Why do I fall for the idea of someone?
A few conversations are enough. You already imagine their laugh, their reading habits, and how you would spend a Sunday together. None of these details were shared. When the actual person eventually emerges, they often differ from this image, leaving you to wonder what you actually loved.
A branch in the salt mines
Stendhal examined this mechanism in 1822. In On Love, he uses an example from salt mines near Salzburg: a bare winter branch is lowered into an abandoned shaft. After a few months, it is retrieved covered in crystals so thick that “it is impossible to recognise the original branch”.
He named this mental process:
“I call crystallization the operation of the mind which, from everything which is presented to it, draws the conclusion that there are new perfections in the object of its love.”
— Stendhal, On Love, chapter II, translated by Philip Sidney Woolf and Cecil N. Sidney Woolf
The crystals are real
In this analogy, nothing is a fake. The crystals exist and the branch is beautiful; the problem is that the branch is no longer visible.
Falling for an image does not necessarily mean being wrong about another person. The image is constructed from your own materials. Every added perfection reveals something you have been waiting for or something you lack. The image serves as a note written to yourself.
Before the person is seen
This is different from love that fades into habit over time (that is covered here), because in crystallization, the feeling expands before the person has truly been seen.
What did I add, and what does it want?
Epimelea is an app built around the existential school. The conversation carries over from one meeting to the next. The archive is encrypted on the device and belongs to the person who wrote it.
About the app: an AI therapist for long-term therapy
This page is about a school of psychotherapy. It is not medical advice and not emergency help. If you are in danger right now, contact your local emergency number, or find a helpline in your country at findahelpline.com.