How to tell if you’re being ‘future faked’ by the person you’re dating

“From the very beginning, we talked about family, marriage, kids. It was not casual – it was constant. We were planning our future together; we were talking about names of our kids; we were going to jewellery stores where he asked my ring size… I genuinely believed I was building a life with this man.”

Digital creator Anastasiia shared this story on Instagram at the end of last year in a three-part post. She described a fairytale experience that many women dream of – meeting a man, feeling an instant, “magical” chemistry and connection, and swiftly beginning to create a shared vision of a future together. “Back then, it felt like love, it felt like destiny,” she continues.

But what followed was far less romantic. As time went on, none of the big plans came to fruition; her partner seemed to be all talk, no action. “The proposal was always delayed for some fake reason,” she says. “It turned into an emotional rollercoaster of manipulation, a complete disconnect between his words and actions. And I stayed in that dynamic, hooked and confused, trying to make sense of things that didn’t make sense.”

Further down the line, Anastasiia discovered that her ex had been deceiving her in various ways and managed to extricate herself from the relationship. She now believes she was a victim of “future faking”, a new buzzword popularised by social media to describe the experience of being sold the dream of a future together by the person you’re dating – but that dream never becomes a reality. Or, as Anastasiia describes it, “building an illusion of a future he never actually planned to give me”.

Future faking can often go hand-in-hand with love bombing, another fairly recent term for when someone overwhelms a new paramour at the beginning of a relationship with excessive affection, attention and praise. It might initially feel like you’re being swept off your feet; in reality, this behaviour creates a frenzy of emotional intensity and breaks down boundaries too quickly in place of true intimacy, which takes time to build.

Like many things, the concept of future faking is nothing new, even if the terminology is. Taylor Swift seemingly made reference to it following a six-year relationship with actor Joe Alwyn, singing: “You s***-talked me under the table, talking rings and talking cradles” during the track “loml” on her 2024 post-break-up album The Tortured Poets Department.

Then there’s the straight-up manipulation of talking someone into bed, the classic risk that women, in particular, are warned about: that a man will say whatever they want to hear to get them naked. The character of Samantha in Sex and the City was memorably the unexpected victim of this romantic duping in the episode “They Shoot Single People, Don’t They?” when she’s lured in by a club owner who refers to them as a “we” and immediately starts painting an enticing picture of a future together… before abruptly ghosting her.

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However, most of the time this kind of “deception” isn’t necessarily intentional, according to the experts. “Most people say these things because they really believe it,” explains Julie Menanno, a marriage and family therapist and author of Secure Love: Create a Relationship That Lasts a Lifetime. “They’re not just trying to be manipulative.”

Future faking can be a result of the idyllic honeymoon phase at the beginning of a relationship. “When two people come together and they’re attracted to each other, they get along, they share the same interests, there’s a lot of compatibility, it’s really easy to say, ‘This would be great – look, we can have this wonderful future together,” says Menanno. “And that’s safe, because there’s no downside yet, right?”

But whether a relationship can survive long-term really comes down to whether or not a couple can successfully resolve arguments, going through the challenging process of rupture and repair. “If the two of them don’t know how to navigate conflict with emotional safety, then they create what are called negative cycles, where they start communicating with each other in a way that creates a lot of emotional unsafety,” according to Menanno. Sometimes one party will withdraw and shut down while the other becomes anxious, feeling desperate to be heard and connect. The blame cycle spirals, and tensions build.

“At that point, the relationship is now not so wonderful, right?” says Menanno. “It might have periods of being wonderful, but there’s enough bad times for the person who originally said, ‘Hey, let’s have this beautiful future together,’ to feel nervous that this future isn’t actually going to be all that great.”

Maybe there’s still enough good bits to think that the relationship is worth hanging onto; maybe there’s still hope that things could miraculously improve. The result? The relationship gets stuck in limbo, with one person too scared of losing their partner to end things, but too scared about a potentially unhappy future to truly dive in and commit.

