The Diary

Alexithymia

ay-lex-ih-THIGH-mee-uh

Difficulty identifying and describing your own feelings.

Established psychological concept

Amae

ah-mah-EH

The wish to depend on another's goodwill, and the licence to presume upon it.

Cultural concept

Ambiguous loss

Grief for someone who is gone but not gone — missing, estranged, or changed beyond recognition.

Established psychological concept

Amor fati

AH-mor FAH-tee

Loving your fate, including the parts you would not have chosen.

Literary term

Anticipatory grief

Mourning something before it has finished happening.

Established psychological concept

Archive Fondness

Warmth toward an ex that survives only because you no longer have to live with them.

The Human Diary editorial term

Basorexia

bay-suh-REK-see-uh

The overwhelming desire to kiss someone.

Informal expression

Breadcrumbing

Offering just enough attention to keep someone waiting.

Internet or community term

Cafuné

kah-foo-NEH

The act of tenderly running your fingers through someone's hair.

Established linguistic term

Compersion

Joy at a partner's happiness with someone else.

Internet or community term

Coup de foudre

koo duh FOOD-ruh

Love at first sight — literally a lightning strike.

Established linguistic term

Delulu

Deliberately believing an unlikely romantic outcome, half as a joke and half not.

Internet or community term

Disenfranchised grief

Sorrow that others do not consider you entitled to feel.

Established psychological concept

Doorway Grief

Missing someone most in the specific place you used to greet them.

The Human Diary editorial term

Dor

DOR

A heavy, tender longing for someone absent.

Established linguistic term

Emotional labour

The work of managing your feelings because a role requires it.

Established psychological concept

Esprit de l'escalier

es-PREE duh les-kal-YAY

The perfect reply that arrives only once you have left.

Established linguistic term

Fernweh

FERN-vay

Aching for distant places you have never seen — the opposite of homesickness.

Established linguistic term

Firgun

FEER-goon

Ungrudging delight in someone else's good fortune.

Established linguistic term

Forelsket

for-EL-sket

The euphoria of beginning to fall in love.

Established linguistic term

Frisson

free-SOHN

A sudden passing shiver of emotion — the body reporting a fact the mind has not yet approved.

Established psychological concept

Ghosting

Ending a relationship by simply ceasing to reply.

Internet or community term

Gigil

GHEE-gil

The overwhelming urge to squeeze something unbearably dear to you.

Established linguistic term

Han

HAHN

A collective sorrow carried across generations, mixed with endurance.

Established linguistic term

Hasrat

HUS-rut

A longing that will not be fulfilled, and is carried anyway.

Established linguistic term

Hiraeth

HEER-ithe

Homesickness for a place you cannot return to, or that never quite existed.

Established linguistic term

Hygge

HOO-guh

Warmth, ease and companionship deliberately made.

Established linguistic term

Iktsuarpok

eek-tsoo-AR-pok

The restless anticipation that sends you outside again and again to see whether someone is coming.

Established linguistic term

Inherited Flinch

Reacting to a present partner as though they were a past one.

The Human Diary editorial term

Ishq

ISHK

Consuming love, of a kind that reorganises the person feeling it.

Established linguistic term

Jeong

JUNG

The slow, binding affection that accumulates between people over years.

Established linguistic term

Kilig

KEE-lig

The giddy, fluttering thrill of romantic excitement.

Established linguistic term

Koi No Yokan

koy no yo-KAHN

The sense on first meeting someone that falling in love with them is inevitable.

Cultural concept

Kummerspeck

KOOM-er-shpek

Weight gained from emotional eating.

Established linguistic term

Limerence

LIM-er-uhnss

Involuntary, obsessive infatuation; the state of being colonised by a person who may not know it.

Established psychological concept

Litost

LEE-tost

The anguish of suddenly seeing your own wretchedness, and the urge to lash out.

Established linguistic term

Love bombing

Overwhelming affection early on, used to establish control.

Internet or community term

Mamihlapinatapai

mah-mee-lah-pin-yah-tah-PIE

A look shared by two people, each wishing the other would begin what both desire and neither will start.

