If you’re reading this article, you know all too well the feelings you have when you start to get attached to someone. You find yourself hoping you’ll run into them whenever you go out. If your phone rings, you want it to be them. Sometimes if it isn’t, you may even be upset. Of course, you try to suppress the feelings because, let’s face it, feelings are scary! In your opinion, feelings are for the weak and feeble-hearted… until someone is nice to you once and then you can’t help but think you might be in love with them. We all get these crazy irrational attachments to people at some point in life. But fear not. There are plenty of reasons we feel this way sometimes.

1. Good people are hard to come by these days.

At the risk of sounding like a total creep, I have to say that if you are a stranger who smiles at me when we pass each other, I’m gonna wonder what your story is and hope that you have an amazing life and that nobody breaks your heart, ever. Chances are if you compliment me (especially if I’m having a bad day) I probably want to be your best friend. We all do it. People are cruel and mean in this world, and there is nothing better than little reminders that genuinely kind people still exist.

2. I’m a sentimental person.

I’m the kind of person who keeps a different shoebox full of tickets, pictures, letters and cards from every year of my life under my bed. Cleaning my room is impossible because I come across items I haven’t seen in years and can’t help but reminisce over all the memories surrounding them. I have my ticket from every concert I’ve been to on display. I keep (and frequently read for some good laughs) every note my friends and I ever passed back and forth in middle school. If you’ve made even the slightest impact on my life, I want to keep you. I want something to remember you by, should you be out of my life someday.

3. I’ve lost a lot of important people.

This is the worst part of getting attached to people. I am 100 percent sure that I’m one of those clingy (girl)friends who tend to get on people’s nerves because I am constantly trying to make sure the people I love still want me around. That’s what most people do when they’ve had anyone important walk out of their lives. Fear of abandonment is a true and honest consternation that anyone can experience. People whose parents have left them or have had close relative pass away all my experience this fear at some point. If you’re like me, you may experience this when your dog sits next to someone else besides you on the couch. Being second choice sucks.

4. Believe me, I tried my hardest not to.

Because I have lost people in the past, getting attached can be a scary feeling. There is no guarantee that the people in my life today are still going to be in it tomorrow. People move, get sick of each other, disappear and even die every single day. Who’s to say it won’t be someone I’m close to? I have never had a say in any of those things happening to the people I love. If I let myself get close to you, believe that you are someone worth getting close to because most people, including myself, avoid attachment at all costs for fear of losing the people they love.I’ve come to learn that loss in life is inevitable. We can’t let ourselves be lonely to avoid being left. We can’t resist falling in love to avoid or hearts being broken. The only thing we can do about a loss is learn to accept it. And after that, we can’t let ourselves be afraid to move on, find new friends or fall in love again.