That’s the title of this interesting TedX talk:
I have some issues with the neuroscience, but the speaker (Dessa) is great, and it’s a story that will resonate with a lot of limerents.
The technique she used to reprogram herself is not something I’d heard of before. It seems to work by giving an auditory reward (pleasant harp song) when the brain is in a stable emotional state. To be honest, it seems like a bit of a gimmicky form of meditation.
Also, the caudate does loads of things – it’s not really a “love centre”.
But, I’m being a grouch. I really enjoyed the talk, and hope you do too.
It makes “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind seem less far fetched.
I can see it now. People can have albums of brain scans!
“This is my brain on my HS girlfriend. This is brain on my borderline ex. This is my brain on my wife…”
Taken to the extreme, theoretically, you can use it prophylactly.
“Sorry, doll. You know that Monkee’s song, ‘The Girl That I Knew Somewhere?’ It turns out I do know. The brain scan proves it.”
I really enjoyed this TED talk!
Dessa is eloquent and funny, and she looks so strong and muscular and is in a band, and yet she suffered the same “systemic” (as she calls it) conundrum all of us limerents face. It reminds me that you can’t tell a limerent from their exterior.
I think I will get now out my kalimba and reward myself for my tenuous stable emotional state. 🙂
Brilliant mental image of Jaideux at peace, strumming her kalimba…
I hope that we can choose to fall out of love. A few months ago, after 8 months of struggling in a failing way with my limerence, I more or less made the decision to give in to it; in essence doubling down, letting LO fully into my life, more contact, more meetings, more involvement in my business. The end, which appears to be now, was predictable – knew before I even started. As I read here before, I knew that I would always want more than she would give – a lot more.
So, without anything in hand after 2 months, I now pretty much cannt take it anymore. I cannot say that it was not exhilerating (sp?) at time – it certainly was. But now I am back to the same point as I always have been; the pain of the LE far outweighs the positives, which are very fleeting moments of happiness and dopamine hits, but in the end pure fantasy.
Again, I am left without strategy or defences. LO and I are probably going to take a mutually agreed break from one another. It will be one year of this torment next week. I sort of feel it is an important mark. LO has been in my life with huge amount of texting, frequent meetings, etc and I have gone back on so many promises to myself that my will-power seems a joke.
Some days the weight of dealing with this approaches unbearable. I know I need to try purposeful living and NC…just seems do daunting after all the capitulations. A year is a long time to pursue someone who never showed even slightest romantic interest.
Sorry to hear that Steve. Take heart in that many of us slide back to the bottom of the limerence pit a few times before we successfully fight out way out of it. I have slid up and down a few times and have now setup camp, hanging precariously half way up the pit wall. I have just become too comfy there to climb any further for now.
Maybe set yourself some smaller less daunting goals this time, rather than complete NC. E.g. A limit on number of texts/messages per day, or no messaging after 8pm, etc.
Wishing you well.
Allie, how long has your LE been and are you still in contact with LO. Yes, setting smaller goals seems like a good path. Every time I resolve to block her from my life, I lose resolve quickly.
Steve, this has been my problem exactly for the last year and a half, and I know exactly how you feel about the unbearable weight…I’m managing to coast on autopilot, but this can’t go on forever…..I’ve been away from this site for a while; I resolved to give in to LE, and just try to enjoy the very limited contact of LO on social media….but, of course it isn’t working….there are a few highs, when I actually get a reply to my message, but also much despair when my message is ignored…so right now, I am back to the beginning….and must try one more time to take baby steps toward the end goal of no contact….
Hi Steve
Don’t beat yourself up too much, possibly consider doing a Daily diary of your actions, thoughts etc. Start small with the goals and purposeful living as previously mentioned and Give it 3 months and you will see some improvements
I have been doing my diary now for 21 months, when I do an entry I make a point of looking back one year and I’m always in a better place. It’s long and tough but don’t give in and as long as you are progressing in the right direction then that’s the main thing
All the best
Read a great article that loosely ties in with this….
https://psychcentral.com/blog/is-falling-in-love-a-choice/#:~:text=It%20is%20also%20true%2C%20however,it%20is%20an%20unconscious%20one.
If you choose to fall in love, then surely you can choose to fall out of it again!
Very interesting.
I’m not sure she consciously chose to fall out of love, when you think about it.
