I was having a conversation this evening with a friend and she described an odd sensation that can occur, after she has gone away from home for a while (say, on a several month trip to another country). My friend said that sometimes there is a moment, when she first sees her lover after such an absence, in which things can seem a bit strange. She gives her partner a kiss, which is very pleasant, but somehow something seems not right. It’s as though this person she knows so well has become somehow vaguely unfamiliar.
She went on to say that this experience is extremely transitory. After a few moments, things tend to snap back into place, and the old feeling of familiarity returns. Yet she wonders at that moment of temporary weirdness.
I shared with her my theory: That she is seeing the difference between her lover and “her lover”. They seem to be one and the same, but they are not. The former is a flesh and blood person, whereas the latter is a concept in one’s head.
Since childhood, we each harbor some notion of romantic attachment. When we are ten years old, this might go no further than holding hands. Even then, the underlying emotions are all there, albeit in a nascent state. One day we meet someone, and these emotions become projected onto that individual. The person becomes our lover, and the traits of the real person become merged with the concept of “my lover” we’ve already been carrying around in our head.
After a long absence, our mental model of our lover can drift, perhaps just a little bit. We don’t have the actual person with us, so we fall back upon the idea of that person. Some part of our mind recalls not the individual, but the concept we’ve been carrying around with us since childhood.
This can lead to the odd moment or two. Fortunately, the sensation is fleeting, which makes sense. After all, the entire purpose of the lover we’ve carried within our heart since childhood is to prepare us for the real person — the unique individual who has won our heart.