#idealization

[unaoverthinker]

No me hagas hacerme sentir como si yo fuera algo y no alguien.

-overthinker

[sheleftforher]

Love-Bombing & Idealization Love-bombing isn’t love. It’s a ticking time bomb. 💣

[thoughtsbysofi]

Why do we keep chasing the Idea of perfect love?

The love stories we tell ourselves

As hopeless romantics, we’ve all been there—daydreaming about “the one,” holding on to the magic of soulmates and chasing the fantasy of a love so perfect it feels predestined. But recently, a realization hit me:

We have no idea what love actually is.

We think we do. After all, we’ve read the books, watched the movies, and consumed enough romance content to fill entire libraries. We’ve built a collective idea of love, a shared mythos, but how much of that is real? If we’re honest, hasn’t the overconsumption of this idealized version of love distorted our understanding of it?

Take the constant projection and idealization, for example.

It’s almost automatic—whenever we meet someone even remotely attractive, our minds start weaving intricate fantasies. Suddenly, they’re not just a person; they’re the one. The chosen one. The once-in-a-lifetime love that will give our existence meaning.

In these mental scenarios, we often cast ourselves as the quirky, mysterious character—the one who will change their life forever. We picture ourselves as the free spirit, the deeply complex soul with a chaotic backstory. We’re the one they’ll never forget, the one they’ll think about with a wistful smile decades from now.

And why do we cling to this fantasy? Because we’ve been taught that she—the manic pixie dream girl, the enigmatic heroine—is lovable. Desirable. Worthy. She’s the kind of person people adore, not despite her flaws but because of them. She’s everything we’re not, and yet, in our minds, she becomes the version of ourselves we hope to be—the version we think someone could truly love.

But here’s the truth we rarely admit: in those fantasies, we’re never loved for who we really are. We’re loved for being someone else.

We imagine being adored not as the person writing this, but as the carefully curated romantic interest in someone else’s story. And for so long, that’s where we’ve placed our worth—in someone else’s gaze, someone else’s validation.

But is that fair? To us? To them?

It’s not fair to project these grand, cinematic expectations onto people who never asked for them. They’re not characters in our personal rom-com. They’re real, flawed individuals with their own stories, and they don’t owe us the fulfillment of our fantasies.

And yet, we find ourselves pulling away the moment someone doesn’t align with our imaginary script. We expect so much—everything, really—from one person. We want them to be the one, but when they don’t meet that impossible standard, we feel disappointed. And they? They’re left confused, wondering what they did wrong, when the truth is, it’s not about them at all.

It’s about us and our obsession with the idea of love.

Because here’s the kicker: love, in reality, is rarely like the movies. It’s not grand declarations or sweeping gestures. It’s not fireworks and soul-shattering kisses in the rain. Real love is…normal.

And that’s the part that terrifies us.

We crave the thrill, the drama, the intensity of love as a concept. But love in its truest form? It’s absurd in its simplicity. It’s imperfect, sometimes boring, and often inconvenient. And for those of us who’ve been raised on stories of epic romance, that normalcy feels like a letdown.

But maybe that’s the point.

Maybe real love isn’t about someone else completing us or making our lives extraordinary. Maybe it’s about learning to exist outside of someone else’s gaze. To be whole on our own, flaws and all, and to embrace the messy, unromantic, real connections we share with others.

Because in the end, isn’t that what love truly is? Not perfection, not fantasy—but presence. Showing up. Seeing and being seen. No projections, no expectations—just two imperfect people, trying their best.

And maybe that’s enough.

-xoxo

[pandagobrr]

It just be like sometimes

[soul-doll2005]

Never Have Idols

It seems I gained a lot of lessons in regards of admiration/idealization this year, and that after all we truly do not know who this person may be behind the avatar

[floreci3r]

Si te has decepcionado de algunas personas, recuerda esto: fuiste tú quien decidió ponerlas en un pedestal, quien las hizo ver inequívocas y aparentemente perfectas. Te ganó el sentimiento, e ignoraste a la razón, idealizar a alguien y tenerle muchas expectativas, también es una manera de infringirnos daño a nosotros mismo. No busques culpables donde no los hay, la culpa es enteramente de nosotros mismos, por esperar mucho de personas que carecen de empatía, honestidad y de valores.