Long time, no speak, folks. Yeah, an interesting TedTalk you posted Dr. L. Going from my own experiences of losing limerence, one of the best methods is either outright rejection (albeit without revealing it) or focussing on a negative trait of said LO.
In the past few weeks, with LO4, one of the things that’s helped me deal with my limerence for them is that I allowed myself to objectively view them, and I won’t say what it was, but there was something they did recently which I witnessed and it really opened my eyes as to question why I was allowing myself to be consumed by these obsessive thoughts when in reality, it was all in my head.
Yes, their distance has helped, but like with LO3’s rejection or seeing LO1 in a relationship, that moment for LO4 opened my eyes truly to my limerence, and ever since, not only have I been able to not think about them for days at a time, they’ve since visited and it hasn’t bothered me in the slightest that we didn’t meet up. I’ve also accepted the nature of our friendship too, one that we speak every so often, but nothing more than that.
Has anyone else experienced anything like that … an almost reverse glimmer or a moment of realization that, yes, it’s crazy to feel this way for this particular person and it’s like having a bucket of ice thrown over your head and wakes you up?
Hey, LG. Good to hear from you.
Good question too. I guess there is a sort of reverse-glimmer (shadow glimmer?), in the sense that there comes a time when you realise your LO no longer stimulates the limerent rush in you – that they have become “normal”.
For me though, that was always a grindingly slow process, and I also feel pretty confident that it wouldn’t take much to re-kindle that glimmer (if, for example, I indulged the rumination or flirtation urge again).
Some others report an off switch, though – an event or experience with LO that literally turns off the glimmer. So mileage varies…
LG,
“I guess there is a sort of reverse-glimmer (shadow glimmer?), in the sense that there comes a time when you realise your LO no longer stimulates the limerent rush in you – that they have become “normal”.
That only happened with me once, when the LO became a boyfriend, and I looked at him one day and realized the rush was gone. But with my other LOs, who either kept things casual so that I still had a longing for more or where nothing happened, the glimmer never went away. It diminished over time, but there was still a flicker. It didn’t go away until … I met another LO. 🙂
Hi Dr. L, I realize it has been a long time since I last posted, and sufficed to say, I am in a better place now limerence-wise, than when I last posted! 🙂
I agree, it is an agonizingly slow process to reach the point where you have that moment of seeing them for who they are, not what your limerent brain is desperate to see them as, (such as was the case, I never had such a thing with LO2), but it has happened for 3 of my 4 LEs.
As you say, it likely varies between person and person. On every occasion with me, my limerence was fading, but still burned with an intensity that meant a flare-up was highly likely; after those incidents, the limerence mostly burned out, and I no longer obsessively thought about them. I can’t say if the limerence needs to be fading, or the limerent needs to be in the mindset that they want to be rid of it, for the eyes-opening epiphany to take place, but once it happens, it can really help to purge the limerence from your system.
There always remains the risk that the limerence could come back, however. Speaking from experience, the only limerence I truly moved on from was with LO1, and while I may have experienced 2 more LEs while remaining in close proximity to them with other people, I didn’t feel any tendency to potentially relapse, even after the relationship that was my LE wake up call, had ended.
It’s certainly a different perspective on limerence, and I am glad I am not the only one who has experienced this.
LG – Very interesting question. No, for me it was not a single moment’s realisation, it’s more like I worked methodically at it. But it was the same thing with like, reversing things and waking up from the unreal, delusional bubble. 🙂 But yeah, methodical working at it, and it took me 3 years of NC before I was able to do it. So I do think it’s not necessarily a quick thing and actually, the longer your original limerence lasted, the longer it will take to reverse it too, I don’t know how long yours was originally. Viewing things objectively btw is exactly what it is about, but if you are deep in the limerence bubble then you are going to take time IMO to dig you out of it, you can only add one dose of objectively viewing it at a time, and then another dose… Unless you are like, lucky maybe, and able to target the core of the limerent beliefs or something. I still think though that you need emotional and/or mental preparation to be able to target that core. That is how it was for me too besides having to take a long time with it due to the original “LE” taking up a long time too
One last thing…..Where I say yes you do need the objective view to fall out of the limerence… I think you also do need the emotions too before you can have the objective view. I mean maybe this sounds weird… Surely everyone who’s fallen into the grip of limerence has the emotions so all you need is just the objectivity, yeah? But with me, some of the emotions were highly unsafe until I could distance myself with long enough NC. I repressed some of them very much for a long time. That is what I meant by the emotional part of “enough preparation” too. There is ofcourse a mental part of it too and I did need that too. But yeah what I believe is that you do have to face and feel all your emotions too – both positive and negative emotions & feelings – to be able to build up and apply that objective view that will then fix things eventually. Or put in another way… You have to face all your emotions, feelings and all the beliefs and thoughts motivated by the emotions, feelings before you can fix the un-objective beliefs objectively. Hope this made sense.
