Why You're Still Single

How the Need for Control Is Blocking Real Connection

• Stefanie Marianné • Season 1 • Episode 4

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0:00 | 40:30

If early dating feels emotionally exhausting — like every pause, delay, or moment of uncertainty sends you spiraling — this episode is for you.

In this conversation, we talk about why control can start to feel safer than love, especially if your past has taught you that uncertainty usually comes before disappointment. You’ll learn how seeking clarity, reassurance, or certainty can look like emotional maturity — while quietly keeping you stuck in familiar patterns that never lead to the relationship you want. We unpack why “just trusting” doesn’t work, how meaning gets assigned to dating situations without you realizing it, and what actually has to shift so dating doesn’t feel like something that keeps happening to you.

If this episode hit close to home and you’re wondering what’s really keeping you single, take the Why You’re Really Still Single Quiz. It will help you uncover the specific dynamic shaping how you show up in dating — and what needs attention next.

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to Why You're Still Single. The podcast and your go-to dating resource to help you find and keep a healthy loving relationship with 100% dating app free. I'm Stephanie Marion, a professional matchmaker and master certified dating coach. And here you'll get proven expert level guidance to uncover the blind spots that make finding love almost impossible. Tune in by weekly to learn level building skills and get the relationship ready. And today we're gonna get right into the episode. I can't tell you how many times I've either lived this myself or sat across from a client who's living this in real time. You meet someone, the connection feels kind of promising, nothing is wrong, but nothing is defined yet either. And then suddenly you notice how much mental space it's taking up. You start replaying conversations, you wonder if the last text meant something, you feel fine one moment, and then unsettled and chaotic the next. And even though you tell yourself nothing bad has happened, it still feels surprisingly hard to stay grounded. Does that sound like you? I've been there and I hear some version of this every single week from women I work with. Because ambiguity in dating is genuinely difficult. It's easy to get in your head, it's easy to start questioning yourself, it's easy to feel like you're waiting for something, clarity, reassurance, proof, just so you can relax again. And here's the thing that often gets missed. Romantic early stages are inherently ambiguous. And what I mean by that is this in the beginning, there are no answers yet, no certainty, no clear definition of what this is or where it's going, you're getting fragments, moments, signals you're trying to interpret in real time. And I want to say this clearly: dating has always been this way. This isn't new. This isn't a modern dating failure. This isn't because you're doing something wrong. Dating has always required sitting inside a period of not knowing. And that is so hard. Especially if your history has taught you that not knowing usually didn't end well. So when there's a pause, a delay, a shift in energy, or something that just feels a little inconsistent, it doesn't just feel frustrating, it doesn't just feel disappointing, it can feel destabilizing. Not because you're overly sensitive, not because you lack faith, not because you're air quotes, too much, but because at some point in your life, uncertainty came before loss or disappointment or being left or realizing you were never actually chosen. So when ambiguity shows up now, your mind doesn't experience it as neutral, it experiences it as something might be wrong here. I might need to protect myself, I need to get ahead of this. And this is where the desire for control starts to come in. Not because you don't want a relationship, but because wanting answers feels safer than waiting, because clarity feels better than sitting in the unknown, and because control feels like relief. And I want you to hear this part clearly. There is nothing wrong with you for feeling this way, but at the same time, this is often the exact place where dating quietly breaks down. That is what we're going to talk about today. Not from a place of judgment, not from a place of fixing you, but from a place of understanding why this happens and how the very thing you're reaching for to feel safe may be the thing that's keeping you from the relationship you actually want. So let me explain what's actually happening here because this isn't random and it's not a personality flaw. When you're in the early stages of dating and things feel unclear, your mind isn't just reacting to the present moment, it's referencing the past. So everything that you've experienced up to this point, you're still carrying with you in the present moment while you're dating. So it may feel like you're present, but your nervous system, your mental and emotional energy is still operating in the past. And research shows that the brain is constantly predicting what's about to happen next based on what's happened before. That's its job to anticipate outcomes so you're not caught off guard. So if your past experiences taught you that uncertainty often led to disappointment, heartbreak, or inconsistency meant someone pulling away, or even emotional closeness was followed by loss, your mind learned a very specific association. Not knowing equals something bad is coming. And