Chapter 7: The Person and the Projection
Riley decides to do something simple.
Describe Avery.
No interpretations.
No future.
No statements about what Avery feels.
Just Avery.
The first attempts do not go well.
“Avery is incredibly understanding.”
How does Riley know?
Because Avery listens closely and remembers things.
Good.
Observable.
“Avery really sees me.”
What does “sees me” mean?
Avery asks questions about Riley’s writing and remembered the name of a story Riley mentioned months ago.
Good.
“Avery and I have this connection that’s different.”
Different how?
Silence.
“We just do.”
That sentence feels true.
It may even be true.
But it is not evidence.
This is not an argument against intuition.
Human beings know many things before we can explain how we know them.
We read expressions.
Tone.
Rhythm.
Comfort.
Chemistry.
We make complicated social judgments quickly.
Sometimes accurately.
The problem begins when certainty becomes larger than what the relationship has actually tested.
That is where a real person can gradually become intertwined with a projected one.
Projection does not mean “you made them up”
The word projection gets used carelessly.
Someone likes a person who turns out to be disappointing.
A friend says:
“You were just projecting.”
As if the entire relationship occurred inside one person’s imagination.
That is usually too simple.
Avery exists.
Avery really did ask about Riley’s writing.
Really did laugh at the jokes.
Really did send affectionate messages.
Maybe Avery really does feel attraction.
Maybe Avery has behaved inconsistently.
Maybe the connection is genuinely unusual.
Projection does not require reality to be absent.
It happens when our own hopes, fears, needs, expectations, and assumptions help fill in what we cannot directly know.
Every human relationship contains some of this.
You never have direct access to another person’s mind.
You infer.
You interpret.
You build a model of who they are.
That is normal.
The question is how easily your model updates when reality disagrees.
Idealization is not automatically unhealthy
This is another place where the research complicates a popular story.
Self-help discussions often treat idealization as inherently immature.
Real love, they say, sees flaws.
Limerence sees perfection.
Reality is more interesting.
Research on established romantic couples has repeatedly found that some degree of positive illusion—seeing a partner in an especially favorable light—can be associated with relationship satisfaction and stability. Some studies have even found that idealized perceptions predict better relationship outcomes over time. 32
That does not mean delusion is healthy.
It means affection naturally changes perception.
Loving Morgan may involve seeing Morgan’s awkwardness as charming rather than irritating.
Believing generously about a committed partner can support a relationship.
Healthy intimacy does not require becoming a neutral scientist.
So the problem with limerent idealization cannot simply be:
You see Avery positively.
The more useful questions are:
How much of the picture has actually been tested?
What happens when contrary evidence appears?
Can Avery remain valuable without remaining extraordinary?
Can Avery possess qualities that disappoint you without the entire image collapsing?
Can you recognize incompatibility without experiencing it as an attack on the fantasy?
That is where idealization becomes more consequential.
The informational advantage of fantasy
Fantasy has one enormous advantage over reality.
It does not need complete data.
Suppose Riley knows Avery in a work setting.
Riley knows how Avery behaves during deadlines.
Knows something about family history.
Has seen Avery irritated.
Has heard stories about previous relationships.
That is real knowledge.
But Riley has never:
shared money with Avery;
negotiated chores;
handled long-term sexual mismatch;
spent three years parenting with Avery;
watched Avery respond to serious illness;
lived through a financial crisis together;
argued about where to spend holidays;
shared a bathroom for eight years;
seen what Avery is like after twelve months of chronic sleep deprivation;
experienced the boredom of an ordinary long-term relationship together.
That information does not exist.
Yet the imagined relationship may already feel highly compatible.
This is not stupidity.
The mind has to simulate futures using incomplete information.
The problem comes when simulation becomes evidence.
We would be so good together.
Maybe.
But “would” is doing enormous work.
Compatibility that has never been tested
There are many kinds of compatibility.
Conversation.
Sexual attraction.
Values.
Lifestyle.