LG. Oh how I wish that I could initiate some kind of reverse glimmer….I’ve tried to find faults with LO, but I just can’t seem to find any…why does he have to be so darned perfect….and as I mentioned in other posts, he would be a perfect grandson, if it wasn’t for this Limerence…..yes, he’s engaged, 74 years my junior, yes he’s on the other side of the world, and yes, he answers my messages only once in a while, as a courtesy, I’m sure….ridiculous, isn’t it….but there it is…I’m addicted to this young man….reverse glimmer where are you…..it seems as he has become my sole purpose in life, and I can’t find anything of note to replace him with….yikes, will it ever end….
“Every time I resolve to block her from my life, I lose resolve quickly.”
Totally agree. This is where I am now. It sucks.
“I guess there is a sort of reverse-glimmer (shadow glimmer?), in the sense that there comes a time when you realise your LO no longer stimulates the limerent rush in you – that they have become “normal”.”
Yes! This happened to me and it was great! We were at a small gathering and I just finally really saw her. Just a person and not at all what I’d built up in my head. And then, stupidly, I let her back in and apparently the embers were still there. I don’t feel right back where I started, I just really wish I could get the backbone to block her once and for all. One thing she seems to do is get in touch just about the time I start feeling better. very annoying. She will bombard me with messages until I respond. We’ll have a surprisingly intimate conversation, like actual friends would have and then poof she’s gone for another month or so. I know one element of this is that were she anyone else, none of this would hit hard. I have plenty of friends that I intermittently talk to, we all do probably, it’s just never enough from her.
One small win is that she’s asked to meet up and I keep ignoring that request. She usually cancels when I agree. This last time when her text came through, I tried really hard to get in touch with my rational brain. Deep breaths, checking in with my body, trying to figure out what I really needed in the moment but in the end I succumbed as per usual and ended up sharing something personal. ugh.
Hey Liz. Where you speak of this timing thingy…. I think it does exist. I noticed it with a boyfriend actually. Our dynamics got set up in a way that I’d try to contact him more often than he would seek me out. He also frequently did not respond to my initiatives. That wasn’t too cool, yeah. So yeah, one day I had enough of it and resolved it in myself that I wasn’t going to seek him out like that. I reasoned that he would have to pay more attention to me and that can only happen if I don’t overdo attention myself. So after the last initiative of mine didn’t work out, I just decided to not try and contact him again before he would initiate contact himself. Have a guess what happened…
This is what happened: I did not contact him as usual, i.e. previously – before that new resolve of mine – I did always try to wait a couple of days before I tried to speak to him again, because I hoped that maybe he would talk to me during those few days. But that never worked well. So…. with the new approach, the days kept passing. One day I suddenly felt like I’d like to contact him but I resisted and I did not. In hindsight, I think that was the number of days I would typically hold out the longest in the past. Anyway yeah, so I was able to talk myself out of seeking him out. And then now *DRUMROLL* what happened next was… A couple more days passed and HE SOUGHT ME OUT in a way like he didn’t before. I sure felt his attention was finally on me. LOL. Yeah. So the approach worked.
Well… the most interesting was that he told me he started having focus issues. He said he never had those before. So I linked the two in my mind… he wanted my attention so he would feel cared for (without having to do much in return!! Somewhat narcissistic perhaps?), so he would have good energy and focus on his work (yes, workaholic). I still think that theory of mine holds in some way though I didn’t try to seek further proof of it.
Anyway yeah, me doing that, it relieved me a lot. Him finally having more attention on me felt so good. I will be the first to admit that it wasn’t a great relationship obviously, though. He did have a limited capacity for empathy and caring, though he did have some.
So what I’m trying to say to you is, it’s likely NOT a coincidence that you find her getting in touch with you just when you are starting to feel better and more independent of her. It’s pure attention seeking. Her bombarding you with messages. You need to resist all that. You need to inform her directly or indirectly in a clear enough way that you’d like to distance. I would be straightforward and direct about it if I were you but if you think she understands an indirect message as long as it’s unambiguous (consistent enough behaviour) to her enough, that’s okay too.
