems.
Real love and Clingy is Attachment vs Control
We have to careful here not to lose the essence of attachment and control in too much definitions.
It is possible to be attached to someone and at the same time wanting to control the person’s thoughts and actions. That is one of the symptoms of a clingy partner.
A clingy lover wants to control all aspects of their partners life: who they see; the friends they can keep or have; where they can go and at what time; what they eat or don’t eat…I bet these sounds depressing just reading it.
Fact is, some people do it and many people, for one reason or the other, put up with it.
Real love on the other hand is all about freedom. Letting your partner know you trust them to do the right thing all the time. Though real love shows elements of attachment, it is never the debilitating or the soul-killing type of attachment.
Time span
Again, let’s use the loving parent’s analogy: do parents ever stop loving their kids?
That is how real love rolls. It is a thing that lasts a long time and is bigger than us. That is why the history of mankind is filled with people trying to understand the essence of love.
Real love can outlast the duration of a relationship even if for one reason or the other, the relationship did not work out ideally.
Being clingy on the other hand is a phase. At the first sign of real trouble or bad times, a clingy partner disappears to where things are more conducive to their personality.
Real love and Clingy; think Altruism
That is one sure way to differentiate real love and clingy. While one is downright selfish, the other puts the relationship first in whatever they are about to do.
When you are in love, even when you’re sleeping peacefully at night, your dreams are all about making your partner happy. Without over-complicating things, you make your partner the primary focus in everything you do. I am talking about the good things of course.
A clingy partner on the other hand is downright selfish. Everything is reduced to ‘me.’ Nothing is too petty to do in their bid to make sure life threats them according to their own rules.
If they make others miserable, it is not their fault. They expect others to sacrifice everything for them. They are the masters of manipulation, especially emotional manipulation
Growth and Progress
When you are in love, it is the normal course of events to grow and progress together with your partner. Both of you would become better people as your identities become more synced to each other’s aspirations and dreams.
A clingy partner on the other hand wants to be supported all the time as they power ahead in life not minding if their partner has dreams too. At the same time, because the clingy partner is all about ego and control, they spend too much energy chasing shadows thereby slowing down their progress and their partner’s.
I hope that was not too confusing. Because like I said earlier, the difference between real love and clingy can sometimes be so subtle it can be easy to mistake one for the other.
Anyways, feel free to drop your comments if you have any. No matter how small. And remember to like our Facebook and Twitter pages. Cheers.
