Fatuous Love

Passion and commitment are both high while intimacy hasn't caught up: promises have been made on the strength of a feeling, before the slow work of actually knowing each other was done. Sternberg's word for it is unkind on purpose — this is the whirlwind courtship, the six-week engagement, the shape that looks the most like certainty from inside it. What's genuinely strong here is nerve: you committed without waiting for guarantees, and some of the best bonds anywhere started exactly this way. The risk is specific and worth naming — passion habituates on its own schedule, and when it does, intimacy is what's supposed to be underneath. Building it is the whole assignment.