The limerence quiz
Limerence is an altered mental state of intense infatuation that many people experience in the early stages of love.
This questionnaire is designed to test whether you have ever experienced the symptoms of limerence.
There are twenty five questions which cover the positive and negative aspects of limerence, and help build up a picture of your romantic temperament.
Answer all questions on the scale from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” if you have ever experienced the described reaction to someone you were infatuated with.
About this quiz
The questions for this quiz were created from the list of symptoms laid out by Dorothy Tennov when she first defined the concept of limerence. That foundation was built upon by feedback from the Living with Limerence community.
More information:
To learn more about limerence and what it means for your romantic life, start here.
If you are currently suffering through the emotional storm of limerence, you can download a quickstart guide on how to Take Control, and free yourself from the pain:
Need help with limerence recovery?
Download our free, 10 step guide to freedom
I think this quiz is more suited to answer “Are you currently experiencing limerence?”
I imagine a “limerent” is someone who has experienced limerence in the past too, not only someone currently experiencing it
That’s true, T. You’ll have to cast your mind back if you’re not currently in that altered state of mind.
I try to tell myself I’m not limerent as a identity, more did I get due to complex circumstances in a LE.
It gives me some what more hope for the future.
I will definitely watch out for those circumstances.
Agreed. Limerence is a part of who we are, but it isn’t an identity.
I’m a 50 year old man. Divorced 8 years ago I went a year following my divorce just playing the field and connected with an old classmate after a reunion. We “dated” for nearly 2 years ( I use quotes because her high-school age children hated that she was dating so we kept it secret) I thought I was going to marry this woman she was great!! But she ended things when it became apparent that her daughter would abandon her if she kept seeing me. I was crushed and saw nobody for 8 months but kept in contact with her through text hoping that she would just follow her heart. She finally told me I should get out again and move on. So I did and I quickly became involved with a woman who didn’t have the greatest reputation but she was exciting and different from what I had been with. We did everything together and she moved in. We partied a lot it turned out she was bisexual and she enjoyed sharing her encounters with me and eventually we dabbled in swinging. It was new and exciting I loved all of it. Until she eventually started showing her true colors and she became very toxic and jealous of my children, namely my 16 year old daughter and it got so bad I had to tell her to leave. It’s been a year since the break-up and I’ve been seeing someone new for about 8 months. The new woman is wonderful but I can’t stop thinking about my last relationship and I miss the excitement of everything we did together intimately and publicly. So I’m remembering the good times and not the bad but it has kept me from giving what I need to the current relationship which is wonderful until she creeps back into my mind. I also have to say that I did have a one night fling with her shortly after starting to date the new woman at which point all the bad things flooded back in and I knew I couldn’t return to that. I had a nice new woman to be with but previous woman has infiltrated my ever thought at about the year mark of our break-up. I can’t stop thinking of her and I know she’s toxic. Am I a limerant or am I just going crazy? How do I get out of this? I try to never talk about her with current woman but she does creep into conversation but not enough to make current woman suspicious. Please help.
I’m quite keen to know how limerence occurs when the LO has cut you out of their life.
Having been limerent for many decades and also in a long-term monogamous relationship (with a few interruptions due to limerence) for decades I can spot the signs in myself straightaway – elation, adrenalin, obsession, projection, excuses for communication, emojis 🤣💔. I have been safe for about 14 years but then someone new comes in to my life – unbidden, unsearched for – embodying the universal spirit of eternal love – and i know i could be in trouble again. For past excursions into the limerent quagmire the solution for me has always been NC – tricky at the moment although I could make up an excuse for disappearing but I don’t want to yet. I expect it will end up with NC in the near future. I was part of an online limerent community back in 2007/08/09 and found it extremely helpful to spend time with people who know exactly what is going on without judgment or exasperation but real concern and stuck in the moment or helping those stuck in the moment. Glad to see you are around Dr L – I heard your podcast. Wonderful summary of our emotional realities.
What limerent community group are you in because I need someone too talk to about this stuff. I’m 17 and just experiencing my first limerence, it is so hard because I had a relationship before and now I broke up with her because I am in Limerence with someone else. I hate this feeling and I wanna know how to stop being in limerence with another girl because I really want to be with my ex again and love her.
Welcome Simfora, you can talk to us.
I’m impressed you can see through the feelings that this is not what you want. Bravo. A lot of people will go 100%for the new person.
Is it possible to go no contact with your LO . I mean do you have to see her ?
There is also a more private community group you can sign up for if you want.
Welcome, Simfora. There’s a link to join the private community form at the top of the page (Community pages) or click here.
The wanting LO more than anything… Almost. But being passionate about geology, rocks always come first. But then sometimes when you can’t think straight about some rocks because limerence!
Goddammit.
Fortunately not been that bad for some time though.
I scored a 100 % !!
🙁 Thats a questionable honour!
I also think that people in love also will score high, my view is we limerents have every (normal) aspect of being in love but much more intense. And therefor more highs and very bad lows.
We have a Winner!
Claim your prize!
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/steel-canoe-planter-featuring-orange-flowers-1144315910
Omg ! Hahaha thats too funny Eme!
