Ah, those early days of giddy intoxication. The bliss of being with them, seeing their smile, hearing their laugh, basking in their company. Infatuation can feel marvellous, but it can also feel a bit… unhealthy. Many people caught up in the greedy romantic mania of infatuation wonder whether it will turn into a more stable kind of love.
The good news is that infatuation can turn into love. The less good news is that the strength of infatuation is not a indication of whether it will. In fact, the factors that cause infatuation, and the factors that lead to healthy, long-term love can be quite different.
So, how can you tell if your infatuation will transform into love? Well, a good starting point is to analyse what infatuation and love really are.
What is infatuation?
Infatuation is an intoxicating attraction to another person, that seems – if we are honest with ourselves – a bit over the top. It’s the feeling of exhilaration, excitement, and thrilling tingles of romantic possibility that some people experience in the early stages of love. You become so besotted with another person that it seems like they have some sort of extraordinary charisma or animal magnetism that’s irresistible.
Infatuation is also based in fantasy. You don’t know the other person well enough to have formed a meaningful bond to them. Your daydreams about them are conjured from your own desires, and they act the part you assign them as a dutiful imaginary player in your inner fantasy world. The possibilities are tantalising, but untested. In the early stages, this kind of exuberant dream is just a crush, but it can also deepen into a more profound and persistent mental obsession.
Sometimes infatuation can feel so powerful that it becomes scary. It feels as though your emotions are brittle and unstable – that your mood swings wildly from exhilaration to shivering anxiety, depending on their behaviour. When infatuation has progressed to the point that you are desperately craving this other person, rather than just enjoying their company, then it’s likely you have fallen into a state of limerence.
Limerence is best described as addiction to another person. When your infatuation feels out of control, it’s natural to start to wonder exactly what is going on. Is this really what love should feel like? Is this going anywhere good? What does it mean that you can’t stop thinking about them even if you want to? Why can’t you concentrate on anything else?
When emotions are running this high, it feels like the only way out is to consummate your desperate desire for a romantic bond, and hope that the mania will transform into something more positive and nourishing.
What is love?
An easy question to answer! It’s only occupied humanity for a few thousand years, after all.
There are, of course, many types of love. Love for family. Erotic love. Spiritual love. Companionable love. For people who are infatuated, the most common kind of love that they are hoping for is a deep romantic bond – a blend of sexual attraction, affectional bonding, and emotional support. The kind of love that long-term relationships are built from. The kind of love that stories that end “happily ever after” are written about.
That kind of love is not built from fantasies. It might start in infatuation, but it grows slowly from mutual care, physical and emotional intimacy, and personal compatibility. For it to last, you have to genuinely like each other, communicate honestly, compromise occasionally, and commit to keeping it alive.
Fairy tales often miss out this last bit. Once you’ve triumphed over adversity and the sunset has been ridden into, someone needs to see to the horses, cook dinner, make the money, and do all the chores. While helping each other grow, and keeping each other entertained.
It’s really great when it works, and may even lead to new forms of love that you had never imagined could become so important.
This kind of love can grow out of infatuation, but there is no escaping the fact that it takes time.
How can you tell if your infatuation will turn into love?
The urgent desire of infatuation can be a prelude to lasting love. They are certainly linked – infatuation is a very effective way of pushing you to try and pair-bond with a potential mate – but the key point to realise is that the strength of your desire is not a good predictor of whether love will blossom. The kind of people that you become infatuated with – or become limerent for – are not necessarily good prospects for long-term love.
How can you assess whether or not your own infatuation will turn into love? Well, there are a few pointers that can help along the way.
First, try and figure out what kind of person you are romantically excited by. If your infatuation is commonly focused on someone of poor character, chances are that this will not turn into a stable loving bond. You are more likely to just become hopelessly hooked on their false promise.
Second, see if there is any way to reduce uncertainty in your relationship. If you can be direct about your feelings, and get a clear answer about whether your “limerent object” is also keen for a romantic connection, the strength of your infatuation should fade.
Third, try and find ways to sidestep the tendency to idealise your limerent object, and instead make an objective assessment of how compatible you are. Is your infatuation a mutual “ecstatic union”, or is it passing mania that is masking a fundamental incompatibility that will undermine efforts to form a loving bond?
The goal is to try and minimise the impact of the reality-distortion field of infatuation, and look beyond the period of being giddy and “in love,” to the point where you love each other as real people with all your flaws and idiosyncrasies.
If you really like the person you are also head over heels about, the prospects are good. And fortunately, you can improve your chances of success further by focusing on your own personal development, purposeful living, and willingness to work on building a healthy relationship built on mutual respect and affection.
And to end on one final bit of advice for those who are currently caught up in romantic delirium: watch out for dodgy limerent objects. They’re bad news…
I’m not clear about the difference between being “infatuated” and being “in love.” I understand “infatuation,” and think it can sometimes die a really hard, fast death after a few months if you date the person and end up not liking him or her. And I understand “love,” — intimacy, knowledge, understanding, support. But is “in love” the transition between “infatuation” and “love”? Isn’t being “in love” still being high on the neurochemicals, which die down over a couple of years?
Me too! Infatuation, “In Love” and Limerence are all very similar experiences to me, all with the same neurochemically driven nature.
I think DrL is saying you call it Infatuation where your feelings are for someone you are not close too, and is more about idealised fantasy, and it is “In Love” if you have a closer connection to the object of your passion, and Limerence when your infatuation has changed up several gears into full-on obsession.
But what is it called when you are limerent for someone you know, have a real connection with and is not an idealised fantasy?
Allie,
But being “in love” is temporary, too, is it not? It’s still a heady mix of chemicals ? I remember dating one LO who I was definitely strongly infatuated/limerent for, but after about 4 months, almost all my feelings died. I just looked at him one day and noticed the “shazam” was gone. It was like hanging out with any other friend. So, does that mean I didn’t fall “in love” with him, as that would be deeper and longer lasting and take more time to get over ? I know I didn’t “love” him as I would as close friend or family member.
“But what is it called when you are limerent for someone you know, have a real connection with and is not an idealised fantasy?”
