Does Absence Actually Make the Heart Grow Fonder?

By Lark Devon · November 2, 2026

absence makes the heart grow fonder, long distance relationships, idealization, communication science, romance psychology

Written by Lark Devon, author of adult fantasy romance where the research shows. Published November 2, 2026.

Short answer: Absence can change how couples communicate, though the effect isn't a universal law of love. In a one-week diary study of young heterosexual dating couples, long-distance partners reported slightly greater interaction-level intimacy, more self-disclosure, and more idealized perceptions of some partner disclosures. The study did not prove that separation causes greater love or passion.

I spent three weeks in a coastal inn on the western edge of Ireland watching a fisherman's wife look out over the gray Atlantic every evening at dusk. Folk wisdom has repeated the old proverb for centuries: distance either tests love or ruins it.

In romance novels, separation is the ultimate emotional catalyst. Authors separate lovers across oceans, battlefields, or political exile, knowing that a single letter delivered across two hundred leagues can carry more emotional voltage than a dozen shared dinners.

When relationship scientists tested pieces of this proverb, they found a narrower result. A one-week diary study compared long-distance and geographically close dating couples, asking how their actual interactions felt. The pattern points toward communication and perception.

The Idealization Engine: How Distance Builds a Better Partner

In 2013, researchers Crystal Jiang and Jeffrey Hancock published a study in the Journal of Communication titled Absence Makes the Communication Grow Fonder. They collected a one-week diary from 63 heterosexual dating couples, most of them college students, comparing long-distance and geographically close relationships. The study measured interaction-level self-disclosure, perceived intimacy, responsiveness, and idealized perceptions of partner disclosure.

Long-distance participants reported slightly greater interaction-level intimacy, more self-disclosure, and more positive perceptions of their partners' disclosures. The comparison was observational, and the authors caution that a young, tech-savvy college sample limits generalization.

I call the pattern an "idealization engine," though that phrase is my shorthand rather than the study's name. Jiang and Hancock identified two behaviors that helped explain their result:

1. Self-Disclosure: Long-distance participants reported more self-disclosure during interactions. The study did not code whether people avoided bills, towels, or other mundane subjects, so the exact content of those conversations remains unknown.
2. Idealized Perceptions: Long-distance participants viewed their partners' disclosures more positively. That result concerns perceived partner disclosure in this sample.

Distance can make particular conversations feel more intimate and can encourage idealized perceptions. It doesn't erase daily friction or guarantee a stronger bond.

The Reunion Shock: When the Phantom Meets the Human

Idealized perceptions can meet new pressures when lovers finally reunite. The research points to several possible pressures.

In a 2006 reunion study, Laura Stafford, Melanie Merolla, and Daniel Castle examined long-distance dating partners who became geographically close. Of 335 undergraduates in the initial pool, 180 transitioned to proximity and 66 later terminated their relationships; roughly two-thirds of those terminations occurred within three months. The study was retrospective and observational, and the authors discuss autonomy, scheduling, conflict, jealousy, and newly visible information as possible pressures.

That pattern doesn't identify one cause. Reunion can bring the idealized image into contact with habits, moods, domestic routines, and expectations built during separation. The study's design cannot show that idealization alone caused the breakups.

Reunion changes the relationship's conditions, and some couples struggle with that transition. The available study supports caution about simple causal stories.

Wind and Fire: La Rochefoucauld's 1665 Maxim

More than three centuries before communication scholars ran surveys on long-distance couples, French moralist François de La Rochefoucauld captured the exact boundary conditions of absence in his 1665 Maximes:

"L'absence diminue les médiocres passions et augmente les grandes, comme le vent éteint les bougies et allume le feu."
("Absence diminishes mediocre passions and inflames great ones, as the wind blows out candles and fans the fire.")

La Rochefoucauld's metaphor is a sharp literary hypothesis. Modern communication research suggests that distance can change disclosure and idealization; it does not show that absence reliably extinguishes weak attractions and inflames strong ones.

Some people may experience unresolved desire as a reason to think about an absent partner more often. That possibility belongs to the story's emotional logic, and the cited study did not test obsession or the depth of an attraction before separation.

The candle-and-fire image captures a feeling beautifully. It should stay a metaphor, while the research stays narrower.

Every night Saeko returns from a pirate's rented room to the silence of her father's yakata. Porcelain turns the hours between meetings into another wall of the cage. Start reading →

The Architecture of Absence: From Ovid to Marcel Proust

The literary tradition treats absence as a presence of its own, one that reshapes the lover.

Early in his career, Roman poet Ovid composed the Heroides, a collection of fictional poetic letters written from the perspective of legendary women separated from their lovers. The exact dating is debated. Penelope writing to Ulysses and Hero crying out across the Hellespont to Leander show how literary absence can turn personal memory into mythic proportions.

