What Does It Mean To Idealize?

Idealizing means exaggerating the virtues of another person, diminishing our qualities to see reflected in others the value of “perfection”. A person who idealizes another, in fact, often feels inferior and believes that he is facing someone who is unreachable.

Idealization in the couple

The habit of idealizing is very common among people who have low self-esteem. If we feel we are worthless, it is easy to positively exaggerate the merits of others. We could say that our mind makes an argument like this: “If I’m not worth much, I’ll easily fall in love with someone who has what I don’t have”.

However, idealization can take place in different areas: in the couple, among friends, in the family, etc. Those who idealize the partner, very often fall into emotional dependence , because being able to get the attention of someone who believed unattainable clouds the ideas, causing you to turn into someone else’s slaves.

Being next to someone who, initially, seemed impossible to reach, causes some people to dedicate themselves to their partner at 200%. Their priority becomes the happiness of the other, fulfill every desire of the partner, etc. In these cases there is a total loss of individuality and one turns into an incomplete being who needs a partner to be happy.

The period of idealization

People who idealize go beyond reality and give others untrue qualities. This means that if they manage to get a more intimate relationship with the person they had idealized, little by little the slices of salami they had on their eyes will fall off and they will begin to understand that no human being is perfect .

It may be that someone they loved so much and thought wonderful, one fine day they stop liking them, because they will start to see how things really are. And this is a big risk, because it can cause severe disappointment.

Whoever idealizes creates a fantasy in his own mind in which he attributes to another characteristics that do not correspond to him. Imagination creates an ideal character, which corresponds to the person they would like so much to meet. When the truth begins to come out and the flaws surface, these people will have to put their feet back on the ground and the dream will collapse like a house of cards.

This is one of the main reasons why many love stories end. There are people who claim that the partner has disappointed them, that he has proved to be a different person than he seemed, but this is not always true, sometimes it was they who had idealized him.

They did not see reality because in their minds they had built a perfect person and only later, knowing her better, they were able to see what it really was. As we get to know a person better, dreaming becomes more difficult.

We have all idealized someone

Surely you too have happened to idealize someone, everyone does. For example when we were younger and we liked a singer, an actor, a footballer so much and we dreamed of a romantic encounter like in the movies.

When we admire a character, we think that he is always as we see him, in all areas of his life. But the truth is that, no matter how famous or particularly good a person is in some context, there are always other sides of the coin, which may not be so positive.

We tend to regard many show business characters as gods, especially when we are young. But not only that: many people continue to idealize others even in adulthood, due to low self-esteem. They see someone who, in that precise circumstance, seems perfect, and they immediately believe that he will also be a good person, nice, pleasant, mature, whole, sociable, with strong values, etc. But the truth is, we don’t know anything about others until we know them better.

How to avoid falling into idealization?

We must consider that we are all human and imperfect, and above all that each of us has strengths and weaknesses. The difference is that some people are able to emphasize their qualities more and value themselves more .

The people you admire and believe they are better than you are actually not: the only thing they do is be able to stand out in that moment, but if you could see them in other situations, you would surely find that they have flaws like all of them, and you would take them off the pedestal.

There are people who stand out particularly in a given context, but they too, like all mere mortals, wake up in the morning with disheveled hair, go to the bathroom, have moments in which they are in a bad mood … They will have made mistakes like everyone else, and they certainly also have secrets that no one needs to know, in order not to ruin their image.

These people also get sick, and sometimes they look bad. They will have done inappropriate things in their lifetime . In fact, we all have different sides, which we show in different contexts. There are moments of the day that we dedicate to being serious and responsible, others to being more natural and human, some in which we dress up and others in which we are in pajamas, slippers and disheveled.

When we idealize someone and put them on a pedestal, it’s because we don’t take into account their human and imperfect side.

You will probably always see that person at times of the day when they show their best side, but if you lived with him or her 24 hours a day, for sure you would fall for a myth.

After all, we are rational animals: we try to convey our best image, to project the best of us outside, but the truth is that behind what we want to show there is always the human and imperfect side that we all have inside us. .

Image courtesy of Paulina Kozlowska and Bruno Vanzieleghem.