What’s a placeholder and how do you know you are one?

4 comments

1. A placeholder, in romance, is when you feel you are never fully loved because you are holding the place that a person wants to give someone else. Let’s say a guy or woman cannot get over the ex or he/she wants someone he/she cannot have. Instead of addressing the issue directly, there will be a stand-in. I have been treated as this, and I have seen people use others as placeholders for me.

   So I have experienced both perspectives. I like guys, so I am writing from that perspective: You feel like when a guy talks to you, he always references the person he actually wants, directly or indirectly. If it is really bad, he will encourage you to look, sound, dress, and act like the person he actually wants without telling you what he is doing. If you have a similar name or personality, even better. In the worst cases, he may not even want anyone. He may just be psychologically doing that as a mind game to control you and abuse you.

2. I think a pretty good sign is that they are unwilling to move forward in life with you. That could be marriage/kids, but it could also be moving in together, committing, or working on future goals. Everyone’s goals are different so I’m not saying you have to get married and have kids but a big one I see is someone holding off on marriage and then when they break up with their long term bf/gf placeholder they get married and have kids within a year or two with someone new 🤷‍♀️

3. Lorem Ipsum is a placeholder (text) that’s what a placeholder is to me

4. Apart from what u/NovaCatPrime878 has said, I think it can also refer to being the partner of someone that’ll ‘do for now’ until they find someone better. In other words, they don’t really want you longterm, but don’t want to be on their own and maybe don’t want to be celibate, so they’ll be with you until they find someone they prefer.