the field guide · a book in progress
everything i think about,
in chapters.
the channel, organised into a book. each chapter has the research under it and the videos, books and podcasts beside it. start anywhere — it loops back.
part I
the seven kinds of attraction
the core of the whole thing. seven, and you have names for three.
- 01 sexual wanting sexual contact. one of seven, not the main event.
- 02 romantic wanting to build a life with someone.
- 03 aesthetic you find them beautiful and you want to do nothing about it.
- 04 sensual wanting to be held with no interest in where it leads.
- 05 intellectual you want their mind, not their life.
- 06 platonic the friend crush. everyone has them. nobody names them.
- 07 alterous closer than a friend, not a crush, no word for it until now.
part II
asexuality
the vantage point the rest of the book is written from.
part III
love & its counterfeits
the feelings that look exactly like love and are not love.
- 09 is it love, or limerence? there is a specific kind of wanting that feels exactly like love and isn’t. it has a name, a timeline, and a tell — the feeling gets stronger when they pull away. this chapter is how to run the test.
- 10 your type is not your type the pattern in who you fall for is usually older than the people you fall for. attachment, and the wound doing the choosing.
- 11 why we should fall in love slowly against the vertigo. what it means to let closeness accumulate instead of detonating it.
part IV
friendship & loneliness
the attraction with no cultural script, and what its absence costs.
- 12 the friend crush & the 200 hours friendship has butterflies too, and a number attached: about 200 hours to a close friend. the science, and permission to act on it.
- 13 how lonely adulthood actually is why the friends stop happening after university, and why that’s structural, not a flaw in you.
- 14 platonic life partners are the future your person doesn’t have to be your romantic partner. the case for the relationship our hierarchy has no slot for.
part V
attraction & the self
the part of attraction that turns out to be about you.
more chapters landing as i write them.