Someone you should make a pass at. (Sorry. I’m feeling “cheeky” today.)
Agree with all of the above (especially the last part ;-).
Sometimes that early “in love” crashes and burns after spending time with them, and only if you are lucky does it slowly transitions into real “love”.
An analogy that I find helpful is that infatuation/limerence is the flower, and love is the fruit. They are two stages of the same process, but you can have flowers that never get fertilised and turn into fruit.
The metaphor breaks down a bit, in that you can’t really get fruit without a flower.
Except strawberries.
I’m sure that’s really helped clarify things…
But what is being “in love,” then? People seem to not deride the description “in love” the way though they do “infatuation,” as if infatuation is for teenagers. But when people say, “I love you, but I’m not ‘in love’ with you,” doesn’t that mean the neurochemicals are no longer there or the chemicals were never there? But love can develop without being in love.
I think you are answering a different question – we are wondering about “In Love” not “Love”. Two very different things. But annoyingly named the same!
I think different people ascribe a different meaning to “In Love”. For me, it is the early phase of a relationship when you are “head over heels”. But I think some people use “In Love” to describe all romantic/sexual love, hence the phrase used by married couples “I love you but I am not In Love with you”. That phrase has never made any sense to me because of my personal definition of “In Love” – it happens at the start so why expect it a decade or more later.
Oh Lord,
‘I love you, but I’m not IN love with you…’
Etc. Etc. I’ve had variations of this conversation both delivering and receiving.
I don’t think I’ve ever known what it means.
A polite way of telling someone they are important to you but you don’t want to shag them maybe?
That is exactly what I took it to mean. I love you but I ‘m not burning for you. But then the “burning” feeling is expected to fade. So it’s not necessarily an insult, just a fact of life.
Yeah, I think the “in love” mindset for a limerent is the euphoria phase early on. You are totally besotted with them, and they make you all buoyant and giddy. I think it can also last into a period of more stable mood, but when you’re still completely obsessed. That kind of fades into a more affectionate bonding (if you are lucky), but then the next bout of limerence reminds you of just how crazy high you feel in the “in love” period.
That said, I strongly suspect that most non-limerents get the same boost of new relationship energy when they are “in love” in the early stages of romance. It just doesn’t escalate to total mental capture for them.
“That said, I strongly suspect that most non-limerents get the same boost of new relationship energy when they are “in love” in the early stages of romance. It just doesn’t escalate to total mental capture for them.”
Then what’s the point, asks the die-hard limerent? 🙂
“Then what’s the point, asks the die-hard limerent? 🙂”
@Marcia. I think the point is renewal of the species. Basically, the limerent mates with somebody they think they’ve chosen, but they haven’t really chosen, because Mother Nature has meddled in the selection process by clouding the limerent’s better judgement. (Mother Nature tricks us into preferring “interesting mates” to “predictable mates”. The unpredictable option awakens desire).
I think this is Mother Nature’s way of “mixing up the gene pool” and it’s too bad if limerents aren’t thrilled with the final outcome. It’s all about making sure human babies have genetic diversity. It’s not about the long-term happiness of individual lovers. 😛
Mother Nature wants us to pass on our genes with someone who’s similar to us but also dissimilar to us. In her eyes, we are just vehicles for our genes. The ultimate purpose of various evolutionary processes might be to bring together fertile young men and fertile young women in a more random way.
For example, maybe Mother Nature ideally wants a few healthy young men from a given tribe to leave their tribe of origin and go mate with healthy young women from a different tribe? Maybe limerence gives those young men the energy to get up off their backsides and go looking for those intriguing females? Maybe limerence also inspires certain females to be receptive to advances from exotic-seeming males while scorning familiar men? 😛
The “total mental capture” is probably Mother Nature’s way of luring us into staying with a partner who’s basically incompatible but otherwise has desirable genes – desirable genes for our mutual offspring, that is. We’re sedated into non-resistance (to sex and to emotional bonding) by a heady brew of chemicals designed to promote bonding. All rational thought flies out the window. Mother Nature wants us to reproduce first, and think about it later. Actually, I don’t think Mother Nature wants us to think about it at all.
That’s the cynical explanation, anyway. An alternative and less bitter explanation? “Total mental capture” is a very effective way for Mother Nature to convince people to invest heavily in their romantic relationships, which is hugely beneficial to any prospective progeny. What if obsession encourages people to pour more resources into their families and, by extension, build stronger communities?
Best-case scenario: we become infatuated with someone we also learn to love deeply in time, someone we can share a life with, someone with good values and morals. We don’t just need to make babies. We also need someone to stick around and help us care for those babies… What if limerent genes facilitate all kinds of social bonds? The occasional, uncomfortable obsession is just the price we have to pay as mammals for our “genius for bonding”!! 🙂
“I love you but I’m not in love with you” is an excuse people use for not loving, or being in-love with someone. It is usually implied when the person phrasing it is ending a relationship.
It is more or less a person saying they don’t want to work at a relationship because they are not excited (in love) nor love the person. Rather, they care for the person.
You can care for your vegetable garden, but that doesn’t mean you love or are excited (in love) with that vegetable garden. If it serves you no purpose anymore, or the veggies become tainted… they are no use.
You can be infatuated (in love) but that doesn’t always lead to genuine love. If you genuine love someone, it means you will do anything for them. You have to genuinely love yourself in order to genuinely love someone else.
Song of the Day: “Could It Be Love” – Jennifer Warnes (1981)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqWHXACnjgY
Great song.
Worst. Album. Cover. Photo. Ever.
Song of the Day #2: “I Want To Know What Love Is” – Foreigner (1984)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jC93d_xoEY
I never was all that much of a Foreigner fan.
“I’m not clear about the difference between being “infatuated” and being “in love.””
Okay, Marcia. I’m going to have a go at your question and see what ideas I can come up with. 😛
From what I’ve been able to gather, a crush is a short-lived fondness for another person. Key word: short-lived. One probably doesn’t know one’s crush very well or see them realistically. One can have a crush on a classmate, a teacher, a celebrity, or a stranger.