Conflict.
Finances.
Ambition.
Politics.
Religion.
Family expectations.
Monogamy.
Non-monogamy.
Parenting.
Need for solitude.
Need for affection.
Cleanliness.
Substance use.
Risk tolerance.
How people repair after hurting each other.
Two people can have breathtaking conversational chemistry and terrible conflict compatibility.
Excellent sex and incompatible futures.
Similar values and incompatible daily rhythms.
A deep emotional bond and no workable romantic relationship.
This is difficult to remember during limerence because the strongest areas of compatibility can become evidence for the entire imagined relationship.
Avery understands Riley emotionally.
Therefore:
Avery would be a better partner.
That conclusion may be correct.
It may also skip twelve important categories of information.
This is not an argument for cynicism.
It is an argument for scale.
Know what the evidence supports.
Do not make it responsible for proving more than it can.
Fantasy removes logistics
Think about a romantic fantasy.
How often does someone refill a prescription?
Compare health insurance plans?
Clean up after a vomiting child?
Become constipated on vacation?
Lose interest in sex for three months because work is terrible?
Get irritated because the other person keeps putting the good knife in the dishwasher?
Fantasy tends to select emotionally meaningful scenes.
The reunion.
The confession.
The first night.
The road trip.
The moment someone finally says:
“I’ve always felt it too.”
This is not a flaw in imagination.
Nobody fantasizes about municipal paperwork.
But it creates an uneven comparison if an imagined relationship is placed beside a real one.
Morgan exists in the full resolution of ordinary life.
Avery exists partly in highlights.
Morgan’s irritating habits have years of evidence.
Avery’s irritating habits may still be charming.
Morgan’s affection is familiar.
Avery’s attention is scarce.
Morgan has had thousands of opportunities to disappoint Riley.
Avery has had far fewer.
Then Riley asks:
“Why do I feel more alive with Avery?”
Part of the answer may be compatibility.
Part may be novelty.
Part may be idealization.
Part may be the unfair mathematics of comparing a lived relationship with an edited one.
If Riley wants to evaluate the relationship with Morgan, that evaluation should happen honestly.
But Morgan should not have to compete with a person who exists partly outside ordinary time.
The mind hates empty space
Imagine Avery says:
“I had a weird day.”
That is all.
Riley asks:
“Everything okay?”
Avery does not answer for two hours.
What fills the gap?
Possibility.
Maybe something happened with Avery’s family.
Maybe Avery is upset with Riley.
Maybe Avery’s dating life changed.
Maybe Avery is thinking about the relationship.
The mind generates stories because stories are easier to hold than absence.
An unknown has no shape.
A story does.
This becomes especially important when the unknown concerns another person’s feelings.
You cannot directly know what Avery thinks while reading your message.
You can know what Avery says.
You can observe patterns.
You can make reasonable inferences.
But part of Avery remains inaccessible.
That is not a relationship failure.
That is consciousness.
Other people are private worlds.
Limerence can make that ordinary fact feel almost intolerable because so much depends on what is happening inside the unavailable world.
The result is interpretation.
Confirmation bias: when the mind finds what it expects
Confirmation bias is the tendency to notice, seek, or give greater weight to information that fits what we already believe.
This does not mean people deliberately ignore facts.
It often happens quietly.
Suppose Riley believes:
Avery has feelings for me but is afraid to admit them.
Now many events can support the belief.
Avery is warm.
Evidence.
Avery pulls away.
Also evidence.
Why pull away unless the feelings are frightening?
Avery dates someone else.
Evidence that Avery is trying to move on.
Avery stays single.
Evidence that nobody else measures up.
You can see the problem.
A theory that explains every possible outcome cannot be easily tested.
This is one reason limerent interpretations can become unusually durable.
Contradictory evidence gets absorbed rather than allowed to contradict.
The question to ask is:
What evidence would actually change my mind?
If the honest answer is:
Nothing, because I know what Avery really feels,
then your belief has become difficult for reality to update.