“Commitment-phobia can show up in many different ways,” Menanno points out. “It can show up as saying nothing at all and just refusing to talk about the future, or it can show up by making plans that never come through. And ultimately, it’s a way that a person who wants connection, but is afraid of connection, regulates their nervous system.”

Indeed, the modern culture of dating, in which there are seemingly infinite options at the touch – or swipe – of a button, can make taking concrete steps to commit to another person feel “frightening”, says Sarah Ingram, a couples psychotherapist at Tavistock Relationships. “Imagining being with this person forever feels terrifying for some people, so they can have a fantasy that ‘we’re going to do this’, but the reality might feel really boring, like getting stuck, and involves, inevitably, some compromise.” Talking a good game without ever following through, meanwhile, allows someone to maintain a sense that they’re keeping their options open and protecting themselves.

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This behaviour might be, in part, motivated by attachment styles. This psychoanalytic theory, developed by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, posits that different types of bonds form between a baby and caregiver based on how responsive the latter is to the former’s needs. Others have gone on to theorise that the attachment style a person develops in infancy will act as an emotional blueprint for their future romantic relationships – that inconsistent care can lead to insecure attachment styles later in life. These include anxious, avoidant and disorganised attachment.

“I would imagine that it links to your attachment,” agrees Ingram. “If you have some sort of attachment where feeling settled feels claustrophobic – that, while you like the idea of it, the reality of it just feels a bit deadening.”

This is something that might be more likely to occur with those who have an avoidant attachment style. Avoidant attachment in adults is associated with hyper-independence and self-sufficiency, difficulty engaging in emotional or physical intimacy, and a tendency to withdraw or shut down. For some, “relationships were associated with engulfment and intrusiveness, usually when they were growing up”, explains Menanno. “The closeness was kind of smothering. So the adult fears that feeling, but they also long for normal human closeness, and they’re trying to reconcile the two. Either way, they’re going to have to face fear: they’re either going to have to face fear and discomfort around engulfment or the fear and discomfort of being alone.”

Under these circumstances, future faking can be a way of holding onto a relationship without having to fully commit to it – avoiding facing either fear. But it leaves the other person in the relationship in a state of perpetual confusion and abandonment.

What can exacerbate the issue is that those who are avoidant frequently attract partners who are anxious. “In terms of couple attachment, one can really want the security and be quite demanding in terms of wanting security and future planning,” says Ingram, “and the more they move towards it, the more the other person retreats. That comes up a lot in couples therapy – that if one person is emotionally demanding, the other reverses away.”

The core issue is nearly always the same: difficulty connecting. “There’s usually a struggle with real intimacy to begin with, and that means that they don’t know how to connect emotionally and vulnerably,” she says. “When people don’t know how to how to actually create emotional connection with a partner, there’s a void.” In a bid to fill that with some sense of connection or excitement, it’s tempting to “connect to the fantasy of a future instead of having actual connection with each other”.

So how can you know if you’re being future faked by the person you’re dating? Ingram recommends looking at concrete behaviour – are they putting their money where their mouth is, or is it all hot air? For example, if you’ve talked about buying a home together, are they putting savings aside for a deposit?

It’s also worth looking at the less dramatic, day-to-day behaviours, and whether a potential partner follows through on smaller promises. “You want to see that they do what they say,” says Menanno. “If they don’t – because we’re not always perfect – do they make repairs? Do they talk about it, or do they just make excuses?”

She also recommends looking within and assessing: does your body feel calm and safe when you interact with this person? Do you feel heard? Do you feel seen? Do you feel understood?

Ultimately, though someone promising the world early on in a relationship might seem like a fairytale, it’s more likely a red flag than romantic. “The only way you can know if you want a future with someone is by truly getting to know them – it’s from repeated and diverse experiences with them,” advises Menanno. “And if you haven’t had an opportunity to have conflict, you don’t really even know that person.”