What makes a person appear perfect to their loved ones?

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A2A, Well, nobody’s perfect, so the cynic in me wants to declare that the only thing that would give that appearance is infatuation. But instead I’d like to talk a little bit about love.

When you start out with someone, there’s always at least a little bit of infatuation. It’s this hope that this one person can solve all your problems with your life and make you happy. I’ve had a roommate who said that girls that can code really turn him on. He’s trying to learn how to code. He would overlook a lot to get a girl that could code.

I couldn’t understand it until I thought more carefully about what infatuation is. As you get more mature you realize that nobody is really perfect and so it’s easy to get cynical. I think nature made infatuation a really strong force in our brains to compensate for this otherwise nobody would reproduce after a certain age.

So when we are with somebody and the relationship is working, I think we mostly ping-pong between infatuation and seeing a person’s whole self. When that other person sees us as ‘perfect’, it’s the infatuation taking over, that sense that this other person is this larger-than-life figure who is way above anything we could ever be.

I don’t really know what to make of this but this kind of self-delusion seems to be a common feature of relationships, particularly working ones. I certainly get infatuated with people a lot too. It’s fun. I let the infatuation drive me to get to know them, and it’s like a little adventure. At the end of it I’m a little smarter and wiser.

One thing I noticed is that you never really know someone 100%. So there’s always something mysterious about your partner, no matter how long you’ve known them. Keeping yourself open to becoming infatuated by that person, over and over again, well, people that can do that are the ones that are really capable of lasting, enduring love.

Hope that helps.