That deserves attention.
“But I can feel the chemistry”
Chemistry is real as an experience.
Two people can have unusual ease.
Eye contact.
Physical charge.
Humor.
Intellectual rhythm.
Sexual tension.
A sense that the room changes.
We do not need to pretend those experiences are imaginary in order to think clearly.
But chemistry answers a limited question.
Something happens between us.
It does not automatically answer:
Should we be together?
Would the relationship be healthy?
Are our values compatible?
Can this person meet my needs?
Can I meet theirs?
Would we survive ordinary life?
Are they available?
Do they consent to the relationship I am imagining?
Chemistry is data.
It is not a contract.
This distinction becomes especially important when attraction is mutual but action is not.
Avery may genuinely feel something for Riley and still choose not to pursue it.
Those facts can coexist.
Limerence often struggles with that because mutual feeling seems as though it should logically require mutual action.
Human relationships do not work that way.
People decline relationships for good reasons.
Timing.
Commitments.
Values.
Family.
Mental health.
Incompatibility.
A desire not to hurt someone.
A simple decision that the feeling is not enough.
Attraction gives someone information about their feelings.
It does not remove their right to choose what they do with those feelings.
The difference between recognition and certainty
Sometimes Riley accurately recognizes something.
Avery is flirtatious.
There is genuine intimacy.
The relationship contains more emotional charge than an ordinary friendship.
Avery may even later admit attraction.
Does that mean Riley’s entire interpretation was correct?
No.
This is where people can become confused.
One accurate inference can make every other inference feel validated.
I knew Avery liked me.
Therefore:
I knew we were meant to be together.
Those are different claims.
You can correctly identify attraction and incorrectly predict compatibility.
Correctly identify closeness and incorrectly assume commitment.
Correctly notice jealousy and incorrectly conclude that the person wants a relationship.
Correctly identify a boundary as painful and incorrectly decide the boundary is temporary.
Reality is often mixed.
The goal is not to doubt everything.
It is to match confidence to evidence.
Reality–Story–Unknowns
We now have enough groundwork for one of the central tools in this book.
When you are activated, separate information into three categories.
Reality: What can you observe? What was actually said? What behavior occurred?Story: What meaning have you added?Unknown: What information is genuinely unavailable?
For Riley:
Reality: Avery said, “I care about you, but I don’t want a romantic relationship.” Avery has continued sending friendly messages twice a week. Avery initiated lunch once.Story: Avery is scared. Avery wants Riley but feels guilty. The lunch means Avery is reconsidering. The continued messages prove the bond is too strong to end.Unknown: Whether Avery privately fantasizes about Riley. Whether Avery’s feelings might change. Why Avery initiated lunch. Whether Avery misses the previous level of closeness.
This third category is essential.
People often use cognitive tools as a way to force a more positive interpretation.
That is not what we are doing.
The goal is not:
Negative Story → Positive Story.
It is:
Story → recognize story.
Sometimes the responsible answer is:
I don’t know.
That can be deeply unsatisfying.
It can also be the most truthful statement available.
Example: the delayed reply
Reality: Avery has not replied for six hours.Story: Avery is distancing because Riley became too intense.Unknown: Why Avery has not replied.
Notice what happens if Riley replaces the negative story with:
“Avery is probably just busy.”
That may calm Riley.
It is still a story.
A reasonable one.
But not a fact.
A mature relationship with uncertainty does not require always selecting the most comforting explanation.
It says:
Several explanations are possible. I do not currently know.
That is more difficult.
It is also more stable.
Because you do not have to keep constructing a reassuring reality every time anxiety appears.
Example: the affectionate touch
Reality: Avery put a hand on Riley’s back while walking through a crowded doorway.Story: Avery wanted an excuse for physical contact.Unknown: Avery’s intention.
Could Riley ask?
Maybe.
Would that be appropriate?
Depends on context.
But mentally replaying the touch sixty times does not turn the unknown into known.
