If, at the dawn of your relationship, your partner showers you with attention, gifts, and a barrage of assertive advances, creating the illusion of a magical, fairy-tale romance, this may well be a sign not of sincere, deep passion, but of ordinary manipulation — the goal of which is to get you emotionally involved and, accordingly, to “hook” you on a relationship that is still in its infancy.

How might this manifest later on? Once you are “warmed up” and completely swept away by such wonderful gestures, the pressure and all the benefits that came with it may suddenly disappear, “like smoke from white apple trees.” And since at that moment you will already feel a strong need for those very wonders, you will, of course, try to get them back — which will automatically make you no longer the leader, but the follower.

If you are wondering what you can learn from this, it is, first of all, that building a healthy, normal relationship does not begin with a violent, overwhelming attack, but with a calm, step-by-step, gradual process of getting to know each other, along with mutual sympathy and respect. Overly persistent, hyper-energetic courtship is the clearest and most obvious red flag there is.