Infatuation

As young people recognize the limitations of their idealization of their parents, they project their own ego ideals onto others in their environment. These heroic figures are not substitutes for parents but rather are role models for what the young hope to become. In such infatuations, the young people fall in love with those whose lives they hope to emulate and whose paths they would wish to follow. The object is identification alone, rather than any form of union. The object of such infatuation is not necessarily someone known personally. Media stars may serve this purpose. Where a group shares the same infatuation, the group bonding may be emotionally as important as the bond with the focal personage. In the normal course of development, the yearning associated with such idealization is transformed from wishing to be like to wishing to be with, although many remain fixated at the earlier phase. Although crushes are particularly common in adolescence, they are experienced throughout life as imaginative rehearsals of experiences for which individuals are not quite ready. Indeed the opening phase of any love affair always bears a resemblance to such infatuations.