I just happened to read this earlier:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/rob-thomas-matchbox-twenty-ryan-gosling-push-barbie-movie-1234795213/amp/
“Elsewhere in the interview, Thomas described writing the song, which was penned “overnight” with producer Matt Serletic. The musician wrote it about an ex-girlfriend, but is aware that the lyrics seem “problematic” in retrospect. “I wrote that song about someone I had been with who I felt was manipulating me and taking advantage of me,” he said. “The ‘90s was a time of manufactured angst, and nobody wanted to be a victim in a song. So in a weird twist of different times, there’s something very problematic about ‘Push,’ if it wasn’t for the innocence of how it was written. But everything about it was about emotional manipulation. It was just about this idea that it’s so much easier to find someone you can take advantage of than it is to actually put work into a relationship.”