Established linguistic term

Mere exposure effect

Coming to prefer something simply because you have encountered it repeatedly.

Established psychological concept

Mono no aware

MOH-no no ah-WAH-reh

The tender sadness of knowing that everything passes.

Cultural concept

Mudita

moo-DEE-tah

Joy taken in the happiness of others.

Established linguistic term

Myötähäpeä

MYEU-tah-hah-peh-ah

Second-hand shame — cringing on someone else's behalf.

Established linguistic term

Natsukashii

not-soo-KAH-shee

The warm gratitude of being unexpectedly returned to the past.

Established linguistic term

Naz

NAAZ

The pride and ease of one who knows they are loved unconditionally — and the sweet demands they make because of it.

Established linguistic term

Nunchi

NOON-chee

The art of reading a room and the unspoken feeling in it.

Established linguistic term

Orbiting

Leaving someone's life but staying in their notifications.

Internet or community term

Parasocial attachment

A one-sided bond with someone who does not know you exist.

Established psychological concept

Permission Hunger

Waiting to be told you are allowed to want what you already want.

The Human Diary editorial term

Proximity Blindness

Failing to see someone clearly because they have always been there.

The Human Diary editorial term

Razbliuto

raz-blee-OO-toh

The feeling for someone you once loved and no longer do — the memory of the emotion, without the emotion.

Informal expression

Retrouvailles

ruh-troo-VAI

The joy of reunion after long separation.

Established linguistic term

Reverse Nostalgia

Missing a present moment while you are still inside it.

The Human Diary editorial term

Rumination

Thought that circles a hurt without moving it.

Established psychological concept

Saudade

sow-DAH-juh

The presence of an absence; longing carried almost with affection.

Established linguistic term

Schadenfreude

SHAH-den-froy-duh

Pleasure taken in another's misfortune.

Established linguistic term

Sehnsucht

ZEEN-zookht

An intense, unnameable yearning for something beyond ordinary life.

Established linguistic term

Sisu

SEE-soo

Grim, unreasonable persistence past the point where hope is rational.

Established linguistic term

Situationship

A relationship with all the feeling and none of the definition.

Internet or community term

Sobremesa

so-breh-MEH-sah

The talk that keeps everyone at the table long after the meal has ended.

Established linguistic term

Spotlight effect

Overestimating how much anyone else noticed.

Established psychological concept

Sukoon

su-KOON

The particular peace of a settled heart.

Established linguistic term

Symmetry Anxiety

Constantly measuring whether you care more than the other person does.

The Human Diary editorial term

Tampo

TAM-po

Withdrawing affection to signal hurt, while wanting to be coaxed back.

Established linguistic term

The Comfortable Ceiling

Staying in something good enough because good enough is genuinely good.

The Human Diary editorial term

The Courtesy Gap

The moment politeness replaces intimacy, and both people notice and say nothing.

The Human Diary editorial term

The Held Question

A thing you have wanted to ask for years and have decided you never will.

The Human Diary editorial term

The Kind Lie

A falsehood told to spare someone, which quietly costs the teller more.

The Human Diary editorial term

The Last Normal Day

An ordinary day that only becomes significant once you know what followed.

The Human Diary editorial term

The Merciful Ending

A relief at the end of something you had defended for years.

The Human Diary editorial term

The Small Betrayal

A minor disloyalty that reveals more than a large one would have.

The Human Diary editorial term

The Unsent Draft

A message written in full, reread, and never sent — which changes you anyway.

The Human Diary editorial term

Threshold Loneliness

Being lonelier in company than you were alone.

The Human Diary editorial term

Torschlusspanik

TOR-shloos-pah-nik

The rising panic that time is closing and the important doors with it.

Established linguistic term

Toska

tahs-KAH

A great spiritual anguish, often with no identifiable cause.

Established linguistic term

Touch starvation

The physiological cost of going without affectionate contact.

Established psychological concept

Ubuntu

oo-BOON-too

I am because we are — personhood constituted through others.

Cultural concept

Uitwaaien

OUT-vah-yen

Walking into the wind on purpose, to clear your head.

Established linguistic term

Viraha

vi-RUH-huh

The love that only becomes fully known through separation.

