CRISIS CHEMISTRY IS NOT LOVE

How we confuse emotional rescue for intimacy, and why steady love feels unfamiliar

- Somi Das

We grow up on the mythology of romantic merging, the idea that great love is built on being understood completely. A partner who can enter your inner world, hold your chaos, absorb your storms and soothe your wounds without hesitation. It is a seductive fantasy because it promises emotional rescue dressed up as intimacy.

But here is the truth we avoid naming: The people who make themselves endlessly available to your chaos are not always the people you should build your life with.

Many of us, especially those raised in volatile or inconsistent homes, are drawn to a certain type of partner. The emotional first responder. The one who can handle your spirals and panic, who listens without limits, comforts without boundaries and never asks you to take responsibility for your own regulation.

Their presence feels familiar. It echoes the emotional patterns you grew up navigating: intensity, urgency, rawness, depth without direction. They absorb you entirely. For a while, it feels like safety. It feels like finally being seen.

But it is not love. It is emotional enmeshment.