On love, limerence, and other-significant-others

Romantic love has taken on excessive significance in modern times because it is supposed to fill the void left by other social bonds. Family, religion, community—all of these have lost their footing. So we charge love with meaning.

It is supposed to offer intimacy, belonging, identity, and even moral fulfillment. In a world where work and... 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

historically, marriage was an economic arrangement between families. And now it’s an identity project — two individuals seeking self-actualization

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.

We seem normal only to those who don’t know us very well. In a wiser, more self-aware society than our own, a standard question on any early dinner date would be: “And how are you crazy?”

“It sounds like you typically look for a connection that starts at a 10/10. Maybe what you want is something that starts at a 7/10.” I didn’t like hearing this. But it makes a ton of sense. When you are love-drunk you are also drunk-drunk. You’re not really seeing the person, you’re seeing your own phosphorescence.

In the end, the boy discovers what we all must eventually, if we are to grow into the full bigness of the heart: that in every relationship of trust and tenderness, each is the guardian of the other’s particularity; that to love someone not for the comfort or compliance they can give you but for exactly who they are, the special and particular... See more

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