Page 34 - MidWeek - Dec 15, 2021

34 MIDWEEK DECEMBER 15, 2021
I’ m a 29-year-old guy with a “keep it casual” relationship history, but I can’ t stop think- ing about this new girl at work. Beyond not wanting her to date anyone else, I don’t want someone to hurt her or make her sad. No other woman has ever made me feel this way. How do I know whether this is lust or the beginnings of falling in love? – Confused
It’s easy to believe you’re “in love” when you’ re real- ly just in lust. To be fair, lust isaformoflove...ifyou broaden the field to stuff like
Falling Head Over Heels In Love (Or, Lust?)
“Love or infatuation?” Fall- ing in love is not love. It’s infatuation — an intense, usually lust-fueled obsession with our idea of who a person is: a projection of our hopes and romantic fantasies that often has little relationship to who they really are. That said, the sheer strength and intox- icating nature of infatuation
“I love, love, LOVE your boobs in that inappropriately tight sweater.”
— like being blind drunk on romantic possibility instead of Jim Beam — often leads to premature feelings of “We’re perfect for each other!”
However, as time goes by, we can’t help but notice all the dissimilarities poking up, which leads us to like them less and less — a la “to know them is to loathe them.” In other words, rushing into a relationship of any perma- nence is the stuff dreams are made of — if you’ ve always dreamed of being financial- ly and emotionally inciner- ated in a grotesquely ugly divorce.
In other words, lust is an- imal attraction, so the “inner beauty” that’s elemental to loving somebody is imma- terial. I know this firsthand, having repeatedly been the target of interspecies sex predators, large and small.
bird feet all around another friend’s apartment, squawk- ing the oh-so-sensual pickup line, “Otto, bird! Otto, bird!” I bolted into the bathroom, slammed the door and refused to come out till he was behind bars. #BeakToo.
People tend to believe the more they learn about a new person they’re into, the more into them they’ll be — a la “to know them is to love them.” However, psychologist Mi- chael Norton finds that when we have the hots for someone we barely know, we’re prone to read ambiguity — foggy, partial information about them — as signs the person is like us. These (perceived!) similarities amp up our “lik- ing” for them, at first.
Falling in love is not love. It’s infatuation — an intense, usually lust- fueled obsession with our idea of who a person is.
A giant male goat chased me across my friend’s par- ents’ farm, trying to mount me — while my friends looked on laughing. A pre- vious perv was 6 inches high and green: a friend’s lorikeet (a kind of parrot).
Complicating the detan- gling of “love or lust?” is another important question:
“Buyer beware” in love is best exercised in two ways: The first is “buyer be seri- ously slow.” Consider put- ting the person you’re dating on secret probation for a year
He ran after me on his little
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