that association doesn't show up as memory, it shows up as urgency. So suddenly the ambiguity feels intolerable. You don't just want clarity, you absolutely need it. And this is where I want to be really clear. This isn't you being dramatic. This isn't you overthinking. This isn't you lacking emotional maturity. This is your mind trying to prevent a repeat of something painful. Now, science tells us that uncertainty is one of the hardest things for the human brain to tolerate. It is even more difficult than a known negative outcome. Because at least with certainty, you can be prepared. With uncertainty, your system stays on edge. So when you're dating someone and you don't know where you stand yet, your mind goes to work. The brain is going to do what the brain wants to do. And it starts scanning air quote. Is this going to end the same way everything else has? Should I get ahead of this before I get hurt? And again, that makes complete and total sense. Especially if you've learned over time that waiting didn't protect you, it left you exposed. So ambiguity doesn't feel like a neutral phase of dating to you. It feels like standing in a familiar doorway you never wanted to walk through again. And this is the moment where dating suddenly stops being about connection and starts being about control. Not because you're trying to dominate the situation, but because control feels like the fastest way to claim the fear that uncertainty brings up. That is the pivot point. And most women don't realize they're standing in it. So once ambiguity starts to feel uncomfortable, once not knowing starts to feel like something you need relief from, your mind looks for a solution. And the most accessible solution is control. Because control promises something very specific. If I can get clarity, I can calm down. If I can understand where this is going, if I can define this early, if I can get reassurance, if I can read the situation correctly, then I won't feel this way anymore. And here's how that often shows up in real dating life. You find yourself replaying conversations, wondering if you said the wrong thing. You notice how long it's been since they last reached out. You feel a tightness when plans aren't confirmed quickly. And internally, the thoughts sound very reasonable. I just want to know what I'm dealing with. I don't want to get invested if this isn't going anywhere. I've been through too much to be naive again. I'm not asking for a lot, just consistency. And I want to be very clear here. This doesn't come from insecurity. It often comes from intelligence, from pattern recognition, from experience, from having lived through situations where waiting didn't work in your favor. So control doesn't show up looking reckless or needy. It shows up looking responsible. It sounds like I'm just being intentional. I'm protecting my time and energy. I know what I want now. I don't want to repeat the past. And again, all of that makes sense because our culture praises clarity, it rewards decisiveness, it frames uncertainty as something to resolve quickly. But here's the part that usually goes unseen. Control isn't actually about the other person, it's about managing the internal discomfort that uncertainty creates. Research shows that when we feel uncertain, the mind prioritizes reducing that uncertainty as fast as possible. Even if the strategy we use limits long-term outcomes. I'm going to repeat that. Even if the strategy we use limits long-term outcomes, long-term relationships. So instead of staying curious, you might notice yourself doing things like this. Pulling back emotionally until you know where this is going. Ending something early because it feels easier than waiting. Interpreting a slow response as a sign you should detach. Wanting a conversation about commitment before there's been time to build trust. And when you do this, it often feels justified. It feels like self-respect. It feels like discernment. It feels like growth. And internally, it may sound like this. I'm just listening to my intuition. I'm not settling anymore. I'm choosing peace. But what's actually happening is more subtle. Your focus has shifted from getting to know someone to getting relief from the discomfort of not knowing. So dating quietly stops being about connection and starts being about regulating how uneasy uncertainty makes you feel. Now, again, this isn't a flaw. This is what the mind does when it has learned that waiting comes at a cost. But the problem isn't the desire for control itself. The problem is what control replaces. Because relationships don't deepen through certainty, they deepen through time, shared experience, and allowing someone to show you who they are without forcing the outcome. And when control is driving, that space disappears. So when control is leading in dating, it doesn't usually look dramatic. It looks very familiar. It looks like deciding someone isn't right before there's been enough time to really know them. It looks like pulling back the moment you feel emotionally unsettled. It looks like ending things early so you don't have to sit in the uncertainty. And in the moment that choice often feels grounded and justified, it feels like you're listening to yourself. I'm just being realistic. I've learned to trust myself. I'm not forcing something that doesn't feel right. But if we slow this down a bit, something important comes into focus. You're not choosing yourself in these moments or choosing the long-term desire of having this beautiful, healthy relationship. You're choosing what feels familiar to you now, meaning you're choosing