Established linguistic term

Voorpret

VOR-pret

The pleasure taken in anticipating something before it happens.

Established linguistic term

Wabi-sabi

WAH-bee SAH-bee

Finding beauty in what is imperfect, weathered and incomplete.

Cultural concept

Weltschmerz

VELT-shmerts

The weariness that comes from comparing the world as it is to the world as it should be.

Established linguistic term

Ya'aburnee

yah-ah-BOOR-nee

The wish to die before someone else, because living without them is unimaginable.

Cultural concept

Zeigarnik effect

Why unfinished things occupy the mind more than finished ones.

Established psychological concept

Abhimaan

uh-bhee-MAAN

Wounded pride toward someone you love, expressed as withdrawal.

Established linguistic term

Anagnorisis

an-ag-NOR-ih-sis

The moment a character sees what was true all along.

Literary term

Anhedonia

an-huh-DOH-nee-uh

The loss of pleasure in things that once gave it.

Established psychological concept

Anticipated Absence

Grieving a person who is still in the room, because you know they are leaving.

The Human Diary editorial term

Anticipatory Embarrassment

Cringing in advance at a thing you have not yet done and probably will not.

The Human Diary editorial term

Approach-avoidance conflict

Wanting and dreading the same thing at once.

Established psychological concept

Assembled Longing

Missing a composite person built from several real ones.

The Human Diary editorial term

Attachment injury

A specific moment of abandonment that becomes the fault line in a relationship.

Established psychological concept

Benjamin Franklin effect

Coming to like someone more after doing them a favour.

Established psychological concept

Borrowed Certainty

Feeling sure about a relationship only while the other person is sure.

The Human Diary editorial term

Borrowed Grief

Mourning intensely for someone you barely knew, on behalf of someone who cannot.

The Human Diary editorial term

Catharsis

kuh-THAR-sis

Relief obtained by feeling something all the way through.

Literary term

Cellar door

The idea that some phrases are beautiful purely as sound, regardless of meaning.

Informal expression

Consolation Envy

Resenting how well someone is coping without you.

The Human Diary editorial term

Convenient Distance

Preferring a person unavailable, because availability would require courage.

The Human Diary editorial term

Curiosity Debt

Realising you never asked someone the questions that mattered.

The Human Diary editorial term

Delayed Attraction

Wanting someone only once they have stopped wanting you.

The Human Diary editorial term

Duende

DWEN-deh

The dark, raw magnetism that overtakes a performer and everyone watching.

Established linguistic term

Dépaysement

day-pay-EEZ-mon

The disorientation of being somewhere you do not belong.

Established linguistic term

Emotional contagion

Catching a mood from the person beside you without either of you noticing.

Established psychological concept

Ennui

on-WEE

Weariness produced by having nothing that matters to want.

Established linguistic term

Familiarity Panic

Fright at being genuinely known, arriving exactly when things go well.

The Human Diary editorial term

Gezelligheid

kheh-ZEL-likh-hite

The particular warmth of good company in a comfortable room.

Established linguistic term

Gratitude Guilt

Feeling you have no right to be unhappy, and being unhappy about that.

The Human Diary editorial term

Gökotta

yeu-KOT-ah

Rising at dawn to go out and hear the first birds.

Established linguistic term

Hedonic adaptation

The way happiness returns to baseline, however good the news was.

Established psychological concept

Intermittent reinforcement

Why unpredictable affection binds harder than reliable affection.

Established psychological concept

Intezaar

in-teh-ZAAR

Waiting for someone, held as a state of being rather than an event.

Established linguistic term

Jouissance

zhwee-SONSS

Pleasure taken past the point of comfort, into something else.

Literary term

Karuna

KAH-roo-nah

Compassion that moves you to act.

Established linguistic term

Kaukokaipuu

KOW-ko-kigh-poo

Longing for a distant place you have never been.

Established linguistic term

Koselig

KOOSH-lee

A cosiness that is as much social as physical.

Established linguistic term

L'appel du vide

lah-PEL doo VEED

The strange pull toward the edge, and the urge to step off it.

