Let friends judge a new prospect while the dopamine passes
The neurodivergent dopamine rush from a new romance — especially under love-bombing — feels like love and overrides your judgement. Outsource the assessment: show a new prospect's behaviour to trusted friends who aren't feeling that chemical hit, and wait for the rush to subside before deciding. Something feeling right doesn't make it right.
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Early attraction in a neurodivergent brain can come with a dopamine rush strong enough to feel indistinguishable from love, and love-bombing exploits exactly that — the chemical high overrides intuition, so ‘it feels right’ becomes untrustworthy as a signal precisely when it feels most convincing. Two moves guard against acting on it. First, outsource the judgement to people who aren’t experiencing the rush: show a close, trusted circle of friends what the new prospect is actually doing and saying, and ask plainly what they think. Because they aren’t flooded with the same chemicals, they can assess the behaviour rationally when you can’t. Second, wait: let the initial dopamine pass before making any real decision, so the assessment happens from a settled state rather than a spike. The governing reframe is that a feeling of rightness is not evidence of rightness — the neurodivergent rush is real but not a reliable verdict — so during it you lean on other people’s clearer read and on time, rather than on the intensity of your own certainty.