the emotional position you already know how to manage. Familiarity here doesn't mean comfort or happiness. It means predictability. It means knowing how the story usually goes. It means not having to stay in the vulnerable space of not knowing it. Because familiarity brings you a sense of control, and control brings relief, even when the familiarity leads to the same outcome. Especially if you grew up or lived in environments where uncertainty meant disappointment, inconsistency, or emotional withdrawal, your mind learned something very specific. Ending things early feels safer than staying long enough to be surprised in not such a great way. So when discomfort shows up, your mind offers a justification. It says, this isn't aligned, this isn't my person, I can already tell how this ends. And those thoughts don't feel irrational, they feel earned, they're shaped by experience, not immaturity or lack of self-awareness. Your mind is using what it knows to protect you from repeating something painful. That's why the justification lands so convincingly. It's framed as discernment, as emotional maturity, as having standards. And this is usually the point where someone listening wonders so are you saying I shouldn't have standards when I'm dating? No, that's not what I'm saying at all. This isn't about lowering your standards. Standards are about values, behavior, and character over time. Control is about trying to eliminate uncertainty before time has actually passed. Having standards means observing how someone shows up consistently. Control means deciding early so you don't have to stay with the discomfort of not knowing yet. And this distinction matters, especially when we look at how this way of showing up can land on the other side. To someone who is emotionally available and genuinely looking for healthy partnership, this pattern can feel confusing. Things may seem to end just as connection is beginning. They may experience you as cautious, guarded, or hard to read. They may feel evaluated rather than met. Not because you did anything wrong, but because control tends to create distance right at the moment where closeness would normally start to build. Healthy partners often need a little room to unfold. They're not rushing clarity either. So when things end early, it can leave them wondering whether there was ever space to show who they really were. Meanwhile, on your side, the relief is real. The anxiety. Settles, the uncertainty is gone, the decision feels grounding, but the longer-term pattern stays the same. You remove yourself before the relationship has had time to become familiar in a new way. You don't stay long enough to see how someone behaves once the initial uncertainty settles, how consistency builds through repetition, how safety develops gradually. Healthy relationships don't reveal themselves immediately. They don't feel settled early on. They feel uncertain before they feel secure. So when control shortens the process, something important gets lost. Not because the person was wrong, not because you ignored red flags, but because the conditions required for a healthy partnership were never fully present. And over time, the same outcome repeats, not because you don't want love, but because familiarity keeps getting mistaken for safety. So at this point, something important usually comes up. Because if you're listening to this and thinking, but I do want a relationship, you're probably right. Most of the women I work with genuinely want partnership. They want consistency, they want emotional closeness, they want something real and lasting. This isn't about a lack of desire for love, but what's happening is more subtle than that. Over time, the desire for a relationship can quietly get tangled up with something else. The desire for certainty, the desire for relief, the desire for the discomfort to stop, the desire for control. So wanting reassurance starts to feel like wanting commitment. And internally, it sounds very reasonable. If I just knew where this was going, I could relax. If I just felt more secure, I could open up. If I had clarity, I wouldn't feel so guarded. That makes sense. But here's the distinction that most people have never been taught to make. A relationship requires the ability to stay present before certainty exists. Control is about needing certainty before you stay present. One allows connection to build, the other manages fear. And when those two get confused, dating becomes exhausting because instead of letting interest unfold naturally, you're constantly monitoring yourself and the situation. How do I feel right now? Is this a bad sign? Should I pull back? Should I end this before it hurts? And here's where and here's where something else quietly happens. When circumstances start driving how you feel and how you show up, you're no longer leading yourself in your love life. And when I say circumstances, I mean things like how quickly someone texts back, whether plans feel clear yet, how consistent things feel in the moment, whether you have answers or reassurance. Those things are always going to fluctuate early on. They're not fully in your control, and they never will be. But what is in your control, and what most people were never taught, is that circumstances don't automatically mean anything on their own. They don't come with built-in conclusions. We decide what they mean. Or more often, we don't realize we're deciding and we let our old interpretations take over. So a delayed text doesn't automatically mean disinterest. A pause doesn't automatically mean rejection. Ambiguity doesn't