On love, limerence, and other-significant-others

Heartbreak is how we mature; yet we use the word heartbreak as if it only occurs when things have gone wrong: an unrequited love, a shattered dream… But heartbreak may be the very essence of being human, of being on the journey from here to there, and of coming to care deeply for what we find along the way.

[…]

There is almost no path a human being... See more

People are not reliable narrators of their heart’s desires. You have to listen to what they’re saying, but you also have to study their actual behavior and their previous partners to understand their real preferences.

Most of us have never experienced the kind of love that transforms you and expands your interiority, so we don’t realise it’s out there. But it is and it exists. Once you’ve experienced it, you can’t go back to the mimicry, because it feels like a sorry excuse for the real thing.

codependency is not in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; nor has there been substantial research on the concept. Some people may find it to be a useful tool for explaining bad relationship habits, but the term’s popularity also gestures at something worrisome: an avoidance of vulnerability and the natural asymmetries in... See more

I am fully aware that it is not my duty to teach people how to love me— that if someone truly loves me, there will always be a room for them to learn my love language. But recently, I learned that to be understood, we must first understand who we're talking to.

It's a lovely feeling to finally have someone you could share your wildest dreams without... See more

And so the trick is, can you force yourself to be absolutely unsparingly realistic about what’s actually best for you?

Romantic love finds its most passionate expression in private where only one particular person can “unperplex” the other