An infatuation, like a crush, is short-lived. There is also the implication of immaturity. One doesn’t know one’s love object too well. This love is “fatuous” (foolish) in some ways. Best left to teenagers, etc. But I think one would have more involvement with an infatuation than a crush i.e. you’re actually spoken to this person. They are not a complete stranger. They’re part of your social circle. They may not like you very much, but at least they know you exist.
Limerence probably starts out feeling like the most awesome crush/infatuation ever – until it doesn’t. Fantasy still plays a big role. One doesn’t see LO realistically during the lifespan of the limerent reaction. One may not even know LO very well, though limerence is a motivational drive that will give a person powerful incentives to get to know LO better, although that getting-to-know-you process might be stymied by shyness and other obstacles.
Crushes and infatuations are something you giggle about with your same-sex friends (if you’re heterosexual, like most people). Limerence is some marvellous secret you feel you must guard with all your life – you don’t even want to tell your folks about it, let alone your tactless friends and blabbermouth siblings! Limerence is like precious treasure. For limerence to exist, some interaction with LO must occur, and that interaction must feel really meaningful to you.
How else are you going to feed the fantasy of togetherness without external input? How else are you going to ride the rollercoaster of ecstasy and despair without subtle displays of probable attraction? You’ve become psychological enmeshed with this other person. You’ve become emotionally dependent on them for your mental well-being. Limerence is “sticky”, if I may use a word my sister likes to use. (I think “sticky” here is a synonym for “obsessive”).
At some point, LO must give you some (probably highly ambiguous) sign that they like you and are thinking about you. To fantasise about someone without any external reinforcement is pure delusion, and not the same thing as limerence in my opinion. Limerence requires the fantasy to be believable, grounded in some degree of fact, buttressed by tangible affection. It must be at least theoretically possible LO is doing the things they do because they feel the same way about you as you feel about them.
I think “being in love” may just be fruitful limerence, i.e. LO feels the same way, whereas the limerence we discuss here on the site is mostly fruitless limerence. There could be some societal bias in these definitions too. If you’re a young person and there’s nothing preventing you from having a conventional relationship with your LO (i.e. imminent marriage and babies), then you’re “in love”. If you’re too young to get married and have babies, you’re infatuated. If you like someone way out of your league, you have a crush. If you can’t get over your infatuation after a suitable period of time has elapsed, you’re in limerence and need therapy pronto!! 😛
A few problems arise with these distinctions, of course. Adults, as well as teenagers, experience infatuations – though way less often, I should think. Also, many non-limerents would insist they are/were “in love” with their spouses, despite experiencing no glimmer and no great neurochemical upheaval upon meeting. For a non-limerent, being “in love” might be as simple as performing the courting rituals approved by one’s culture e.g. chocolates, flowers, jewellery, nice trips, movies, hand-holding, all done with the person they’ve bonded with.
When I became obsessed with a straight male all those years ago, in an unguarded moment and hoping to make sense of my emotional turmoil, I told LO’s brother I was “in love” with LO. LO’s brother vehemently disagreed with me. He was disgusted by the notion. He thought I was confused and suggested I “hero-worshipped” his brother instead. Only hero-worship made sense to him.
You see, LO’s brother had no mental schema for the possibility of romantic love existing between two males. LO’s brother could only imagine romantic love occurring between a man and a woman. His mental schema affected the way he interpreted his own relationships and the relationships of the people around him. And I’m not faulting him for that – I’m merely saying that maybe culture as well as biology shapes our definitions of what does or does not constitute “real love”.
I knew instinctively that what I felt for LO was stronger than a crush (or hero-worship, to use his brother’s term). On the other hand, what i felt for LO was more “sticky” and way less pleasant than how “being in love” is meant to feel, according to the movies, etc. There was only one word to describe my yearning for affection from this particular man and this particular man alone – limerence. 🙂
Hi Sammy,
Thank you for your detailed explanation. I would argue that a crush is much, much less intense than infatuation. I wouldn’t put those two in the same category. A crush is something where you blink and you’re over it. It’s fun and you enjoy it, but you can keep it in perspective. It doesn’t disrupt your life. Infatuation feels more intense; moves you more; and limerence is infatuation that has gone terribly wrong (as you pointed out, because it’s not being acted on or moving forward). I just worry that I am either expecting too much from being “in love” or not capable of it. I mentioned the LO who became a serious boyfriend (he wanted to get married). I sweated him for months, becoming limerent. Then we starting dating, and four or so months in … the infatuation was gone. I had feelings for him, but I’m guessing they were due to the bonding hormones released during sex (and they are supposedly stronger for women), but other than that, I didn’t feel the butterflies and the excitement and the longing and the euphoria. Is that supposed to fade in four or five months? And in terms of “love,” I felt closer and more connected to friends than I did him.
“Thank you for your detailed explanation.”
It’s my pleasure, Marcia. And I think there is something to your views:
(1) Infatuation is some kind of intermediate lifeform between a “crush” and “real love”.
(2) Limerence is probably just an infatuation that decided to go rogue on us and mutate!!
Oh, these metaphors from high school biology class are such fun! 😛
Sorry to hear about that promising-but-doomed romance of yours. You know, maybe it IS quite normal for the butterflies and the excitement to disappear in the first few months of seeing someone. (Six months sounds like a nice amount of butterflies). But, hopefully, by the time butterflies disappear, a comfortable and comforting bond has formed in its place. I don’t think one is meant to transition from butterflies into terrible anguish (limerence) or butterflies into indifference.
Your story also raises an interesting question: can relationships only be defined retrospectively? Were you, for example, “in love” with this man while you experienced butterflies, but later, when the relationship came to an end, forced to conclude it was only an “infatuation” because the wonderful feelings didn’t last or evolve? Maybe the thing that was missing between you and this man was emotional intimacy? I.e. if you felt a lot closer to friends than to him?
Maybe you’re not expecting too much from being “in love”. Maybe you just need to train yourself to expect different things from being “in love” as time passes and the relationship develops? See euphoria as the first stage in a multi-stage process and don’t panic as it fades? 😛
I had a six-and-a-half year sexual interaction with a gay man I was limerent for. He’s a non-limerent, so was never limerent for me, or anyone else, as far as I can tell. He was physically attracted to me, though, and that attraction meant he was happy to tolerate my obsession with him for as long as it lasted.
