Cloying: (adj) an excess of sweetness, richness, or sentiment.

When we need something and we can’t find what’s real, generally speaking, we have to settle for the best fake available.

I remember the first time I ate imitation crab meat. I had eaten real crab meat before. The imitation did not taste the same. But when I considered the price difference, I allowed that phony crab to attract me–in its cloying way.

It is my great exasperation that we are getting so accustomed to cloying, tugging, pulling, phony emotion out of awkward situations, that we will begin to believe that the original, natural form of feeling is implausible.

After all, since human beings are heart creatures, they need to feel.

Even though there are philosophies, political parties and religions which try to remove sentiment from the equation, we still end up with stiff cardboard cutouts, who every once in a while have to fake paper-thin emotions.

When does it become cloying?

It’s cloying when I realize I need to feel something but don’t, so I insert it anyway–instead of feeling something and needing to express it as soon as possible.