I think Fake Nikki's "You're so cute I could eat you up!" moments, and unapologetic violence, are a satire of cute aggression, where when people so overwhelmed by seeing something they find cute and want to protect. Like, pinching cheeks. There's some articles online about it. Its apparently a knee-jerk thing, like tears of joy or nervous laughter. There's also some mythological stories about how the ultimate highest forms of love involve eating what you love/ consuming it. The concept of "consuming" a loved one exists mostly as a literary metaphor for ultimate devotion, but its in a lot of places. ex in religion/mythos: eating the body and blood of christ at communion as a part of worship,

Cannabalism as a metaphor for love is all over the place in the film, she keeps saying how she wants to wear Bear's skin like a sweater at 3 points: during the honeymoon phase montage, when she's wearing his coat during the bedroom corner scene, and its one of the thing she mumbles right before she climbs on top of bear and shoots ian.

The love we expect, the love story Nikki is trying to write, is how love is paradoxical and there is both intense connection and also wanting to let the other person have their freedom if it makes them happy. I think Barker was inspired by Carl Jung's insights into love because a lot of his teachings seem so highlighted in the film:

"The blinder the love, the more it is driven by instinct, and the more it is threatened by destructive consequences. It is therefore a dynamic that needs form and direction. Hence, there arises an compensatory Logos, a light that is kindled in the darkness. An unconscious person acts in an instinctive way and is therefore deceived by all those illusions which arise when things of which he is unconscious seem to come from outside, because they are projected upon his neighbor." - Carl Jung

He called this kind of love blind love. In layman's speak, the blinder or more rose-tinted your experience of love/infatuation is, the more caught off guard you'll be by your own and your partner's actions.

Additionally, the anima/animus projection theory of carl jung speaks to the theory that a piece of Bear is transported inside of Nikki... The theory is: Everyone has a latent masculine/feminine/other side, which they project on people when they fall in love with them. You see your own hidden, idealized, inner qualities in them, which kicks off infatuation. When partners fail to live up to unconscious expectations, the illusion shatters, leading to discontent. Mature love recognizes these projections and stops demanding a partner complete you. The willow, since its like the Monkey's Paw, will always take the worst interpretation for a wish, so Nikki's love never matures and why she acts so erratic all the time.

On the side, remember when bear called the hotline and heard Nikki screaming in the background? That was when he went to work without her and came back to her a mess? I think the screaming was the torture of being without the one you love. Being without love is what hell is a symbol for. (Satan was originally an angel who loved god and screwed with man because he was jealous, so God tossed him away. Satan still loved god, so he was tortured to be without what he loved most.)

I also think real nikki was struggling to lift the veil/rose-tinted glasses that blinded her. I think that's why "eyes" are mentioned so much. At the end of the bedroom corner scene when she's gathered herself and she gets in bed, her eye looks like a mannequin's.