It shines the same way. That's where the harshness lies. Catches light like hope, like the genuine thing, like everything you've been working for. Your heart jumps that idiotic leap before your brain catches up with the geology.
Prospectors dubbed it fool's gold since only fools could mistake it for the actual thing. I have gathered fool's gold all my life. Relationships that were sparkling but not permanent. Jobs promising everything delivered experience instead of income. Friendships seeming like forever until they were not.
They claim fool's gold is useless. But I have a full drawer of it, glowing failures, lovely disappointments, things that failed but caught the light nevertheless. Moreover I'm not discarding any of it.