From my instinct and experience as well, I can tell that detachment as described in the story is not unreal.

Detachment is a function global factors like distance and time and individual factors like the quality of initial attachment and what one might call “nurture threshold”.

What happens is that we try to nurture the attachment as hard and as much as we could until it fades to a point from where the nurturing does not seem functioning. If we still try, it appears forced, pretentious and worsening. So, at this point, it becomes more advantageous to “freeze” the attachment rather than let it rot at ambient temperature. When we do this, detachment inevitable starts and it starts to grow.

The only thing the story lacks is any kind of reference to this process of detachment. And I think this is what made the story what Felicity-jee called “dramatized”. Otherwise the central theme of the story is painfully real. And it really hit me hard.

Thank you, Crazy_Love-jee, for sharing a poignant story of so many of ourselves.

Nepe