Most men know being needy is not attractive, but there are still plenty of needy guys who know how to get exactly what they want by being sly. A man doesn’t need to give you an ultimatum to marry him or break up with him to be rushing you. Whether you realize it or not, a man can be manipulating you into feeling like you owe him something, or you are obligated to him in some way, long before it’s appropriate to make you feel those things. Women are generally empathetic and sympathetic, which are traits that men who want to rush things prey on. But no relationship can be properly evaluated, or grow in an organic way if it’s rushed. If you constantly find yourself in situations where you realize, “I have a serious boyfriend, and I don’t know how that happened” you might be missing the subtle signs that a man is rushing you. Learn to recognize them, and you can set up boundaries. Sometimes, you’ll just have to leave the guy.
He locks you into future plans
When it’s not even established how you feel about each other, he tries to lock you into future plans for a concert that’s in two months or a weekend getaway. You have to give him an answer now before tickets sell out or get too expensive.
He invites friends without telling you
You meet him for a date and it turns out he invited his friends there, too. He knows subconsciously you’ll feel more obligated to him if his friends know about you. You don’t want him to have to tell his friends you dumped him.
He calls you when he’s blue
You have barely been seeing each other for a few weeks when he calls you having a breakdown, or needing consolation over something upsetting. That’s something he should call a good friend about—calling someone he’s been on a few dates with about that is a way of roping her into feeling emotionally invested.
He does a favor you didn’t ask for
Whether it’s fix something in your apartment, negotiate a better price with your phone company or wash your car, you didn’t ask him to do it. But now you feel like you have to keep seeing him because he did it, and that was his plan all along.
He tells you he isn’t seeing anyone else
There’s no reason for him to tell you this other than to make you feel guilty if you’re seeing anybody else. A man who respects you and doesn’t rush you doesn’t tell you you’re the only woman he’s seeing—he doesn’t lean on that kind of pressure to get you to date him.
Or he tells you he has other options
On the reverse side of things, some men will hint at the other women who are dying to be their girlfriend, as a way of saying, “This deal ends soon.”
He takes you on very expensive dates
If you feel like you have to see him for at least a few more weeks because of this $300 dinner, good—that’s what he wanted.
Or buys you inappropriate presents
Men are not oblivious to the fact that purchasing an expensive present for you makes you feel obligated to them. It’s the reason they do it. You’ll see—when you dump them they’ll say, “After I got you that nice gift, this is the way you treat me?”
He asks for your help on a big decision
He asks you to help him pick out a new car, a home to buy, a company to invest in. He wants you to feel flattered that he respects your opinion so much, so much so that you’d feel terrible leaving him.
Calling to say goodnight or good morning
If you’ve only been on a couple of dates with a guy, it’s a little much if he starts calling you every morning and every night. That’s his way of forcing himself into your mental space.
He wants to know about your exes
If a man asks a lot of questions about your exes, sometimes it’s so that he can learn about your relationship patterns, so he can get a crash course into being the “perfect” man for you.
He tells you he canceled his online dating accounts
This is just like him telling you he isn’t seeing anybody else.
Making a change for you
He loses a bunch of weight because fitness is important to you, or quits his job because you suggested he didn’t seem happy there. He knows it will be very difficult for you to leave him if he made a huge change to please you.
Making you feel bad for not seeing him
Men who want to rush the relationship will say things like, “It doesn’t seem like you want to see me” when you do something totally normal like hang out with girlfriends on a Friday instead of accepting their date invitation. They’re manipulating your pity.
Bringing you around his family
If you meet a man for dinner, and it turns out his entire family is there, he is definitely rushing things. He knows you won’t want to let his charming family down by dumping him.
