the.com/idolization

Loving someone so much you replace them with a fictional, flawless upgrade.

means The act of worshiping someone so intensely that you stop seeing them and start seeing a perfected myth of them instead.

from Traces back through Latin 'idolum' and Greek 'eidōlon' — an image, phantom, or likeness, from 'eidos' meaning 'form' or 'that which is seen.' The Greeks used it for insubstantial images — reflections, ghosts, mental phantoms, not solid things. 'Idol' entered the religious vocabulary for a false god, a carved image mistaken for the real divine. 'Idolization' just stretches that old warning into romance and fandom: you're not loving a person anymore, you're bowing to a statue you carved yourself.

not admiration
admiration sees flaws, idolization edits them out
sets up
the fall always matches the height
common target
parents, exes, and dead celebrities
self clue
often about filling a gap in yourself
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