Chocolate is my ... weakness?

October 27, 2009 8:57 AM

A friend and I are looking for a certain word... it would be related to loving something so much it makes you go weak. Both of us believe there's a word for this but we can't quite put our finger on it. It could possibly be used in this context: "Chocolate is my _____."

The closest word we can come up with is: weakness.
But we're pretty sure there's another.
We've already crossed these off the list:
Kryptonite
Achilles Heel
Passion
Addiction
Lover

There's a possibility that the word actually isn't a noun. It might go along the lines of: swoon.

posted by simplethings to writing & language (66 comments total)

Downfall?
posted by Pax at 9:00 AM on October 27

nemesis?
posted by gaspode at 9:01 AM on October 27 [3 favorites has favorites]

In referring to people, but not chocolate, "heart-throb" could be used.
posted by James Scott-Brown at 9:04 AM on October 27

anti-drug?
posted by melodykramer at 9:04 AM on October 27 [2 favorites has favorites]

your siren (as in The Odyssey)
posted by kathrineg at 9:04 AM on October 27

holy grail?
posted by unlaced at 9:05 AM on October 27

Bane?
posted by Pax at 9:05 AM on October 27

Achilles Heel?
posted by rongorongo at 9:05 AM on October 27 [2 favorites has favorites]

"Wild nights are my glory." -- A Wrinkle In Time
posted by johngoren at 9:06 AM on October 27 [1 favorite has favorites]

new bicycle.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:07 AM on October 27 [3 favorites has favorites]

Waterloo
posted by mrbarrett.com at 9:07 AM on October 27

Vice
posted by CarolynG at 9:09 AM on October 27 [2 favorites has favorites]

undoing
posted by ludwig_van at 9:10 AM on October 27 [8 favorites has favorites]

undoing
soft spot
vice
posted by iconomy at 9:12 AM on October 27

Thanks for the suggestions so far... I think Bane and Vice feel really close.
posted by simplethings at 9:13 AM on October 27

ruin
posted by jonnyploy at 9:15 AM on October 27 [1 favorite has favorites]

Crack
posted by cosmac at 9:16 AM on October 27

my torment
my ruin
posted by iconomy at 9:16 AM on October 27

Ruin
Predilection
Fancy
posted by katemcd at 9:17 AM on October 27

Achilles' heel?
posted by ejazen at 9:22 AM on October 27

um... guilty pleasure?
posted by aielen at 9:25 AM on October 27 [1 favorite has favorites]

failing?
posted by dilettante at 9:25 AM on October 27

Poison
posted by clearlydemon at 9:26 AM on October 27

well it doesn't make you go weak, unless you're without it

oxygen
posted by stormpooper at 9:31 AM on October 27

Catnip?

Forbidden fruit?
posted by Blackwatch at 9:33 AM on October 27

opiate.
posted by fings at 9:33 AM on October 27 [1 favorite has favorites]

You can also repeat the subject in the object spot, with the connotation that there is no comparison, nothing higher, i.e. Chocolate is my chocolate.
posted by iamkimiam at 9:37 AM on October 27

Actually, if you're not looking for a noun, maybe "consummate"?

"I find eating chocolate to be the consummate pleasure."
posted by fings at 9:38 AM on October 27

infirmity
posted by scarykarrey at 9:42 AM on October 27

Um, "bane" usually connotes something to be avoided. "Vice" is more like a forbidden pleasure, but nobody enjoys a bane.
posted by rikschell at 9:42 AM on October 27 [1 favorite has favorites]

Kryptonite
posted by BigBwana at 9:44 AM on October 27

whoops. guess I need to read the whole post first...
posted by BigBwana at 9:45 AM on October 27

I like 'enervate', the noun form would be 'enervation'.
posted by sid.tv at 9:46 AM on October 27

Um, "bane" usually connotes something to be avoided. "Vice" is more like a forbidden pleasure, but nobody enjoys a bane.

maybe they meant "boon"?
posted by Think_Long at 9:53 AM on October 27

vulnerability
posted by scrutiny at 9:56 AM on October 27

compulsion
posted by scrutiny at 9:58 AM on October 27

I was going to recommend "vice" and "kryptonite" but they already seem well represented, so I'll go with the expression I personally use; "drug of choice", particularly when referencing something non-pharmaceutical related: "Video games are okay, I guess, but I find that B-movies are really my drug of choice for blowing off steam..."
posted by quin at 10:06 AM on October 27

Um, "bane" usually connotes something to be avoided. "Vice" is more like a forbidden pleasure, but nobody enjoys a bane.

