My Phantom Lover

I have a crush on someone right now. The person in question lives far away and so there’s practically no chance that the crush will turn into anything else. But I’ve been noticing that as I daydream about him, it’s almost as if the romance were real. You know how the psychologists always say that our emotional brain can’t tell the difference between reality and imagination? Even coaches are advising athletes to imagine a new skill first before trying to do it, because the brain experiences the imagined skill building as real skill building. Well, I can see what they mean. I feel as if I am in love. And it’s all in my mind.

So here I am, having that fall in love feeling, by myself. At first, I was amazed that I could recreate this feeling alone. Then I remembered that most falling in love is a total projection anyway. Even if there is a real person involved, we rarely see them for who they are. We imagine them a certain way and fall in love with our own imagining. In the past, I could pretend the person really said what I imagined, but in this case, where there is no actual date, I can’t pretend that he said this or that or misremember any body language.

Instead I have to face rather squarely that these feelings are completely self-made. I feel loved, because I imagine being loved. So in a way, I have fallen in love with myself and am using a projection to profess my love instead of just loving myself directly. Now why would I do that? And it’s not just me. Everyone I know needs to hear love coming from another person. It’s as if love doesn’t feel real unless we perceive it from the outside. Which brings me again to this growing conclusion, that other human beings are essential to our lives. We need each other to reflect love back. Falling in love is so exquisite because that feeling feels like complete surrender to affection. It’s falling in love with Love itself. And somehow that surrender feels more real when it involves another person, even if the other person is completely imagined.