This is one of the places where ruminative hope disguises itself as analysis.
You feel as if enough thinking should eventually reveal the answer.
Some questions are not solvable from inside your own mind.
That is a difficult but freeing limit.
Example: “I miss you”
Suppose Avery says:
“I miss you.”
Reality.
Now interpretation begins.
Romantically.
Unknown unless stated.
Maybe Avery does miss Riley romantically.
Maybe as a friend.
Maybe both.
Maybe Avery’s feelings are complicated.
We do not need to drain warmth from the sentence.
We only need to stop demanding that it prove something it does not yet prove.
You can let a meaningful moment be meaningful without turning it into a verdict on the future.
That is a very different way to experience intimacy.
When idealization cracks
Eventually, real people behave like real people.
Avery cancels.
Forgets something important.
Makes a selfish choice.
Says something insensitive.
Chooses somebody else.
Sets a limit.
Shows a political opinion Riley dislikes.
Acts immaturely in conflict.
Maybe there is no dramatic flaw.
Avery is simply less extraordinary after enough exposure.
This can produce several reactions.
One is integration:
I care about Avery, and Avery is more complicated than I thought.
That is ordinary intimacy.
Another is rationalization:
There must be a reason. Avery would never really behave that way.
Another is collapse:
I can’t believe Avery is actually this selfish. I was completely wrong.
Idealization can make disappointment feel extreme because the person has farther to fall.
This is sometimes described clinically as movement between idealization and devaluation.
We should not assume every strong change in opinion is pathological “splitting.”
Sometimes people genuinely discover unpleasant information and revise their view.
The key question is whether complexity is allowed.
Can Avery be:
kind and selfish sometimes;
perceptive and wrong about Riley;
attracted and unwilling;
special and incompatible;
important and not the solution?
Can Riley hold two truths without needing Avery to become either perfect or worthless?
That ability matters.
Because real intimacy depends on it.
The pedestal is lonely for both people
Idealization is often discussed as something that happens to the limerent person.
They suffer because reality eventually disappoints them.
But there is another side.
Imagine being Avery.
At first, Riley’s attention may feel wonderful.
Riley notices everything.
Listens intensely.
Laughs easily.
Responds with unusual enthusiasm.
Being valued feels good.
Then Avery starts realizing that normal behavior produces large consequences.
A delayed response hurts Riley.
A new friendship creates jealousy.
Being tired is interpreted as withdrawal.
A disagreement seems to threaten the whole bond.
Now the flattering attention begins to feel like a job.
Avery cannot simply be Avery.
Avery has become the person who makes Riley feel alive.
That is a tremendous role to carry.
The more idealized someone becomes, the less room they may have to be ordinary.
This is why a pedestal can look like admiration while functioning like distance.
You are looking up at someone.
Not meeting them.
True intimacy requires two full human beings at roughly the same height.
We will spend much more time inside Avery’s experience later.
For now, it is enough to notice that idealization can interfere not only with seeing reality but with allowing another person to have reality.
What if the fantasy really is better?
There is an uncomfortable question worth taking seriously.
What if Avery actually would be a better partner than Morgan?
Possible.
Limerence does not magically make every judgment wrong.
Maybe Riley and Morgan have grown deeply incompatible.
Maybe Avery shares values Morgan does not.
Maybe the relationship with Morgan truly needs to end.
The solution is not to decide:
“Because I am limerent, my feelings about Morgan are invalid.”
That would be another form of avoiding reality.
Instead, remove Avery from the evaluation as much as possible.
Ask:
If Avery disappeared tomorrow, what would still be true about my relationship with Morgan?
What problems would remain?
What needs would still be unmet?
What conversations would still need to happen?
Would I still believe this relationship needs significant change?
That question helps separate information revealed by the limerence from conclusions dependent upon the fantasy.
Avery may have exposed a problem.
Avery does not automatically determine the solution.
The fantasy may contain instructions
This is one of the most useful ways to treat fantasy without obeying it.