I think the obsession (the desire to be with him constantly) ended at the three-year mark. Butterflies were certainly there in the beginning, but I don’t think I noticed butterflies after the first year. Still, he very much remained on my mind for three whole years. Once, when we hadn’t seen each other in a while, I saw him unexpectedly at the local train station and he smiled at me and I felt butterflies again in that moment. Didn’t take me half by surprise! 😛
This LO was infuriating, by the way, in the sense he could only ever see me as a “good friend”. He was very attentive for the first three months. Then he was often brusque and unavailable. His fickleness got me hooked. I didn’t challenge him about our status or demand more because he was a lot older than me…
Sammy,
“Sorry to hear about that promising-but-doomed romance of yours. ”
No need to apologize. It took me about six months to extricate myself from it after the limerence ended, but I was pretty checked out. It was not a big heartache.
“But, hopefully, by the time butterflies disappear, a comfortable and comforting bond has formed in its place. ”
But after 6 months? Isn’t it supposed to be exciting for 2 or 3 years? Are you already an old married couple after only 6 months?
I think your description of your six-and-a-half year sexual interaction pinpoints why there was still some excitement (or obsession up to the 3-year mark). It wasn’t a relationship. So you still wanted more. I think part of limerence is the craving. One of the big mistakes the LO who became a boyfriend made was acting as an instant boyfriend almost overnight. We never had the early, uncertain days where we’d go out and he’d wait a couple of days before contacting me again. There was no build-up to more communication and togetherness. Instead, he’d want to hang out for days on end, parked in my apartment.
“But after 6 months? Isn’t it supposed to be exciting for 2 or 3 years? Are you already an old married couple after only 6 months?”
@Marcia. I’m just trying to imagine how an ideal relationship (for me) might unfold. I think, at the six-month mark, I start to feel queasy. I stop enjoying the LE. Pleasure gives way to anxiety, etc. 😛
But you’re right – I think humans in general need more than six months to bond effectively with a mate.
Did you start to feel like your “instant boyfriend” was your brother and not your sweetheart, by any chance? Does romance need mystery and build-up and tension? 😛
Sammy,
“Did you start to feel like your “instant boyfriend” was your brother and not your sweetheart, by any chance?”
No, but he felt like a friend I was having sex with. And not necessarily a close friend.
” Does romance need mystery and build-up and tension?”
At least a little. Don’t hand over your whole self immediately! 🙂 To be honest, I had a very close gay male friend at the time, and that friendship felt much more intense than the relationship I had with my LO after the limerence wore off. My friend used to tell me he was in love with me, he just didn’t want to have sex with me. I felt the same way. I was very jealous of everyone else in his life, particularly guys he would hook up with; we were very close; he understood me like no one else; I had the most fun with him; I wanted to spend the most time with him; most people thought we were a couple but had an open relationship.
@Sammy
“For a non-limerent, being “in love” might be as simple as performing the courting rituals approved by one’s culture e.g. chocolates, flowers, jewellery, nice trips, movies, hand-holding, all done with the person they’ve bonded with.”
This was my relationship style with my ex husband during the early days. I now recognise that the relationship was non-limerent from both parties. It was my longest and most stable relationship though we separated for various reasons, which I’m OK with now.
It certainly didn’t come with all the messiness and drama and pathos that my LEs generally involve. Originally I secretly worried that our marriage had been lacking due to the absence of that intensity, but based on the model of limerence I now believe that it was simply a non-limerent pairing. I certainly loved my ex husband, hugely. Just not madly.
Like literally. Not madly.
Thomas,
“I certainly loved my ex husband, hugely”
That is what I was trying to point out — that you can love someone without it starting with limerence or infatuation. And, on the flip side, you can start out with limerence or infatuation and not have it develop into love. I don’t think infatuation is a predictor of much of anything, other than it’s a hell of a ride. 🙂
“… I’d accused them of breaking my heart. Very loudly. In a pub. Which had been… awkward.”
@Thomas. My favourite scenes in soap operas invariably involve one character telling another character “You broke my heart!” in a really bitter voice, while mood music swells in the background. Hope that pub had good mood music. 😛
Also love it when some character says. “There was no us.”
Third favourite line: “I don’t want to be with you.”
If my LOs watched more soap operas, we’d have no misunderstandings at all! They’re say the right thing right on cue, and I’d stare dramatically into the camera lens, lashes wet, lower lip awobble, and whip out my handkerchief. 😛
“… I’d accused them of breaking my heart. Very loudly. In a pub. Which had been… awkward.”
@Thomas. My favourite scenes in soap operas invariably involve one character telling another character “You broke my heart!” in a really bitter voice, while mood music swells in the background. Hope that pub had good mood music. 😛
Also love it when some character says. “There was no us.”
Third favourite line: “I don’t want to be with you.”
If my LOs watched more soap operas, we’d have no misunderstandings at all! They’re say the right thing right on cue, and I’d stare dramatically into the camera lens, lashes wet, lower lip awobble, and whip out my prop handkerchief. 😛
Sorry about the double post. Now I’m the one who can’t use a computer! 😛
There are almost 7.9 billion people on the planet. How many of them think about something this esoteric? On a percentage basis, probably not all that many. I’d be willing to bet that if you asked them as kids, not a single one of those 7.9 billion people would say they wanted my job when they grew up.
As National Lampoon put it, “Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls would scarcely get your feet wet.” [“Deteriorata,” “Radio Dinner”] I kind of envy those people.
Limerents have a real bad habit of overthinking things. Not all overthinkers are limerents but it seems like all limerents are overthinkers.
“Not all overthinkers are limerents but it seems like all limerents are overthinkers.”
Now that point I must agree with. I have always been told I over-analyze etc…and that ‘deep thinking’ we all seem to share opens up endless black holes to crawl through with our faux paramours by our side (in our imaginations).
A rich inner life.
It’s really fabulous and also really dangerous.
Shields up fellow limerents!
Jadieux,
“A rich inner life.”
