We call passion what is often attributed self-enchantment; the person just illuminates an emotional place that was alive, just not accessible
There is an enchantment that precedes the . A small dose of self-esteem appears, attention sharpens, the body reacts, energy changes. Neuroscience explains this movement as an increase in dopamine in areas connected to expectation and reward. The other becomes a trigger for a power that was within us, but dormant.
This glow rekindles internal aspects that everyday life has erased. The new routine has vitality. And this is where a common misconception lives. We call passion what is often attributed self-enchantment. The person just illuminates an emotional place that was alive, just not accessible.
This is where the phenomenon intersects with a discreet nuance of everyday narcissism. Not that clinical narcissism, but the human trait of being enchanted by one’s own emotional reflection. We don’t fall in love with each other. We fell in love with the version that emerges when someone lights up what was hidden. In other words: we confuse real passion with projected passion.
Reality comes from curiosity for others. There is interest, presence, a desire to know what exists beyond the surface. The projected passion is born from curiosity about who I become in the encounter. It is the search for one’s own reflection and not for the other person. One calms down. The other accelerates. One approaches. The other idealizes.
Studies of and Virginia show that uncertainty increases affective involvement because the brain registers the unpredictable as more valuable. Doubt becomes fuel. Therefore, difficult, prohibited or unlikely situations produce a feeling of greater emotional depth than reality supports. Intensity does not prove bonding, it is chemical activation.
In the office, many patients say they look for someone calm, someone with low emotional risk who acts as a safe haven. The figure that awakens a stable version to sustain every day. But this is just the beginning of the story. After a while we will lose each other and find ourselves again. Compatibility drops
because there is no absolute synchrony. Everyone evolves in their own time. The difficulty is in finding the connection path again. But do we need someone who acts as a mirror to reconnect us with parts that we let fall asleep? Or can we simply accept that there are parts of the other that we can accept and live with?
With the second season just released on , the series Nobody Wants portrays the question that permeates so many relationships: how do two very different people manage to create and recreate compatibility over time? The series follows Joanne (Kristen Bell), a podcaster who talks openly about sex who falls in love with Rabbi Noah (Adam Brody). An inevitable clash of lifestyles, beliefs, family values and the delicate task of falling in love again while recognizing the weight of differences. The plot shows the continuous effort to transform disagreements into common language and how connection only becomes possible when both are willing to see each other and be flexible.
Research from UCLA shows that when we are seen, we activate brain areas associated with social reward and belonging. When someone recognizes us, the body registers it as a bond. But being read is not always being loved. And the “hunger” to be noticed can transform any gesture into a promise. But this is not reciprocity.
In the end, enchantment is not about who arrives. It’s about what awakens. Provocation is inevitable. Have you ever stopped to think if the intensity you attribute to others has always been yours? If you really miss the other person or who you are when you’re around that person? Courage begins when we understand that this version remains available, even when the other person leaves.
*This text does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Jovem Pan.