Imagine Riley repeatedly fantasizes about traveling with Avery.
The obvious interpretation is:
I want to travel with Avery.
True.
But there may be another layer:
I want adventure.
Suppose Riley constantly imagines Avery wanting to hear about creative work.
Perhaps:
I want someone who engages with this part of me.
Suppose Elena fantasizes about a person holding her during a difficult night.
Maybe:
I need tenderness.
The fantasy contains a person.
It may also contain information.
We do not have to make the fantasy literal in order to respect what it reveals.
This is a powerful shift.
Instead of:
How do I make this scene happen with Avery?
ask:
What does this scene tell me I am hungry for?
That returns us to Chapter 4.
Person.
Symbol.
Need.
Now reality has a chance to enter.
Do not use realism as self-punishment
Some people learn about idealization and respond by trying to destroy their feelings.
They make a list of everything wrong with the person.
Focus deliberately on flaws.
Tell themselves the person is mediocre.
Ridicule their own attraction.
This can sometimes reduce romantic intensity.
It can also become another extreme.
You do not need to turn Avery into a bad person to let go.
You do not need to prove the relationship would have been terrible.
You do not need to stop finding Avery beautiful.
You do not need to rewrite every meaningful moment as manipulation or delusion.
Reality is enough.
Sometimes reality is:
Avery is wonderful.
And unavailable.
Avery cares.
And does not want what Riley wants.
Avery has qualities Riley genuinely values.
And cannot carry the psychological role Riley has assigned.
Avery may always matter.
And Riley may still need to step away.
This is one of the hardest forms of acceptance because there is no villain to make departure easier.
The relationship may be genuinely precious.
It may also be unsustainable.
Both can be true.
What you know, what you hope, and what you cannot know
By now, the recurring problem across these chapters should be becoming clearer.
A person means something.
The meaning creates hope.
Hope makes uncertainty difficult.
Uncertainty increases monitoring.
Attachment fear raises the stakes.
Shame turns relational outcomes into judgments about the self.
Fantasy fills what reality leaves unknown.
Then the imagined person becomes increasingly important because so much psychological life has been organized around them.
None of this requires you to be foolish.
It requires you to be human under conditions that make human cognition vulnerable to loops.
The task is not to become emotionless.
It is to become more accurate about which part of the experience belongs to which domain.
What I know.
What I infer.
What I hope.
What I fear.
What I need.
What belongs to the other person.
Those categories overlap.
They should not collapse.
Because another person’s feelings belong to them.
Your needs belong to you.
A shared relationship belongs to both people.
And fantasy belongs to the mind that creates it.
Confusion becomes dangerous when one category starts making decisions for all the others.
From inner mechanism to outer consequence
We have spent most of this book inside the person experiencing limerence.
That was necessary.
Without understanding the inner mechanism, behavior can look absurd.
Why keep checking?
Because checking provides relief.
Why fantasize?
Because fantasy does real psychological work.
Why does uncertainty hurt this much?
Because another person’s availability may have become connected to security, worth, identity, belonging, or hope.
Why idealize?
Because human beings naturally build models of other people, and desire gives those models direction.
Understanding all of that should make the pattern more comprehensible.
It should not make us stop at comprehension.
Because while Riley has been living inside uncertainty, Morgan has been living beside Riley.
Morgan has noticed the delayed laughs.
The absent attention.
The phone turned face down.
The vague answers.
The strange emotional weather.
Avery has been living inside the pattern too, though differently.
Avery may have no idea how much meaning Riley assigns to ordinary interactions.
Or perhaps Avery has begun to feel it.
This is where the book has to turn outward.
Private longing does not always stay private.
Attention goes somewhere.
Time goes somewhere.
Affection goes somewhere.
Truth can become edited.
Partners can become lonely inside relationships that technically still exist.
The person being idealized can start feeling responsible for emotions they never agreed to manage.
Understanding the mechanism matters.
Now we have to look at the cost.