Yes! I have that, too. And what I have discovered is that not everyone else does. When I am trying to get to know someone, I always wonder when they are going to pull the curtain back and show me who they really are. But with some people (and some have been LOs), I can’t get past the … this is where I grew up and went to college type of conversations.
“But with some people (and some have been LOs), I can’t get past the … this is where I grew up and went to college type of conversations.”
Maybe they simply weren’t interested in sharing with YOU.
Some people prefer to play it closer to the vest and are more discerning with whom they share deep conversations.
Too many limerents mistakenly believe that they are necessary to enrich others’ lives.
“Maybe they simply weren’t interested in sharing with YOU.”
Possibly, but I think it’s probably more like the great quote by writer Germaine Greer. “There’s no there there.” They really do want to talk about where to buy toilet paper or how to get a COVID shot. These are people I’ve known for years, relatives even. And if you try to go a little deeper, like how isolating the pandemic has been, you’re greeted with silence. They either can’t or don’t’ want to “go there.” I have a work friend who I’ve never met face to face because of the pandemic who I chat with during the day. She shares more with me than these relatives I mentioned.
She finds you less tedious and pretentious and more trustworthy than they do.
I’ll take pretentious over shallow.
Marcia,
Don’t feed it 🙂
I do philosophize too much. I’m willing to share that part of myself with those I feel close to but I’ll open up to others at times. It was maybe the biggest reason I fell for LO.
And the only reason I miss him, honestly.
In the meantime, I dive into podcasts, talk to loved ones and hope to find someone who can meet at my depth/level of BS.
Beth,
“Don’t feed it”
You’re right. I got snarky. I will refrain from that in the future. It’s not productive. 🙂
I can categorically attest that not all limerent’s are overthinkers.. deep thinkers probably, but not always “over” 🙂
I don’t think being limerent defines your personality. There are so many different personalities on this site.
Limerence is like malaria.
Theoretically, anybody can get it and, if left untreated, can recur for decades although the frequency and severity of relapse are said to decrease over time.
Some people can be bitten by an infected mosquito and not develop the disease. Some people can go their entire life being susceptible to the disease but never be exposed to it. Neither gets malaria but there are different reasons for it.
One of the first questions I asked DrL years ago were something along those lines. How many people out there are potential limerents but have never been exposed to the glimmer of a potential LO? How would your life be different if you’d never been exposed to an LO?
But LE,
From my perspective you are not limerent until you have had an LO. I think the LO is a creation of the limerent mind. Even the most desirable LO will be surrounded by people who barely give them a second look. They may be stunningly beautiful by conventional standards, and charismatic enough to get away with murder most of the time, but even though these people might turn heads – that is it. For many limerents our LOs do not even fall into that category.
Until we make it so. I don’t think there is a bank of potential LOs out there… like a bullet with a limerent’s name on. I think there are people who harbour the potential to become limerent and once ‘activated’ will work with whatever is around them.
Looking back on my past LOs many of them ticked one box or another, but none of them would I consider to have unique qualities that could turn a ‘potential’ limerent into an active limerent. I find LOs because I’m looking for them – and I decide who is an LO or not.
They just have to play the game… and it’s usually a fun game for both parties.
At first.
Thomas,
“For many limerents our LOs do not even fall into that category.
Until we make it so. I don’t think there is a bank of potential LOs out there… like a bullet with a limerent’s name on it.”
Exactly. Wrong person at the wrong time. Worst time for me.
Overthinker here. Definitely guilty as charged. Over the past 17 months, I have been guilty of overthinking what I would say to LO #1 if I ever ran into her again and what LO #2’s thoughts and motivations are with respect to me. As I mentioned in my reply to Marcia the other day, I found one piece of advice from the private forum really helpful…Rather than trying to be mind readers and determining what our LO’s really think about us, we should focus on their actions and try to develop our own narrative that explains their behaviour — and stick with that explanation. Otherwise, we will drive ourselves nuts. Overthinking and analysis paralysis are debilitating in many contexts, but especially with respect to our LOs.
“Overthinking and analysis paralysis are debilitating in many contexts, but especially with respect to our LOs.”
I spent so much time trying to figure my last LO out, but now I look back and see that he was being intentionally obtuse. Somebody who truly wants things to move forward is not that hard to figure out.
“Somebody who truly wants things to move forward is not that hard to figure out.”
Yeah. It’s hard enough to get your head around obtuse/flaky. It’s even harder to realize that someone you love is actually working against the relationship and subtly sabotaging it.
After her great confession, I asked LO #2 flat out, “So, I was playing a game I could never win?”
“Pretty much.”
Yet, I still went another round with her 6 months later. Hope dies slowly own but it does eventually die. However, if you ask the right question and they answer honestly, they can kill it off in a single sentence.
Vicarious,
“However, if you ask the right question and they answer honestly, they can kill it off in a single sentence.”
You don’t even need to do that. My last LO flirted with me mercilessly but months went by and he never asked me out. I finally asked him if he wanted to “hang out.” Not my best line but he knew what I meant. He gave a very vague answer — but that was my answer.
@LE,
“However, if you ask the right question and they answer honestly, they can kill it off in a single sentence.”
I think that is really true, and if you’re lucky and their decent it can be a good thing. I have an ex-LO for a friend. My LE for them died really quickly after they arranged to meet and laid out how they were feeling:
-Yes, we’d fooled around.
-They were not available (open relationship).
-We’d established they weren’t available.
– I’d accepted that.
– But (and this was mortifying) they had noticed my behaviour was pushing boundaries we’d agreed.
– also I’d accused them of breaking my heart. Very loudly. In a pub. Which had been… awkward.
They basically said, We weren’t ever going to sleep together again. They valued our friendship. If I could handle that then they wanted that very much. If not they understood.
The conversation was agonising. My limerence withered rapidly.
We’re now on good friendly terms. They’ve been as good as their word. No flirting, no mind games nothing. They spotted the LE situation (I doubt they’d see it as that of course) and handled it brilliantly in retrospect.
So yeah. An LO can kill an LE. If they really want to, I think.