I guess I was thinking about it in the sense of [trying to avoid] chocolate being the bane of one's existence.
posted by Pax at 10:23 AM on October 27

Kryptonite
posted by BigBwana at 11:44 AM on October 27

it's gotta be Kryptonite, amiright?
posted by mcstayinskool at 10:29 AM on October 27

"Giddy" is pretty close to what you're looking for, but doesn't work in the example construction. So probably isn't the money word.

giddy
verb ( -dies, -died) [ trans. ]
make (someone) feel excited to the point of disorientation

"Heroin" might work figuratively in the "Chocolate is my ___" sentence, if it wasn't so damn addictive.
posted by pokermonk at 10:40 AM on October 27

Beatrice?

I understand it to mean great love, weakness, and downfall, all at once. But you have to say it like the Italians say it.
posted by pipti at 10:45 AM on October 27 [2 favorites has favorites]

Apollo

ultimate
posted by scrutiny at 10:49 AM on October 27

Ack, I'd been gone from here for awhile and I feel like I almost had it. Some quote comes to mind, like "This too, was his _____," but I can't remember what the word was. I feel like it was a proper noun of sorts though...

Also, that quote brings to mind a feeling of some Far Side strip; I'm not sure what's in it or what it was about.
posted by scrutiny at 10:53 AM on October 27

sin
posted by gmm at 10:55 AM on October 27

penchant?
posted by CarolynG at 10:57 AM on October 27

crack?

habit?
posted by tavegyl at 10:59 AM on October 27

Actually I think chocolate is the word you're looking for.
posted by pahool at 11:15 AM on October 27

Has your love of chocolate ever been a trigger for Stendhal Syndrome?

Gosh, I hope not.
posted by yamel at 11:19 AM on October 27

HAMARTIA
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:30 AM on October 27

If bane is close to what you are thinking, perhaps you could use a play on words: bete blanc. Bete noire is something to be avoided at all costs, a nemesis, literally the black beast. A bete blanc -- white beast -- would therefore be something to be embraced. (I mean, chocolate is supposed to be your passion. If it doesn't make you babble in tongues, then you're not really feeling it.)
posted by joaquim at 11:30 AM on October 27

Yoko Ono.
posted by tfmm at 11:33 AM on October 27 [1 favorite has favorites]

my white whale
my Everest
my Rushmore
my Nirvana
my pied piper
my lotus fruit
posted by Dixon Ticonderoga at 11:34 AM on October 27 [1 favorite has favorites]

my Rushmore

Yesssss.
posted by scarykarrey at 11:41 AM on October 27

my obsession
my fixation
my neurosis
my idée fixe
I think "my compulsion" is close, as scrutiny says.
posted by misha at 11:42 AM on October 27

indulgence
posted by watercarrier at 11:43 AM on October 27

Poison
Opiate (a la Marx...or was it Lenin?)

There is probably a phrase in French for this.
posted by AtomicBee at 12:11 PM on October 27

raison d etre. Though that might be for chocolate raisins.
posted by A189Nut at 12:48 PM on October 27 [2 favorites has favorites]

inamorata... paramour... ardor... ruin... ruination... dissipation...

I'm beguiled... bewitched... bedeviled... consumed... possessed... ensorcelled... enamored... enraptured... intoxicated... by chocolate

seduction... enamoration.. ravishment... suscitation... intoxication...

bedevilment... ensorcellment... transport... infatuation... rapture... idol...
posted by cotesdurhone at 1:09 PM on October 27

Frenemy?

Probably not what you are looking for, but I think it's pretty funny.

Paradox or Contradiction are along the same line, though less humorous.
posted by AtomicBee at 1:56 PM on October 27

rosebud?
posted by milestogo at 2:16 PM on October 27

Chocolate is my boo.

Meaning variously - "my love" or "my drug of choice."
posted by torquemaniac at 2:29 PM on October 27

consummation? delight? ne plus ultra? apotheosis? beau ideal?
posted by lex mercatoria at 4:15 PM on October 27

I don't see how bane has anything to do with "loving something so much". It's simply the thing that leads to your downfall and death. There's nothing positive about it.

Ditto with vice. It's a moral failing, something you shouldn't do. Sure, it's true that addictions are vices, and you could say that people only engage in bad habits because they love to do the thing so much. But I don't think you'd be right. A vice is not fundamentally something you love, even if it is sometimes incidentally something you love.

How about ecstasy or ravishment? Both of those involve being overwhelmed and both have at least some positive associations.

You are my ecstasy, you are my ravishment
you undo me, untie me, leave me barren and wasted
and wanting more.
posted by alms at 5:11 PM on October 27 [1 favorite has favorites]

Swain?
posted by lunaazul at 6:04 PM on October 27

Anathema?
posted by kiripin at 8:43 PM on October 27

Seconding "vulnerability"
posted by hamandcheese at 10:31 PM on October 27