Safari keeps loading pages onto the wrong tab.

Sorry if this is poorly phrased.. I don't know how to properly describe the issue.

I like to have multiple tabs open in Safari. Lately, I've been having the issue wherein I'll have a tab open that I'm using and will then go to open a new tab. I'll select the website I want in the new tab. I'll then go back to my original tab. However, the original tab will refresh and will transform into whatever website is in tab 2. Tab 2 will often remain as my home screen instead of ever loading the site I requested, or else it will also be the site I asked it to load (along with Tab 1 which I didn't want to change..). Once Tab 1 has automatically changed to whatever I was trying to load in Tab 2, clicking 'previous page' does nothing except bring me back to my home page. I literally can't get back to whatever I was originally on except for going through my history or retyping the website. This is extremely frustrating when working on something important that doesn't necessarily save your work.

This is on a new laptop, and I've never had this issue on my old one. So I don't know if it's a setting issue, or a newer version of Safari issue than I previously had. But it's absolutely driving me mental and making me seriously consider just switching to Chrome.