Vicarious,
I am not defending your LO, but when I had guy friends I hung out with one -one-one (some married, some dating other women) I was aware they probably found me appealing enough to hook up if I was open to that, but I never thought any of them had strong romantic feelings for me. So it didn’t feel like I was taking advantage of them, and they did come on to me (usually indirectly, with sexual comments or vaguely worded statements) but there was no big declaration or disclosure. It just kind of felt like a toss-out comment that I could pick up or leave alone. She may be thinking that’s how you feel about her.
@ Marcia, I can accept that. She knows I’m attracted to her (I even told her that once). However, I doubt she realizes I’m crazy about her. Despite my deep marital problems, she knows I’m married and I’m not making any moves to leave my wife — at least not yet. She also knows I would never cheat on my wife (I told her as much). Even if she totally has the hots for me (which I’m sure she doesn’t — I’m not so vain to think such things), she knows we cannot be together — at least not for the foreseeable future. I am pretty sure she just enjoyed the flirting and the attention, but even if she did like me a lot, I could see her behaviour being a manifestation of her frustration with what she sees as MY hot and cold behaviour and my dithering in terms of whether I stay with my wife or not. I doubt that very much, but who knows? It was very funny how her flirting stopped as soon as I made one comment about another woman being hot and I could literally see a jealous look on her face. Just after that, she started dating and meeting a lot of men (and telling me some of the gory details, and how she loves men with long hair (I’m bald)). I am 99% sure this isn’t the case, but her behaviour could even be explained by her thinking, “Well f**k you. I’ll show you, asshole.” But I’ll never know, and I believe the truth is some combination of my narrative about the situation and your thoughts and observations of how some people behave towards and flirt with others they know are attracted to them.
Vicarious,
If I can be frank with you, rather than try to figure her out, I think what you have to focus on is the fact that this friendship seems to be causing you a lot of pain. I have been NC for about 15 months, and the limerence has lessened considerably. Don’t get me wrong. If he showed up at my door right now, I’d need a oxygen tank :), but being completely cut off from him and reading this site have really helped.
@ Marcia, I agree. This friendship has been causing me issues, and that’s why I commented on the post about friendship and how we cannot be an authentic friend to an LO (I basically agreed with the premise of the post). I have also mentioned a strategy that has been helping me in my recovery (i.e., settling on a narrative that explains her behavour — one that doesn’t have me thinking she is limerent for me or some ridiculous nonsense like that). I haven’t seen her in a month (we are in lockdown) and I have not contacted her at all. I also unfollowed her on Facebook for a while there. I am not saying I will never see her again (because there goes my social life if I do that), but I am not chasing after her or stroking her ego anymore. I think I have actually been approaching this from the perspective of recovery. I need to figure out if my marriage is capable of being saved, and if not there are plenty other fish in the sea.
Vicarious,
“…settling on a narrative that explains her behavior.”
You’ll never be able to explain her behavior, and personally, I think trying to figure it out causes rumination.
“I haven’t seen her in a month (we are in lockdown) and I have not contacted her at all. I also unfollowed her on Facebook for a while”
Unfollow her again. Don’t look at her Facebook or other social media. Don’t call, text or email, either initiating or responding.
” I am not saying I will never see her again (because there goes my social life if I do that)”
Does she go to all the social events of the friend group? I’d ask ahead of time if she will be there with a member of the group you can trust to keep his/her mouth shut, and I wouldn’t go if she was planning to attend. (Asking about her is just to see if she plans to attend. It is not to check in to see what she is up to.) I looked at NC as: This person is dead to me. Sounds cold, but when I thought about it logically, he wasn’t all broken up over me. He just moved on to the next person to flirt with. Or is it possible to meet up with a few of the friends in the group w/o her being invited or included?
Vicarious,
I’m sorry if that sounded bossy. I’m on a new GIRRRRRRL Power, no LO is going to mess with me kick. 🙂
It’s tough. There is a core group of three of us (LO #2 and a male friend) and a few others who are sort of peripheral. LO #2 and my male friend are super close. She told me she isn’t into him at all, but I know he still carries a torch for her. In a way, we are both competing for her, but we both know neither one of us stands a chance with her either. It’s a very weird dynamic where we compete for her affection yet commiserate with each other at the same time. The thing is I have no wish to compete any more. I have stopped kissing her ass and have even begun to be mildly disparaging of her (in a joking way) — something I really don’t think she liked. I trust him in some ways, and we have confided in each other, but he is far closer to her than I am. I am not 100% sure he wouldn’t tell her what’s going on. My male friend and I did once go out one-on-one and I enjoyed it, but he prefers that she tags along for sure (even if he is dating someone else). I could try to go out only when she isn’t going out, but that probably wouldn’t work too well. I know I need to meet some new friends, but I’m not planning on ditching these people altogether. In any case, lower contact and no more fawning over her will be an improvement. Already, I am not feeling the same depths of feelings for her that I used to.
Vicarious,
“In a way, we are both competing for her, but we both know neither one of us stands a chance with her either. It’s a very weird dynamic where we compete for her affection yet commiserate with each other at the same time. ”
That sounds very unhealthy.
“I know I need to meet some new friends”
It is possible. I’m an introvert but have gone to meetup events where I knew no one. It wasn’t easy but there are a lot of people in the world looking to interact and make friends.
” In any case, lower contact and no more fawning over her will be an improvement. ”
Well, I did that with my LO. They moved me into another department where instead of seeing him every day, it was every so often. I thought I’d be better and get over it. But just knowing he was on campus … I sat there like a spider waiting for him to show up.
The other thing I wanted to comment on is settling on a narrative that explains LO’s behaviour. I have to respectfully disagree. Settling on a story and sticking to it is one of the best ways to dramatically reduce rumination. We can never know our LO’s true thoughts, beliefs and motivations, but if we examine the evidence and are brutally honest with ourselves, we can settle on an explanation that we can live with moving forward. Sure, it is possible to come up with other scenarios, but I think my explanation makes the most sense. My basic belief is she liked me as a friend, and there possibly even was some attraction at one point, despite me not being her type. She enjoyed the attention and she liked that I was responsive to her flirtation. But I’m not her type, and I’m married, so she moved on pretty quickly and friend zoned me. And I have to learn to live with that — something I am being more and more comfortable as time goes on.
