The Afterimage Problem

Sometimes you only spend a couple of hours with someone, but think about them ten times as much afterward. More than work. More than the person you actually share a life with. More than anything that should reasonably matter.

And no, it isn’t love. Which makes it worse, because then you have to ask: what the hell is wrong with me?

Turns out, nothing’s wrong. This is what the brain does when it encounters scarcity. It obsesses most over what it can’t have, can’t reach, can’t finish. The absence gets louder than the presence.

The steady and familiar feels safe. The rare and unpredictable feels like a slot machine you only get to pull once in a while. Guess which one the dopamine system lights up for. Spoiler: not the safe one.

There may be no social plans, no deep connection, no future in it at all—yet the mind fills the gaps with noise.

Sometimes you don’t miss the person—you miss the afterimage. The way they linger in your head like a flashbulb even after they’ve walked out of the room.

It happens with different people but the pattern stays the same. The unavailable one always takes up more space than the present one. It’s not betrayal, it’s biology. Scarcity makes people stick.

So maybe the work isn’t to kill the afterimage, but to recognize it for what it is: residue, not desire. An echo, not a signal.

You don’t miss them. You miss the way they haunted you. There’s a difference. 💙