This is not what fairy tales are made of; you meet someone on your favorite internet dating service and go out on a few dates. You and your new sweetie think each other is terrific when all of a sudden he (or she) is making room in your closet for a few overnight things and tells you they were so worried when you didn’t call last night.

Um, excuse me? Yeah, not the stuff of fairy tales but, sadly, very much the stuff of real life. So what to do when the person you’re into is moving too fast? You want to slow things down, but not call things off. That’s a hard dance to dance, friends, but it’s completely possible. Read on:

1. Say it, don’t delay it

I admit, this one is rather obvious. Just come right out with it. Unfortunately, it seems that most people I know would rather have root canal without the benefit of anesthetic than confront this problem, or any other, head on.

It’s possible that your new romantic interest isn’t trying to go crazy fast; they could just be excited about how amazing you are and have gotten a bit carried away. A quick, non-accusatory conversation about your concerns will either shake them back to reality and they’ll start putting the brakes on a bit or it won’t and you’ll realize that you two really are on different pages.

2. Stop being so available

Some people, as much as they might feel their space being encroached on, will try to keep up with the advanced relationship pace the other person is setting, just to be nice (and after all, we’re assuming that you’re actually pretty into this person; otherwise, why go through all this trouble to figure this out?).

In some burgeoning relationships we’re really into the person we’re dating and we choose to ignore, at least for now, that the actual relationship is not compatible with our lifestyle and totally exceeds our comfort levels.

So if you want to slow things down to your comfort level, you need to make yourself unavailable at times. If you have to be at work early tomorrow morning, then make it clear you won’t be spending any time together tonight.

If your new significant other tries to invite him or herself out on nights with friends, tell him or her that eventually, that will be cool but for right now, you want to let things incubate in private between you two for a while.

When the speed demon you’re dating makes noises about that dresser drawer or the key to your front door, and you’d rather not take that step just yet, think of a smaller step that you can take. Few of us are blessed with being a smooth talker, so offering an alternative instead of a rejection will definitely lessen the blow. Repeat step one if necessary.

This article was developed by the writers of the Datepad.com internet dating company where you can find hundreds of professional dating articles. You can get a unique content version of this article from the Uber Article Directory.