Friday, April 26, 2024

Fear Of Missing Out – The FOMO Termite In Relationships

What is FOMO, And How To Beat It in Relationships?

FOMO, the fear of missing out in relationships, is a purely psychological phenomenon. The feeling of FOMO stems out of the human nature of thinking that all the happiness is there on the other side of the river. Or rather, the grass always appears greener on the other side. FOMO is the direct product of such a human line of thinking in relationships.

Such psychological fear of missing out on every possible occasion has the potential to make your relationship hollow and brittle akin to a termite-infested log of wood. You are in a perpetual state of fear of missing out on something or the other when you are in a relationship. However, the actual scenario is quite different.

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It is just a state of mind. You have to be accountable to yourself about your imaginary fear and identify the reasons that have prompted the fear of missing out on you when you are in a relationship.

Let us take a detour discussing the probable measures that could be tried to prevent the fear of missing out from destroying your relationship.

Remember that the fear of missing out can make you miss out on many other good things. Hence, it is essential to nip the evil in the bud.

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FOMO – Fear of Missing Out in Relationships

1. Don’t Cut Your  Friends Off After Finding Your BF/GF

We often feel the fear of missing out on the attention of other prospective partners while in a relationship. Pushing our friends to the side and ignoring them for no rhyme or reason is a widespread thing we do to avoid such a situation. Contradictorily, one effective way to counter FOMO is to expand the horizon of your friend circle instead of reducing it.

One should not deprive yourself and your friends of the necessary companionship only because of someone else’s relationship.

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You should maintain a regular, perhaps once a week communication channel with your good friends; all should feel comfortable enough to mingle with and don’t lose a chance to freely hang out with them only because you are in a relationship. In this way, it can probably counter your fear of missing out.

2. Plan Your Activities  And Look Forward To Them

If you have planned your activities, you generally look forward to those activities taking place. When you look forward to a planned activity, the intervening time between them no longer feels so awkward.

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Planning to see a movie once a fortnight or planning to listen to your favorite musical band once a month makes the waiting time between those planned activities much exciting and pregnant with possibilities, thereby saving you from the clutches of FOMO.

3. Adopt a Healthy Lifestyle

Exercises in different forms make a person active and healthy. The different hormonal secretions are accelerated due to adopting such an active exercise-oriented lifestyle, which finally culminates in the well-being and happy state of mind of the person adopting such a balanced lifestyle.

A healthy body accounts for a healthy mind, and as a result, imaginary fears like FOMO will never be able to clog your mind anymore.

4. Make Room for Your time

It is crucial to create space for your hobbies and other activities. Your relationship will survive. And you will not feel any pang of FOMO, only when you will be able to create a personal time-space for yourself alone.

Indulge in your favorite pastime like reading, going to a library, engaging in your favorite hobby, etc. This will create the necessary personal space between you and your partner, and both of you will be able to enjoy the space thus created.

5. Think Positive

Make a mental note of the negative and positive aspects of your life. You will be glad to find out that the positive aspects of your life, the good things happening to you, outweigh the negative aspects of your life and your relationship.

A positive frame of mind will always help in fighting your fear of missing out in all circumstances. Always visualize the bright, shiny sides of everything you come across in your life.

6. Do not Get Swayed By Social Media Posts

With the advent of social media and its all-embracing impact in our life, we tend to be impressed by the bragging and boasting; people make in their social media posts. A larger-than-life image of people is projected by such overstated social media posts. However, the situation, in reality, is quite different.

People seldom spend their entire day with absolute jubilation. And, they do suffer their fair share of boredom and the ignominy of going through a very mundane and ordinary life. We do not post ecstatic posts daily.

 

So, you have to consider that everyday life is not that fun-filled or colorful as is usually portrayed in social media posts. It is essential we do not unnecessarily feel depressed seeing such exaggerated posts of achievements in the social media accounts of our friends.

Rather, we should try to be contented and happy with what we have in our possession. FOMO will fade out when you stop comparing your behind-the-scenes with the highlight reels of others.

7. Enjoy Your Date In Groups

The monotony of the single-party lifestyle could be very well averted by going on double dates. By doing so, you will ensure that you will be surrounded by other couples instead of only your partner alone.

It will be an exciting prospect to immerse yourself with people around you and enjoy all those experiences you thought you have lost before indulging in such double-date extravaganzas.

Fear of missing out or FOMO arises purely out of psychological factors in relationships. There is no real demon hidden behind such fear. A carefully cultivated lifestyle mixed with a proper dose of enjoyment and excitement intermittently will remove this fear from your mind altogether.





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