Vicarious,
Ok. I will respectfully disagree. I just don’t think it matters what an LO said, did, implied, possibly felt, etc. When I think about my LO, the only narrative I now need is that he couldn’t show up in my life in the way I wanted and needed him to. End of story.
Vicarious & Marcia,
(Butting in, sorry!) I think on the last point you can both be right. I’ve settled on a narrative re my LO. I’ve also decided that it doesn’t matter why he acted in that way or did what I assume he did.
For me, the narrative did help settle the rumination. The deciding that it also didn’t matter has helped with NC.
You seem to have a very coldly assertive approach Marcia, which sounds very useful! But I needed to ‘rationalise’ what happened on the route to putting it aside.
Good luck VL. But I think Marcia us right about the NC…
Thanks Thomas. I certainly will keep that in mind. I may yet have to go full no contact with this woman, but I am reluctant to lose the only group of friends who actually wants to do things with me, and are local to boot. I spent many years alone on the weekends while my wife worked. Still, I know there have to be other people locally who want to meet new people and hang out (I have tried Meetup groups like Marcia suggests, with quite a bit of success). The other thing I should mention is I am still not 100% sure I am fully limerent for LO #2. The depth of the feelings, the obsession, the rumination and the feeling of pining away were never as severe as they were with LO #1 (possibly because she was basically a stranger and LO #2 is a friend). I am kind of in a period of no contact right now with the lockdown anyway. Once this is over, I will re-evaluate the situation and see where I go from there. But LO #2 and my male friend kind of hurt me a few weeks ago (I am not going to go into the details, although I did on the private forum), and I am determined not to kiss either of their asses or beg them to spend time with me. I am no longer willing to be anyone’s doormat. Having a wider circle of friends will help.
Thomas,
“You seem to have a very coldly assertive approach Marcia, which sounds very useful!”
It took me years to get there! 🙂 But I think you have to take that approach. I was reading a comment on the “Four Phases of No Contact” post and a woman had asked her LO to help her go NC. And of course he didn’t want to. He wanted the attention, even though he was pursuing another woman. And Dr. L chimed in: THe LO is not your ally.
“I just don’t think it matters what an LO said, did, implied, possibly felt, etc. When I think about my LO, the only narrative I now need is that he couldn’t show up in my life in the way I wanted and needed him to. End of story.”
@Marcia. Well, according to what I’ve read, you’re taking the right approach to recovery, which is to stop dwelling on LO in any way, stop analysing behaviour, etc, etc. May I declare myself a big fan of “bossy-sounding Marcia” as well as every other incarnation of Marcia? Have enjoyed your recent commentary greatly. 🙂
“So yeah. An LO can kill an LE. If they really want to, I think.”
@Thomas. I’ll say yes and no on this one. 😛
Our limerent brains really don’t want to believe in rejection, even when it’s fairly clear. In other words, an LO who wants to do the right thing might have to tell us “no” more than once. It’s not easy repeatedly setting boundaries with someone who is (a) supposed to be a good friend in the first place and (b) possess standard empathy.
An LO in this situation will probably feel they are the limerent’s parent and not the limerent’s peer. The LO might feel that the limerent is the one who is overwhelmingly in the wrong, for breaching the sacred bond of trust that is friendship and introducing an unpleasant element of sexual tension into the mix. The LO may not have knowingly encouraged romantic sentiments and be horrified to discover they are on the receiving end of passion.
If an LO is someone who isn’t naturally assertive and not used to standing up for himself, or if it’s a situation where being assertive is intimidating, such as saying no to an older person, nipping limerence in the bud is even harder to pull off gracefully…
I was limerent at one time for a mild-mannered, slightly younger man. He was straight, or possibly bisexual. He idolised me, told me I was beautiful, blah, blah, blah, but only wanted friendship at the end of the day. His solution to my limerence was to friendzone me. He started referring to me as “chum” and “matey” in letters, when previously he had called me nothing at all. His subtle rejection didn’t work, as my lovesick brain kept misinterpreting his friendly overtures as evidence of reciprocation. This LO also admitted to me he often “beat around the bush” and struggled to be direct with people. He told me that the other males at uni assumed he was gay.
I experienced so much pain every time I interacted with him that eventually I just had to avoid him completely. I embarrassed myself and he lost a good friend. I think he was very fond of me in a purely platonic way. He just didn’t know how to communicate his lack of romantic interest. He wanted the friendship but not the romance.
An LO can kill an LE – but only if the limerent has a certain level of emotional maturity and is ready to listen to reason. 😛
Sammy,
” May I declare myself a big fan of “bossy-sounding Marcia” as well as every other incarnation of Marcia? Have enjoyed your recent commentary greatly.”
That is very sweet. Thank you. You have no idea how long and how many attempts it’s taken to get here. Recently, I heard of an opening at my former company, where LO is. And yes, even now, there was a minute or two of exhilaration … I could go back … I should go back …. I’ll apply for that job … And then, of course, I had to punch myself in the face. 🙂 Because to go back, to quote the great Tennessee Williams, is to return to the Tarantula Arms!
😀
Bad limerent brain! *SMACK*
“So yeah. An LO can kill an LE. If they really want to, I think.”
@Thomas @Sammy
I agree with this. For me a clear rejection is like a bucket of icy cold water all over the hope fuelling my limerent fire. I grieve deeply for a few weeks and my limerence shrinks quickly. All that is usually left is a straightforward non-obsessive fondness if they rejected me clearly but nicely. Its just a shame most LOs struggle to give anyone an unambiguous rejection – from my LOs it has been mostly because they don’t want to hurt me.
“Its just a shame most LOs struggle to give anyone an unambiguous rejection – from my LOs it has been mostly because they don’t want to hurt me.”
That’s a good insight, Allie. Thank you. 🙂
I remember exactly where I was when it struck me that I needed to stop running and risk letting someone into my life.
I found a lot of attractive, intelligent, charming and self-sufficient women out there. When I really thought about it, I needed three things from that woman.
