Why are we drawn to demon lovers?

“To think that I’ve wasted years of my life, that I’ve longed for death, that the greatest love of my life has been for a woman who didn’t appeal to me and who wasn’t even my type!”

Have you, like Proust, the French novelist, pondered whether a relationship – present or past – was worth the pain? The growing mobility and flexibility of modern relationships increase our chances of encountering enigmatic partners or demon lovers, who stir our raw passions, kindle insecurities, and disrupt our lives.

Modern relationships are undergoing unprecedented churning with individuals moving in and out of marriages and other partnerships with remarkable speed. This is evident through: soaring divorce rates, increase in breakups, remarriages, cohabitation, and relationships of shorter duration. In cities like Bengaluru, Delhi, and Mumbai, young adults are challenging traditional norms through online dating or alternative living arrangements. Cohabitation in the US will leap from just under 10%, the Penn Wharton Budget Model forecasts, to over 16% by 2040 – reflecting a broader shift in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, towards a more fluid understanding of love.

But in an age dominated by algorithmic compatibility, certainty, and the convenience of swipe-right culture, the idea of love that is irrational, wild, and perhaps destined to fail can seem outdated or even toxic. And this is precisely where the power of love lies – within its very chaos.

Drawing from the Greek word daimon, a demon lover embodies both the divine and the chaotic. Research estimates that 50-60% of us will experience limerence where a lover swoops into our lives awakening our most profound desires and tapping into our yearning to escape the mundane.

Let’s turn to literature. In In Search of Lost Time, Proust’s love for Albertine transforms into a consuming obsession – not for who she is but for who he wishes her to be. “The truth is that I never loved Albertine as she was,” Proust declares, “I loved her in the blind hope that I might one day know her.” This is not mere infatuation; it is a passionate pursuit of imagination, a testament to the complexity of desire and the human condition of limerence, an obsession clamouring for reciprocity.

Consider the saint Bilvamangala, a devout man whose love for the prostitute Chintamani prompts him to defy societal norms and risk it all. On a stormy night, he braves treacherous floods by clinging to a floating corpse in the river mistaking it for a log and later, a snake for a rope in his perilous journey of ardour. Although he is rebuffed by Chintamani, the rejection leads him to a spiritual awakening.

Proust and Bilvamangala underscore an essential truth: we become enamoured with the ideals we project onto our partners. If one threw a branch in Salzburg’s salt mines, it would emerge covered with crystals, says the writer Stendhal, similarly our desires for perfection distort our loved ones like a scintillating diamond endowing them with exceptionality. But when reality collides with impossible expectations, love morphs into disillusionment (“you’re everything I wanted” to “you’ve betrayed me”) and ghosting.

Yet, isn’t there something intoxicating about these demon lovers? They serve as catalysts, disrupting the ordinariness of our lives insisting we confront our raw truths. Our lover may not be, like Emily Brontë’s Heathcliff – handsome, self-assured, or skilled, but their magnetism illuminates our emotional labyrinth and uncovers our raw passions, insecurities, self-parts buried under the weight of routine and duty, and suppressed yearnings. These thrilling encounters are not just about escapism; transformative chaos can be integral to our emotional growth.

It can be challenging to see people the way they are for several reasons – but the illusions people create about their loved ones ultimately shape their experience of love perhaps, more than a person ever could. Delusions can get out of hand: Perceiving rejection from Catherine, Heathcliff is overwhelmed by a vengeance so desperate that he digs up her grave, projects his pain onto the children, and self-destructs. If someone is unable to view their partner’s strengths and flaws in a nuanced way, any perceived failure in love may lead to their devaluation and destruction of the self or other. Children can also be collateral damage.

Demon lovers are not just disruptors; they can be catalysts for profound transformation. Although they may appear to break us, these experiences serve as essential rites of passage that reveal meaning and intensity in our journeys. By helping us understand the underlying dynamics of how we give and receive love, they help us navigate limerence, and lay the foundation to cultivate more stable and authentic connections.

So, was the pain worth it? That’s a question only you can answer, but it leads to other deeper inquiries: Would you embrace your demon lover, with all their complexities, today?