People here might like to check out a new non-fiction book by Frank Tallis in the UK called 'The Incurable Romantic and Other Unsettling Revelations'. Tallis is a novelist and non-fiction writer, and a clinical psychologist. The review I've read this morning of his new book says this: '[T]he book starts with the story of a middle-aged married British woman, Megan, who oddly and unreasonably falls deeply in love with her dentist, a professional she hardly knows - and, worse, a man who has had his fingers deep in her mouth.'
Reminds me of the old film THE CITADEL in which a doctor (Robert Donat) in a Welsh village falls in love with the local schoolteacher (Rosalind Russell) after he has used a tongue-depressor on her and made her gag! She reciprocates his love and they get married!
But back to Megan in Tallis's book. She is suffering from what is called de Cleramboult's syndrome, popularly called 'erotomania'. (Google it!) She exhibits all the symptoms: she repeatedly telephones the object of her affections; she hangs around outside his home (although he's married, with children); she creates a small shrine to him in her bedroom. And not only does she love him, but she says she knows he loves her back! The dentist and his family eventually move to India, apparently to get away from her! But Megan's syndrome persists. She has a husband of her own, whom she says she still loves, but she continues to adore the dentist! So far as Tallis knows, she is never cured.
Hmm. The review notes that the famous writer Ian McEwan (who contributes a Foreword to Tallis's book) once wrote a novel called 'Enduring Love' (1998 ) about such a love as Megan's, but with homoerotic and religious overtones. The obsessive lover there ends up in an asylum!
Don't let this post give you ideas!
- Ken