I needed her to:
Love me
Trust me
Want to be with me
LO #2 said she loved me. I think she meant it when she said it. I know she didn’t trust me. She told me that she was “…afraid that one day you’d wake up and not want to be with me. If I gave myself to you and you left, I’d be devastated.” She obviously didn’t want to be with me since she moved across the country after declining my marriage proposal. Every time LO #2 had a choice that would bring us closer together or keep us apart, she chose the latter.
With my wife, it was clear that she did all of them. Never a doubt of any of them.
For me, it came down to:
Is this the person I want to come home to at night?
Is this the person I want to wake up next to in the morning?
Is this the person I want to grow old with?
I knew that LO #2 wasn’t that person when I asked her to marry me. I naively thought by asking her to marry me, she’d finally trust me and she’d become that person. I know better now.
I had a month between LO #2 warning me of her being in town and when she showed up. Because of our history I added a few criteria to my list. There were now 6 things I needed to hear from LO #2:
1. I’ve moved back for good.
2. I’m sorry for the crap I put you through.
3. I love you.
4. I trust you.
5. I want to be with you.
5. I’ll do whatever it takes (e.g., couples counselling) to make it work.
In the 3 months LO#2 was in town, I never heard a single one. I did get, “You should find some sweet thing who adores you and not waste your time with a crusty old broad like me,” and “If I sleep with you now, you’ll own me again,” 5 minutes after she learned I was dating my wife.
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0535/6917/products/persistencedemotivator.jpeg?v=1403276080
There is none of this with my wife. We have problems but there’s no doubt we belong together and will work on the problems. It’s like why bust your ass trying to convince someone to love you who can’t or won’t when there’s someone who does love you right in front of you? It makes no sense.
*shrug emoji*
My LO wasn’t far off the mark when they laughed at me and said I had no idea what love is.
By which they meant: “You have no idea what love is to me”
It’s like quantum physics. Anyone who claims they understand love proves they don’t.
I agree with Dr L,
…and that sounds like quite an unkind thing to say to somebody with a laugh attached.
Best off out of that I think, Mehg.
“From my perspective you are not limerent until you have had an LO. I think the LO is a creation of the limerent mind. Even the most desirable LO will be surrounded by people who barely give them a second look. They may be stunningly beautiful by conventional standards, and charismatic enough to get away with murder most of the time, but even though these people might turn heads – that is it. For many limerents our LOs do not even fall into that category.
Until we make it so. I don’t think there is a bank of potential LOs out there… like a bullet with a limerent’s name on. I think there are people who harbour the potential to become limerent and once ‘activated’ will work with whatever is around them.”
@Thomas. You have some interesting ideas here…
I feel that what you’re saying is there isn’t some special pool of LOs out there waiting to be found, like a flock of rare parrots. Rather, LOs become LOs because of some strange alchemy performed by and/or in the mind of the limerent. That limerent, as Dorothy Tennov herself suggests, must be in a state of “limerent readiness” for this alchemy to occur. It’s the romantic/sexual imagination of the limerent that turns LO into LO.
In other words, a would-be limerent goes walking in the park, sees a duck or a pigeon or some other bird very common in his part of the world, and goes home. In ecstatic terms, he exclaims to his roommate: “Guess what? Today in the park I saw a peacock, an ostrich, a bird of paradise! I am the luckiest man alive!”
Is limerence just mistaking a duck or a pigeon for a bird of paradise? Because, you know, birds of paradise really do exist. What if a magnificent peacock escaped from the local zoo that very day? 😛
I wouldn’t have believed your premise myself until a recent experience with a friend. This friend is beautiful, period. I had a slight crush on him – nothing too serious. But I assumed everyone who meets him must think he’s amazing…
Then, one day, he came by and sat next to me and we had a little conversation and I realised I have no feelings for him … other than friendship. My friend didn’t change. He’s still drop-dead gorgeous. He still turns heads. I’m the one who’s changed. I’m no longer in the mood to romanticise him. I still like him, for sure. But to me he’s a regular guy with good genes. The “otherworldly mental connection” thingy just wasn’t happening on that particular day and with that particular person, despite the fact I’ve felt quite drawn to him in the past.
I also agree with Limerent Emeritus, however. I think people who may have spent decades being non-limerent might become limerent for someone out of the blue. Does that mean that person (let’s say it’s a woman this time round) was always a latent limerent? Or did she just bump into a real peacock? Has her limerent archetype been cleverly evading her her whole life? Could she have died without ever discovering she harboured within herself the potential to become limerent?
I think one could argue the case both ways. Fascinating, no?
I’d like to answer Limerent Emeritus’ question: “How would your life be different if you’d never been exposed to an LO?” Well, I think I would have simply followed my culture’s recommendations regarding relationships. I probably would have done what everyone else seemed to be doing. And I don’t think I would think too much about what I was doing. I’d be happier maybe, but I’d have less insight. 😛
Barriers meant that LO and I could not consummate our extreme attraction to each other when we first met. We both finally “got over” the other and moved on with our lives, but remained friends … to the point we are possibly besties. I don’t idealize LO, I see the faults, the weaknesses, the less than stellar qualities – but I accept it all. If you see the real person, still love them, find them attractive but are no longer obsessively longing for them … is that some species of love?
I‘d say yes, it could be some species of love, especially if the situation is stable now for some years?
If you have a SO of course it’s important that he/she is Nr 1 in your feelings, but if you feel otherwise good and safe and loved/loving in your friendship, then it’s a beautiful thing, no?
The only thing that might happen is that this kind of love could tip over into limerence again in a special situation- like when one of you has some sort of crisis or harder times with your SOs, or another crisis of some sorts (midlife, job), or if you find yourself cooped together on holiday or traveling for work…
In the article above it sounds as if infatuation is only possible because one doesn’t know the weaknesses and faults of the other person. But I can tell you that my last limerence was for my friend of 10 years and I know his weaknesses well enough. They suddenly didn’t seem to matter.
Only you can know if it‘s pure friendship or if there‘s some titillating tension involved, if there are still „untested possibilities“ that hang in the air. In an unlucky situation they could suddenly raise their head, especially because you wrote of „extreme attraction“…
Just be honest with yourself and then just be awake and aware of what’s happening, and it could all go well.