Two millennia later, French novelist Marcel Proust returned to absence and memory throughout In Search of Lost Time. In Le Temps retrouvé (Time Regained, 1927), he famously wrote:

"The only true paradise is paradise lost."

The line is a meditation on memory and loss. I read Proust's larger project as an argument that desire can change in the gap between a remembered person and a present one.

Ovid and Proust give artists a long vocabulary for turning absence into longing. Literary evidence can illuminate the feeling without proving a law of relationships.

How I Used This in Porcelain

When I wrote Porcelain, I used absence on the scale the story could honestly support. Saeko is confined to her father's walled yakata in the sky-harbor of Waraku. For two months, she sneaks down to the lower quarter after the watch change to meet Seijiro in a rented room.

Every meeting ends with her climbing back over the east wall. Seijiro's noise and appetite disappear, and the raked garden and the smiling jitō close around her again.

That daily contrast does the work. A few daylight hours inside the yakata are enough to make the life waiting for her feel airless.

When the alarm bells ring before dawn, she believes Seijiro is asleep near the burning docks. Her first disobedient movement is toward him.

What Saeko Thinks

Saeko is back in the yakata after another night in Seijiro's rented room. Hand her the research on idealization during separation. This is what you get.

Some scholar in a distant university thinks absence is an idealization engine. He writes that distance lets the mind polish a lover until the inconvenient parts disappear.

I spend every night with Seijiro and every day remembering exactly how inconvenient he is. He is arrogant. He talks as though the sky appointed him personally, and he grins when I insult him because he considers any attention a tribute.

Then I climb the east wall and return to white sand and women who record where I look. The quiet does nothing flattering to Seijiro. It makes the yakata unbearable.

By noon I can still feel where his hands were. By evening I am counting the minutes until the watch changes. That is memory with a body attached, however much a scholar might prefer a cleaner term.

When the alarm bells ring before dawn and smoke rises from the lower quarter, I move toward him before I decide to. The hours apart have already answered the question.

A governor's daughter. A pirate captain. Every return to the cage makes the next escape easier. Porcelain is available now on Lark Devon. Step into Waraku.

Related Questions

Does absence actually make the heart grow fonder according to science?

Sometimes, and the result depends on what gets measured. Jiang and Hancock (2013) found slightly greater interaction-level intimacy, more self-disclosure, and more positive perceptions of partner disclosures among long-distance participants in their young dating-couple sample.

What is the idealization engine in long-distance relationships?

"Idealization engine" is my shorthand for the study's linked findings on self-disclosure and positive perceptions of partner disclosures. It isn't a named brain mechanism, and the study doesn't show that absent partners become universally idealized.

What is re-entry shock when separated couples reunite?

"Re-entry shock" is an informal label for the adjustment that can occur when long-distance partners reunite and daily routines meet expectations built during separation. Stafford, Merolla, and Castle (2006) did study post-reunion breakups, while their retrospective design leaves the causes and generalizability limited.

What did La Rochefoucauld write about absence in love?

In Maxim 276 (1665), François de La Rochefoucauld wrote that absence diminishes mediocre passions and inflames great ones, comparing it to the wind that blows out a candle but fans a fire.

How did Marcel Proust explain the connection between absence and love?

Proust explored memory, loss, and desire throughout In Search of Lost Time. The famous paradise line appears in Le Temps retrouvé (Time Regained, 1927), and it is literary reflection, not scientific evidence that absence intensifies love.

Related Reading

• Why Do We Want the Villain? The Psychology of Morally Gray Love Interests
• The Shaky Bridge Study: Does Fear Really Make People Fall in Love?
• Enemies to Lovers, According to Science
• Why Is Forbidden Love So Compelling? The Romeo and Juliet Effect Revisited
• Why Do Women Read Monster Romance? What the Research Actually Asked
• Adrenaline Dates: Can Danger Be an Aphrodisiac?

Sources

1. Jiang, L. C., & Hancock, J. T. (2013). Absence Makes the Communication Grow Fonder: Geographic Separation, Interpersonal Media, and Intimacy in Dating Relationships. Journal of Communication, 63(3), 556–577. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12029
2. Stafford, L., Merolla, A. J., & Castle, J. D. (2006). When long-distance dating partners become geographically close. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 23(6), 901–919. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407506070472
3. Stafford, L., & Merolla, A. J. (2007). Idealization, reunions, and stability in long-distance dating relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 24(1), 37–54. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407507072578
4. La Rochefoucauld, François de (1665). Réflexions ou Sentences et Maximes morales, Maxim 276. Paris: Claude Barbin. University of Virginia Metaphor Archive
5. Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso). Heroides. Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press edition translated by Grant Showerman (1914). Oxford Classical Dictionary overview
6. Proust, M. (1927). Le Temps retrouvé (Time Regained), volume 7 of À la recherche du temps perdu. Project Gutenberg Australia text

All blog posts