object of one's affections

Love does not end when the object of one’s affections disappears.

Because such songs involve showing off to the object of one’s affections, they may require more creativity, and thus generate more variety than lullabies or dance songs.

Costume meetups like Comic-Con are, in a fundamental sense, efforts to satisfy the modern craving for endless juvenile escape, a Perpetual Halloween, and the online explosion of another enthusiast’s delight — fan fiction — signals an urge to coexist nostalgically in the same space forever with the fictional object of one’s affections.

Pretty as is this conceit, there is no doubt about the fact that the gift of diamonds to the object of one's affections does usually produce a feeling of pleasure to both parties, from which it would appear that there is some ground for the belief.

I call that a much more beautiful mental attitude toward the object of one's affections.