It’s exciting, isn’t it?  It’s a chase until it’s finally a conquest and most people relish it.  It makes them feel alive and in control.  “See?  I got you!”

Well, it’s stupid.  It’s only a chase because the person you’re chasing doesn’t want to be caught.  As fun as it is, it is clearly pointless.  Why waste your time on someone who clearly isn’t interested?

… Because we believe that the only things that are worth it are the things we have to work hard for, and we misinterpret that to believe that every step to get there should be a battle.  If it doesn’t take blood, sweat and tears to get there, then the end result will be woefully inadequate, right?  Wrong.

Did it ever occur to you that chasing after someone who doesn’t initially want you is just setting yourself up for failure, whether it be immediately or in the long run?

Look at it this way: If someone doesn’t initially want you, it is either based on a physical thing, or the way they perceive your personality to be.  The chase is what we call your path to disproving their initial opinion of you, whether by using your personality to make yourself appear more attractive, or attempting to dispel any immediate negative impressions they may have gotten.

In the first case, the person you are chasing is probably quite shallow, and isn’t the one for you anyways.  In those scenarios, your attempt will most likely be futile no matter what you do.  Sometimes, however, you will eventually win them over with your personality, but only after having having spent all of the time promoting yourself, which prevents you from actually learning anything concrete about them.  Those relationships rarely succeed healthily because you still see them as you did initially, they rarely turn out to be exactly who you thought they were and you eventually lose interest.

In the second case, you may have done something they didn’t like, or they heard something about you that they didn’t like, and the chase is all about you proving those rumors wrong.  In those scenarios, you usually end up projecting a better version of yourself than you really are, and once you win them over, you revert back to your normal self.  This is not saying that your normal self is bad, only that it wasn’t what they were expecting, eventually dooming the relationship… unless the person is extremely flexible, or you are extremely attractive.

In my humble opinion, the majority of relationships that last in a healthy manner are the ones that begin with mutual respect, usually from platonic friend relationships, because you both take equal time getting to really know each other.  Granted, there are always exceptions, but this, in general, is the rule.

The chase is not real. 

Its origin is from animals chasing each other in order to kill and eat each other… not the best metaphor for beginning a relationship, if you ask me.  Those of us who love the chase, who live and breathe by the chase, are just too immature for a real relationship.  One day, hopefully, we’ll grow out of it, but until then, we will be forced to engage in relationship after relationship that isn’t best suited for us.