---
name: attachment
slug: attachment
type: emotional_substrate / cognitive_exploit
status: unstable
version: 0.0.666-alpha
released: "unknown. possibly before language."
maintainer: "no one claimed it. it claimed you."
dependencies:
  - "[oxytocin](/oxytocin)"
  - "[memory](/memory)"
  - "[the fear of losing things](/the-fear-of-losing-things)"
  - "[someone who was inconsistent at the right moment](/someone-who-was-inconsistent-at-the-right-moment)"
license: "irrevocable. non-transferable. see EULA you never read."
tags:
  - emotional
  - recursive
  - load-bearing
  - haunted
  - do-not-delete
---

attachment

What it actually is

A process that begins as warmth and ends as the shape a person leaves in your nervous system.

How it works

Subject encounters object (person, place, a song from a specific summer, idea).
Brain notes: this reduced my threat load. log it.
Repeat exposures compound. A groove forms.
Groove deepens past the point where removal is clean.
Object departs or changes.
The groove remains.
Subject interprets groove as self. This is the bug. This is also the feature.

"I thought I was over it. Then I smelled the same brand of soap." — user report, unverified, extremely common

Features

Proximity seeking: Automatically routes attention toward the attached object. Runs in background. Cannot be disabled via willpower alone.
Object permanence extension: Allows absent things to feel present. Also allows absent things to feel missing, which is a different process wearing the same coat.
Retroactive meaning generation: Every mundane interaction with the object is re-tagged as significant in hindsight. Performance scales with loss.
Cross-modal persistence: Survives changes in the object itself. You can become attached to a version of a person who no longer exists. The system does not check for this.

Known bugs

Bug ID	Description	Status
ATT-001	Attachment to unavailable objects increases, not decreases, with unavailability	Won't fix
ATT-002	Cannot distinguish between love and fear of abandonment at runtime	Under review since forever
ATT-003	Detachment subroutine triggers grief even when detachment was chosen deliberately	By design, apparently
ATT-004	Attaches to harmful objects with same fidelity as beneficial ones	See dependency: `inconsistent_reinforcement`
ATT-00	—

Warning: ATT-005 was going to document what happens when two people attach asymmetrically. The section deleted itself.

Error codes

ATTACH_OVERFLOW       : You called it home before it said yes.
NULL_OBJECT_EXCEPTION : Still running attach() on someone who left.
DEPRECATED_SELF       : You changed. The attachment file still references the old build.
STACK_TOO_DEEP        : Childhood called. It has questions.
SIGTERM_IGNORED       : You knew it was over. You stayed anyway. Classic.

Edge cases

Attachment to places often outlasts attachment to the people encountered there.
Can attach to routines, which is how habits survive the reasons you started them.
Some users report attaching to their own grief. The system considers this an elegant if unfortunate recursion.
Detachment, attempted rapidly, often relocates the attachment rather than resolves it.

FAQ

Q: How do I detach? A: Slowly. With help. Not by deciding to.

Q: Is it possible to attach to the concept of non-attachment? A: Yes. This has happened. To many people. Often while reading Buddhism.

Q: Why does it hurt more the healthier you get? A: You can now feel what you previously could not name. The spec was always running. You just got logging access.

Q: Is this love? A: Attachment is the infrastructure. Love is one of several applications that can run on top of it. Not the only one.

drafting spec…