It’s a classic story: You meet someone, feel butterflies, and start pondering a future, whether it’s Friday’s dinner or next year’s proposal. You’re pretty sure you’re falling in love—or are you? However strong the feeling, it can be tough to decipher whether it’s grounded in something real or something more fleeting. After all, plenty of things can look and feel like love. Lust, for example. Or infatuation. Or toxic love bombing. And even if it does seem like 100% genuine Love, that doesn’t necessarily mean it is. You may be able to think back to a time when you were sure you were falling hard and then reversed course when you saw them, say, be a jerk to a waiter.
