The Spark Is Often Your Nervous System Recognizing the Past, Not the Future
Racing chemistry can mean your body knows how to survive this kind of love, while steady kindness feels boring because it sets off no alarm.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty · Sabrina Zohar: How to Stop Chasing People Who Don’t Want YouThat electric jolt on a first date may not mean you found the one. It may mean your body found something it already knows how to survive.
The pattern starts early, says relationship coach Sabrina Zohar, who was introduced as a coach, writer, and show host. In the first 18 months of life, when babies cannot yet talk, the nervous system learns safety from faces, tone, and tiny moment to moment cues. It records what home felt like, even if home felt dismissive, critical, or cold.
In adulthood, that old recording can turn into repetition compulsion, meaning the pull to keep choosing what feels familiar because familiar once meant safe. Zohar describes dating someone like her dad as "a little bit more cold and gregarious and big at first, but more narcissistic." The appeal, in her words, is that the nervous system says, "I know what to do here," and, "I can keep me safe here, I know."
A partner who is kind, consistent, and freely loving can feel wrong for the opposite reason. If you grew up believing love must be earned, easy love clashes with that core belief of unworthiness. The body reads steady kindness as unfamiliar, and unfamiliar reads as off.
Zohar calls the jolt itself trauma tingles. The surge sends blood toward the hands and feet, the classic fight or flight response that should help you run away. But because the surge feels hot and exciting, and because it matches an old feeling, many people run toward the person instead of away. Healthy connection often feels boring at first, she says, because it sets off no alarm.
Scarcity makes the confusion stronger. Zohar compares it to a book. If she told you this was the only copy in the world, you would want one. If it were sitting in a shop for three cents, she says, you might think, "I don't know if I want it that bad." When affection is given freely and you believe you are unworthy, it is easier to find an ick, to call him boring or not funny, than to face what she describes as "maybe there was never anything wrong with me."
Chemistry, in other words, does not mean compatibility. Chemistry can mean great sex or a fun night. Compatibility, as Zohar defines it, is whether your morals, ethos, and ethics align. The question to ask, in Zohar's words, is "is familiar familiar because it feels good, or is familiar because that's just how you've kept yourself safe in the past?"
Questions people ask
How can I tell in the moment if it's real attraction or just a familiar alarm?
Notice where you feel it and what comes with it. A threat response often feels urgent, shaky, or obsessive, with racing thoughts about winning approval. Calmer attraction builds more slowly and leaves you feeling seen and steady after you leave, not anxious and crashy.
Can you ever learn to feel a spark for a healthy partner?
Yes, but it usually takes time and repeated calm experiences. As your nervous system learns that consistency is safe, steadiness starts to feel comforting rather than dull. Many people report attraction grows over the second and third dates as trust builds.
Does this pattern show up outside dating?
It can. People often pick familiar dynamics at work and in friendships, like a critical boss or a friend who always takes. The cue is repetition: if different people leave you with the same small, judged, or dismissed feeling, an old pattern may be steering the choice.