Yeah I already claimed my prize, three years of hell that was.
Just checked the scores, Mia, and 7 people (out of 235 total in the first week) have scored 100% so far! So, you’re in good company 🙂
Lowest score to date is 19%, which is great because it suggests the quiz actually does succeed in identifying “non-limerence” too.
98%. Joy.
Not only your name is Groot, so is your score! 🙂
53%
I was trying to answer it as I remember my last LE so it was probably higher then. It’s probably actually lower now that I’m 6 years out of my last LE.
“Out of my last LE”…. sounds great, not there yet but getting there .
Slowly but steady.
Well steady-ish
Now that the L is getting less intense I have to fight myself since the idea of being jolly just good old friends seems more ” realistic” ( it’s not, I know).
Damn I’m 86% after over 1 month no contact and I already disclosed.
Same😭
I’m a 50 year old man. Divorced 8 years ago I went a year following my divorce just playing the field and connected with an old classmate after a reunion. We “dated” for nearly 2 years ( I use quotes because her high-school age children hated that she was dating so we kept it secret) I thought I was going to marry this woman she was great!! But she ended things when it became apparent that her daughter would abandon her if she kept seeing me. I was crushed and saw nobody for 8 months but kept in contact with her through text hoping that she would just follow her heart. She finally told me I should get out again and move on. So I did and I quickly became involved with a woman who didn’t have the greatest reputation but she was exciting and different from what I had been with. We did everything together and she moved in. We partied a lot it turned out she was bisexual and she enjoyed sharing her encounters with me and eventually we dabbled in swinging. It was new and exciting I loved all of it. Until she eventually started showing her true colors and she became very toxic and jealous of my children, namely my 16 year old daughter and it got so bad I had to tell her to leave. It’s been a year since the break-up and I’ve been seeing someone new for about 8 months. The new woman is wonderful but I can’t stop thinking about my last relationship and I miss the excitement of everything we did together intimately and publicly. So I’m remembering the good times and not the bad but it has kept me from giving what I need to the current relationship which is wonderful until she creeps back into my mind. I also have to say that I did have a one night fling with her shortly after starting to date the new woman at which point all the bad things flooded back in and I knew I couldn’t return to that. I had a nice new woman to be with but previous woman has infiltrated my ever thought at about the year mark of our break-up. I can’t stop thinking of her and I know she’s toxic. Am I a limerant or am I just going crazy? How do I get out of this? I try to never talk about her with current woman but she does creep into conversation but not enough to make current woman suspicious. Please help.
I don’t know if you are limerent. It sounds like you are hooked on the hormone surges that sprang from an exciting lifestyle; your obsession is probably more about the feelings than the actual person. This website has several articles about how to get over someone. I hope you’ll read through the blog archives. The articles and comments were very helpful to get me through a limerent episode.
It sounds like you had some exciting experiences and it would be difficult to go back to a “normal” relationship that doesn’t deliver those highs. The lifestyle you described sounds exhausting to me, but I can see how it appeals to others. Perhaps a high-adrenaline hobby like skydiving would help. You might also consider focusing on the bad parts of your relationship with your ex girlfriend if she enters your mind. Us limerents tend to overlook red flags, but we should focus on them. Purposeful living is very helpful, too. A new LO is what worked best for me. Of course there is danger with a new LO, I’m keeping this one at arm’s length and I try really hard not to fantasize about him. The two things that set off my limerence are disclosing to an LO who reciprocates disclosure and indulging in reverie. Since you are single those two things could help you develop a promising relationship. Whereas, I am a happily married woman who has no business admitting romantic feelings to another man.
I wish you luck. It’s none of my business, but I’m cheering for the current, more healthful relationship.
Three months into a new relationship with a limerent score of 49%. We are both working together and individually to stay grounded as much as possible. It isn’t easy, especially since both of us have a history of significant relationship trauma. That of which, has left us both starved of and insatiable for a healthy romantic relationship.
Hope my score reflects the work we’ve put towards staying grounded in limerence.
It appears to me that most of the questions in the quiz identify an intense infatuation which could also apply to the early stages of just falling in love with someone. From my personal experience with limerence (88% score), I am missing questions like these:
Experiencing a debilitating and very intense grief after a break-up with an EO.
Taking a ridiculously long time, sometimes years, to get over the EO.
Feeling inferior and not good enough to be loved by the EO.
A sudden and irrational onset of those love symptoms, sometimes at first sight. (Glimmer)
Not wanting to be in love but having seemingly no control over these feelings.
Imagining a deep connection which is actually not real when scrutinized with a sober mind.
Suffering from physical exhaustion after spending time with the beloved, even when things go smoothly. (dopamine rush)
Feeling shy, foolish or awkward around the loved person, unable to be my usual self and therefore unable to connect on a deeper level.
Ignoring very obvious red flags that should indicate a poor compatibility with that EO person.
Putting up with disrespectful or other inappropriate behavior from the EO, because it is too painful to leave. (trauma bonding)
In short, there could be many more indications that point to a pathological infatuation as opposed to a temporary healthy one.