automatically mean something is wrong. But when we're not aware of this, it can feel like circumstances are creating meaning when really we're assigning meaning without even realizing it. And once that meaning is assigned, it starts shaping how we show up. Instead of your own thoughts, feelings, and choices shaping the experience, it can start to feel like everything hinges on what the other person does next. How they respond, whether they reassure you, whether they make things clearer. So your openness starts to depend on their behavior. Your calm depends on their consistency. Your willingness to stay present depends on whether the uncertainty goes away. And when that happens, dating can start to feel like something that's happening to you rather than something you're actively participating in. Not because you don't care, not because you're passive, but because you were never shown that you get to decide what circumstances mean instead of assuming they automatically tell the truth. And this is where responsibility gets quietly handed away. Not in a dramatic way, in a very understandable one. Over time, this creates a mismatch. You want a relationship, but your system is organized around preventing discomfort. And prevention will always win, not because you're choosing it consciously, but because it feels safer. And until this distinction becomes clear, dating can feel confusing and discouraging. You're doing all the right things, you're being intentional, you're reflecting, you're trying to date differently, yet the outcome doesn't change. Because the issue was never your desire for love, it was that control quietly stepped in and started speaking on behalf of the desire and let circumstances lead instead of you leading the outcome for your dating journey. So let's talk about why control feels so appealing in the first place. Because for a lot of women, control doesn't feel restrictive, it feels stabilizing. Control creates predictability, and predictability feels like relief. When you keep emotional distance, manage expectations, or cut things off early, you reduce the chances of being disappointed. You reduce the risk of getting attached, you reduce the possibility of being hurt again. And in environments where love was inconsistent, unreliable, or unsafe, that made sense. Control worked, it protected you, it helped you survive emotionally, it kept you from being blindsided. But here's the part most people don't say out loud. Control doesn't just prevent disappointment, it also prevents death, it prevents connection, it prevents love, it doesn't just keep you safe from heartbreak break, it also keeps you at a distance from connection because intimacy requires uncertainty, it requires staying present without guarantees, and it also requires allowing someone to show you who they are over time, and control interrupts that process. So what once protected you in unsafe relational environments slowly becomes a liability in healthier ones. What once kept you emotionally intact is now quietly blocking what you want most. And this is important to understand because this isn't a mindset issue. This isn't about having the right attitude, this isn't about willpower, this isn't about trying harder to eat chill. This is about safety. At some point, your system learned a very clear rule. Uncertainty equals danger. So when dating brings up not knowing, not knowing where you stand, not knowing what someone feels yet, not knowing how things will turn out, your system doesn't interpret that as neutral, it interprets it as something that needs to be managed. So instead of prioritizing connection, it prioritizes regulation. Instead of staying open, it looks for ways to feel steady. And that's why control feels like the right move. Because from your system's perspective, being alone and regulated feels safer than being attached and emotionally destabilized. And that's not because you don't want love. It's because your system would rather keep you intact than exposed. And this is why forcing yourself to quote-unquote relax doesn't work. Telling yourself to just trust, to let go, to have more faith doesn't change how safe something feels to you. Because safety isn't something you think your way into. You don't override fear with logic. You don't talk yourself out of protective response. Safety is built through experience, through learning over time that you can stay present without losing yourself, that you can tolerate uncertainty without abandoning yourself, that you don't have to clamp down or pull away to be okay. Until that happens, control will continue to feel safer than love. Not because love isn't what you want, but because safety has always come first. So if control has felt safer than love and forcing yourself to relax doesn't work, then the real question becomes: what actually has to change? And the answer isn't that you need to try harder to trust, it's not that you need to override your instincts, it's not that you need to talk yourself out of how you feel. What has to shift is where safety comes from. Up until now, safety has been tied to external conditions. Clarity, consistency, reassurance, certainty. When those things are present, you feel more open. When they're not, you pull back. But that means your ability to stay present in dating depends on variables you can't control, even if you think that you can. How quickly someone responds, how emotionally available they are right away, how fast things settle. And early dating will never be stable enough to reliably provide that. So the work isn't eliminating uncertainty. The work is building enough