[argonautsoul]

Ashleigh Brilliant, 1977.

[int1macyyyy]

Anyone who has that lame ass opinion that “the struggle is beautiful” is honestly kind of fucked up. Like people can be sleeping in their car trying to just cling to survival and they would try to find some aspect of like OH LOOK THE DETERMINATION OMG and turn it into poverty porn type shit. Either way thanks capitalism for all the trash ass gifts, perfecto.

[liftingthesea]

I love little notebooks and their wonderous potential to be my secret cave

[idealization-vn]

Wake up y'all new character sheet just dropped for Felix heheheheheh

As I promised, the new and improved character sheet for Felix Henbane. See? I can be consistent.

The choker is canon now btw y'all thought I was kidding in the last posts, huh?

[mythologypaintings]

Mars Disarmed By Venus

Artist: Jacques Louis David (French, 1748-1825)

Date: 1824

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels

Description

Mars Being Disarmed by Venus is the last painting produced by the French artist Jacques-Louis David. He began it in 1822 (aged 73) during his exile in Brussels and completed it three years later, before dying in an accident in 1825. The work combines idealization with elements of realism. Specifically, David integrated the idealized forms of mythological painting with a realist attention to detail. This combination of two seemingly incompatible principles also plays an important role in the themes of the painting, most notably in its treatment of masculinity and femininity.

David sent the painting from Brussels for exhibition in Paris, where Romanticism was ascendant in the Salon. The painting initially received a muted response from critics, but over time its reputation has grown. It is now displayed in the main hall of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels.

[meladyguizado]

Vemos lo que queremos para sentirnos como mejor nos conviene; y ¿qué es la conveniencia si no aquella con antítesis naturaleza resultante de sus maneras subjetivas?

- Melady Guizado, El precio de la idealización (2024).

[astrosky33]

People always talk about how looking online at girls and wishing you were as pretty as them is draining and bad for you or whatever but idc what they say it’s so fun

I love obsessing over them and admiring them 😭 Is it my Venus in the 8th house idk?

I also have Pluto in the 7th house I guess it could be that

[anthropologistfromentropy]

Sometimes I worry that I come across as either pretentious or culturally appropriative, but swear I don't mean to and can't help it. I just automatically pick up speech patterns from everything I read and hear, and it's all mixed up in my brain.

I don't even notice I naturally use AAVE (picked up mainly from my mixed best friend, but also internet in general and music), academic language, literary language from early 20th century, and random Russian slang. And I don't have the spoons to constantly monitor my language.

Pretty sure it's an autism thing, maybe a form of echolalia? And also connected to NPD/BPD traits probably. Like lacking a stable identity and strong separation between self and another person. Automatically being like a puzzle, made of pieces of your favorite people and characters. Especially with someone I have idealized/hyperfixated on I automatically take up pieces of them as part of myself, sometimes changing a lot suddenly, and often not realizing it myself. And it's hard to remember what I used to be like before.

I'm not pretending to be someone/something I'm not. It really becomes my sincere identity, my interest. With a lot of things, it's impossible to know whether I would have identified as or been interested in something even if my favorite person didn't. Usually, probably yes, though possibly much less intensively.

With some speech patterns like AAVE, foreign or very outdated expressions the external influence is much more obvious. And most unusual ways of speaking (and unusual interests too) are most likely to be stigmatized. It doesn’t help that some people use AAVE or more academic/literary language disrespectfully, or condescendingly. So I’m worried people will react negatively, think I'm an asshole :(

[deeperheights]

I just dreamt about my FP… again. He acted as if I didn’t exist. I don’t know if those are the worst dreams, or the dreams where he loves me like I love him, because no matter what, when I wake up reality glares at me and the abandonment pierces through my heart again.

/He said, ”Don’t trust your eyes

They always lie, they always lie

Only trust what you feel”

But I feel you in my dreams

And you’re next to me and you’re never real/

(From It’s Never Enough by we are the dirt)