Established linguistic term

La petite mort

lah puh-TEET MOR

The small death — the brief undoing that follows release.

Literary term

Lagom

LAH-gom

Not too little, not too much — exactly enough.

Established linguistic term

Loud Silence

A pause in conversation that both people are actively filling with thought.

The Human Diary editorial term

Memento mori

meh-MEN-toh MOR-ee

A reminder of death, kept close on purpose.

Literary term

Meraki

meh-RAH-kee

Leaving something of yourself in what you make.

Established linguistic term

Misattribution of arousal

Mistaking the body's alarm for attraction, because both feel the same from inside.

Established psychological concept

Mångata

MOHN-gah-tah

The road-like reflection the moon makes across water.

Established linguistic term

New relationship energy

The specific chemical brightness of the first months.

Internet or community term

Pathetic fallacy

Weather that agrees with you, because the writer arranged it.

Literary term

Philotimo

fee-LO-tee-mo

The duty to act honourably toward one's people, felt as love rather than obligation.

Cultural concept

Practised Casualness

Enormous effort spent appearing not to have made any.

The Human Diary editorial term

Rationed Attention

Deliberately replying slowly to seem less interested than you are.

The Human Diary editorial term

Rehearsal Ache

Exhaustion from a conversation you have had forty times, always alone.

The Human Diary editorial term

Repetition compulsion

The pull to re-enact an old wound in a new relationship.

Established psychological concept

Reputation Fatigue

Exhaustion from maintaining a version of yourself others have grown attached to.

The Human Diary editorial term

Self-expansion

The way falling in love enlarges your sense of who you could be.

Established psychological concept

Sexorcism

Sleeping with someone new in order to get over someone old.

Informal expression

Soft launch

Revealing a relationship publicly, but only by implication.

Internet or community term

Sprezzatura

spret-sah-TOO-rah

Making the difficult look effortless, and hiding the effort on purpose.

Cultural concept

Sringara

SHRIN-gaa-ra

The erotic mood — the first and most celebrated of the classical rasas.

Literary term

Sudden Strangeness

Looking at a familiar face and briefly seeing an unfamiliar one.

The Human Diary editorial term

Sympathetic Restlessness

Being unable to settle because someone you love is unsettled.

The Human Diary editorial term

Tanhai

tun-HAA-ee

Solitude experienced as an ache rather than as peace.

Established linguistic term

Tarab

TA-rab

The ecstatic state music can produce in listener and performer alike.

Established linguistic term

The Almost Confession

Beginning to say the true thing, then converting it into a joke.

The Human Diary editorial term

The Empty Ritual

A shared habit continued after the feeling behind it has gone.

The Human Diary editorial term

The Half-Invitation

An offer phrased so it can be withdrawn without either party losing face.

The Human Diary editorial term

The Overcorrection

Becoming the opposite of a former self, and finding it fits no better.

The Human Diary editorial term

The Preferred Version

Being loved for a self you performed early and now cannot retire.

The Human Diary editorial term

The Return Fantasy

A detailed imagined reunion, revised so often it replaces the actual person.

The Human Diary editorial term

The Second Read

Rereading a message you have already understood, looking for a feeling that was never in the words.

The Human Diary editorial term

The Softened Memory

A recollection that has been revisited so often it is now mostly your own edits.

The Human Diary editorial term

The Unclaimed Compliment

Praise you deflected and then thought about for a decade.

The Human Diary editorial term

Threshold Courage

Bravery that arrives only after the moment requiring it has passed.

The Human Diary editorial term

Ubi sunt

OO-bee SOONT

The elegiac question: where are they now, all the ones who were here?

Literary term

Vergüenza ajena

ver-GWEN-sah ah-HEH-nah

Embarrassment felt on someone else's behalf.

Established linguistic term

Vicarious Hope

Wanting something for someone else more than they want it themselves.

The Human Diary editorial term

Weather Reading

Constantly monitoring another person's mood as though it were your responsibility.

The Human Diary editorial term

Yakamoz

YAH-kah-moz

The reflection of moonlight on water.

Established linguistic term

Yūgen

YOO-gen

A profound awareness of the universe that produces feelings too deep for words.

Cultural concept