internal steadiness that uncertainty doesn't knock you out of yourself. One simple place this can start is with meaning. When something happens, a slower response, a vague plan, a shift you notice, your mind will want to decide immediately what it means. Instead of following that interpretation right away, the shift is learning to pause and say, Something just happened. I don't actually know what it means yet. You're not dismissing your reaction, you're not forcing optimism, you're creating space between the circumstance and the conclusion. And that space is where choice comes back online. And that also doesn't mean ignore red flags, it doesn't mean staying in situations that don't align. It also doesn't mean lowering your standards. It means learning how to stay connected to yourself while things are still unfolding. Another place the shift happens is in how you respond to discomfort. When uncertainty shows up, there's often an urge to act quickly, to pull back, to end things, or to seek clarity immediately so the feeling can stop. Before you do anything externally, the work is learning how to stay with yourself internally first to notice what am I feeling right now? What do I actually need in this moment? Sometimes that's grounding. Sometimes it's reassurance from yourself. Sometimes it's space or rest. Not so you override your discernment, but so you're not making decisions from urgency because decisions made from steadiness feel very different than decisions made from relief seeking. And finally, there's the shift around time. Early dating doesn't give you certainty, it gives you information over time. So instead of asking, is this my person or where is this going? The shift is learning to ask, What am I noticing as time passes? How does this person show up consistently? How do I feel around them after repeated interactions? This isn't about waiting endlessly or tolerating what doesn't feel right. It's about allowing reality to reveal itself instead of trying to predict it early. And this is how safety actually gets rebuilt. Not by forcing openness, but by proving to yourself over time that you can tolerate not knowing and still be okay. That you don't disappear when things are unclear, that you don't lose yourself when you feel activated, that you can remain grounded even when the outcome isn't guaranteed. And when that begins to happen, something important shifts. You're no longer relying on circumstances to determine how you show up. You're no longer waiting for someone else's behavior to decide whether you're allowed to feel steady. You're leading yourself again. From that place, dating feels different. You're more present, you're more discerning without being guarded. You give things enough time to show you what they are without forcing them to be something they're not. And love doesn't feel like a threat anymore, not because uncertainty disappears, but because you're no longer giving uncertainty the power to decide who you get to be. So if you take nothing else from this episode, I want you to hear this. There is nothing wrong with you. The way you've learned to show up in dating makes sense given that what you've lived through, your desire for control wasn't a flaw. It was protection. It helped you get through seasons where love didn't feel safe. And at the same time, it's okay to acknowledge when something that once helped you is no longer serving the life you want now. You don't have to rush to that realization. You don't have to force yourself to change overnight. This work isn't about becoming someone else. It's about slowly learning how to stay with yourself even when things feel uncertain. So you don't have to keep choosing familiarity over possibility. If dating has felt exhausting, confusing, or discouraging, I hope this episode gave you a little more understanding and a little more compassion for yourself. You're not behind, you're not doing it wrong, you're learning how to lead yourself differently, and that takes time. So wherever you are right now, whether you're dating, taking a break, or just reflecting, I hope you move through it with a little bit more gentleness towards yourself. Take what resonated, leave what didn't, and trust that the clarity you're looking for will come from how you show up, not from forcing answers too soon. I'm really glad you were here with me today. And until we meet again, take good care of yourself. Hey, before you go, I want to leave you with something that will make your entire dating life make sense. If you're tired of dating apps and the endless cycle of swiping, chatting, and getting nowhere, or if you hate that you cared more than he did, and you're the one left picking up the emotional pieces time after time, there is a reason for that. And it's not the reason you think. Right now, you're probably stuck in what I call the diagnosis. Which simply means you've been blaming yourself for the wrong thing over and over, and trying to fix the top fit instead of the real issue underneath. And because of that, you keep putting in more effort without ever getting different results. That's why I want to invite you to take the why you're really still single quiz, which finally shows you the actual reason your dating life keeps repeating itself. The deeper emotional boot that's been running in the background without you realizing it. And once you see what's really going on, everything makes sense in a way it never has before. It takes two minutes, it's free, and the clarity you get from it will shift the way you approach dating forever. Go take the quiz, the link is in the show notes.