Your website has helped me a lot to understand myself better, keep up the good work!
I am 38 years old and 13 months ago I became limerent for someone I only spent 20 minutes of my life with.
It has been 13 months of confusion, helplessness, frustration, being frightened for myself, disappoint in myself for succumbing to it, feeling weak for not being able to rid myself of this affliction. In the most painful episodes I would cry and shake on my couch or in the bathtub, I would pace around my kitchen for hours, I would write long text messages, record 90 minute voice messages to LO, every waking second was of them — or the idea of them which took front real estate in my brain. I never experienced anything like this before in my life. It scared the hell out of me as I’m usually someone who’s very guarded and cautious and do not fall for others easily.
I said I only spent 20 minutes of my entire life with her. She was a hairdresser who cut my hair, one who I initially thought was attractive but it didn’t stir any feelings of longing inside me.
Six months later we match on a dating app and after just five days of exchanging messages, I was captured. That was the glimmer and I haven’t been the same ever since. I couldn’t get this woman out of my mind. At all. I asked her out over text message but she didn’t give me a yes or no answer. I thought it was best to leave her alone and try to let this feeling pass. It didn’t. Two months later I know something wasn’t right with me. I was still thinking about her virtually every minute.
I began searching terms like ‘can’t forget about a girl’ and still clung to hope this infatuation would pass. By to the third month I felt so helpless being trapped, I started to cry often. I thought I was crying over her. I now know I was crying over having my mind hijacked again, over someone I barely knew.
I asked her out a month later (Valentine’s night) and she accepted! I was euphoric! You couldn’t smack the smile off my face. For two weeks we messaged daily, hours at a time. After two weeks a misunderstanding arose… It led to tense messages exchanged. My feelings spilled out of my fingers. I said A LOT of things I wish I could take back. In short, I completely scared her away. I thought it would be best to leave her alone but this was when my limerence was at its most devastatingly potent. My hands shook, I like lightening had fried me from the inside, my brain was a muddled daze and I was experiencing a crushing hell I’d never experienced before.
It is now nearly 10 months later. I’d go a month and half or so of No Contact but then I’d cave and text. The fun was gone on her end. Her replies (if she replied) were two words or two sentences at the most. There was no fixing what we had. I unfollowed her on social media but during the summer I saw a photo of her wearing a white t-shirt and Jean shorts… very happily smiling with another guy. My heart caved in on itself.
But…
I knew then this infatuation had to end. I had to end it. I did not want to carry this in me anymore. It took a lot of work but I nearly killed my crush on her… until her birthday recently. I had gone three successful months without sending her a word. I thought I was in a place where I could be strong enough to be her friend. I texted her a happy birthday. She did respond. I was happy to have my friend back.
Until… I saw her post her birthday celebration photos. Photos which showcased her full blonde hair, wearing a tight top and pink latex skirt. I’d never seen anyone look so stunningly beautiful/sexy and Limerence hit me once again like a 18-wheeler speeding down the highway.
I relapsed.
I tried to play it cool by sending her ‘hey, how are you?’ texts but I could tell from the bluntness in her replies she didn’t feel like hearing from me. I felt that crushing feeling again. I gave it a week and sent her another long-ish message stating I still liked her and asked her one more time for coffee.
I was informed the next morning that she had been seeing somebody for six months and that she very much wanted me to not put my feelings on her or write her anymore messages like that again.
I asked her to unfriend me. She wouldn’t. So I unfriended her later that day. I don’t regret it. I know I did the right thing and I can already sense the idea of her fading from my mind. I do believe I’m actually starting to come out of this hellish experience after 13 months.
I feel terrible I brought another person into this ordeal. One who didn’t deserve this and probably will hate me forever. We never did have that coffee and most likely never will.
I NEVER want to put myself or anyone else through this ever again.
Wow Journalist, that sounds like a severe case of limerence. I hope the resources on this site soothe your pain. The most helpful recommendation for me was to transfer my limerence to a new LO. Luckily, it worked for me. I hope you find what works for you.
Best wishes!
I think I’m semi limerent, my brain keeps fixating on this woman I barely know. She is pretty but I am not keen on her as an overall person (I don’t hate her, just don’t like her either, overall ambivalent).
I scored 10% on the quiz
I don’t feel anything for her, but why does my brain keep bringing her to my attention?
Is this another strain on limerence?
I want her to leave my head
Hi Gina, that is an interesting case. I see why you want her to leave your head. Perhaps her presence in your mind would be considered an intrusive thought. There is a short YouTube video called “How to deal with intrusive thoughts” by Mark Freeman. It may help.
Good luck!
Thank you
Hi Gina,
I wonder if you can identify some of the specific reasons why you feel you are having ongoing thoughts about her. Does she embody the physical characteristics your wish you had? What kind of things are you thinking about her?
96%
Makes sense. I’m only a week out of the whole thing falling apart (a 5 year, mutual limerance) and about 3 days out from actually finding out that my condition has a name. It’s been a long week of work on myself and I’m actually somewhat proud of where I am, all things considered.