René Girard in “Deceit, Desire and The Novel”:

“In his famous essay entitled ‘Bovaryism’, Gaultier goes on to observe that in order to reach their goal, which is to ‘see themselves as they are not,’ Flaubert’s heroes find a ‘model’ for themselves and ‘imitate form the person they have decided to be, all that can be imitated, everything exterior, appearance, gesture, intonation and dress.’”

Girard makes a compelling case that desire is a matter of imitation. And that it's not clear what we truly desire, the object of our love, or the mediator, in other words, the person who also appears to desire the same object. All desire is a triangle.

I wholeheartedly agree. Just read my books.