Also I don’t really think it’s an OK dynamic that she has you opening up and sharing personal things despite your own will. I’ve had that dynamic with a friend who liked to try and have me open up and share like that. I stopped it when I realised it made it compulsive for me to share. While she didn’t have the same compulsivity. It was not cool in my books. In your case either, it’s not cool that she has you share then she’s gone for a month. She likely wants to feel like she still has you under her influence. That’s how that “friend” was too with me. She was never willing to be straightforward and honest about it when I asked her so that was enough further indication to me that this had to be stopped and I did stop it. And I felt a LOT better afterwards. I don’t need to give up any little bit of my own well-being just to feed other people’s egos.
So if you can recognise this as a real – tangible even – pattern, then you can resist it. It really IS a pattern, not some weird coincidence in timing & behaviour changes. If you get to see it and if you get annoyed enough about it and prioritise yourself, with your own sense of self-esteem, self-worth and self-respect, you will be able to resist for sure and take control of your own life with all this. I wish you good luck to it!
PS2. I’ll add… with the bf, I was like, when he had the focus issues, I did recommend to him to go to a psychologist&psychiatrist to get treated. He basically shouldn’t have tried and exploited his gf (me) or anyone else for things that are his own responsibility, i.e. taking care of his own depression or whatever it was he had. The word “exploit” is a strong word and maybe there is a better one because he was not consciously taking advantage of me and usually was not manipulative (he sometimes was, though, and did have the low empathy thingy). But my point is that no one should act like a vampire like that, for attention, energy, … to keep their own issues at bay. The sad thing was when I suggested the psychology treatment to him, he refused… He said he didn’t feel good enough even for that. I mean, he was starting to get aware of how he did have emotional issues but refused to take ownership and take steps to deal with them. And had that excuse of not feeling good enough to go and get the appointment with a professional. Well, I couldn’t say anything to that for sure. His own life, his own problem in the end. It was just sad.
PS. And yeah, when she cancels the meeting after you agreed… Just further proof to the unhealthy dynamics there. Sorry, forgot to add this originally
I hadn’t heard of DESSA before this video, but she’s a very good public speaker. That’s for sure.
As an optimist, I’d like to think we can choose to fall out of love. But limerence activates brain chemicals (and hormones?). So I reckon a fairly significant “time delay” can be expected between the conscious choice to stop obsessing and the cessation of chemical/hormonal activity. Hormones can influence behaviour. But maybe it works the other way too? Maybe our conscious behaviours can alter our hormones? I guess the first step would be resolving not to ruminate anymore?
For me, some things that might function as “reverse glimmers”:
(1) Seeing LO happy with someone else. (Could be taken as a sign they’re limerent for another partner and therefore emotionally “off the market”).
(2) Getting to know LO well enough that I can’t idealise them anymore. (This state of affairs would probably occur if I had a real relationship with an LO).
(3) Getting more empathy and people skills due to aging. (Gaining the insight to conclude LO can’t possibly be limerent for me, due to their clear interest in other people, etc, or obvious boredom around me, prompting me to give up the dream).
(4) Being realistic about myself. (I.e. not as young and pretty as I used to be. Why would LO idealise me when there are plenty of shinier fish in the sea?)
(5) Having a more active social life. If I can get a small dopamine hit from lots and lots of people, then theoretically I’ll stop looking for a giant dopamine hit from just one person. This is actually the strategy I find most satisfying. I think of it as “diversifying my portfolio of emotional rewards” so I’m not wiped out, for example, by a single heavy loss. It’s a bit have my cake and eat it too-ish. But I never said I was a puritan. This approach is all about pleasure in sustainable doses.
I would like to one day bump into one or more former LOs and just view them as normal people, compliment them on the wife and kids, etc, the cool car, the flashy job. I wouldn’t seek out that experience. (Recently, I decided against going to my twenty-year school reunion. I was afraid it might stir up painful memories). But if an accidental encounter ever occurred, and I’d discovered my brain had moved on, that would be a very interesting psychological experience indeed.
Oh I saw that video years ago. And wow. Dessa’s stuff reminds me of myself a LOT. With her issue of the limerence, and she’s just very relatable in some way. Her issue was so relatable that at one point, I seriously considered to try and contact her and ask her more about this brain treatment. But it looks like I won’t need that anymore. This site, the articles on it and the forum and my emotional processing&other psychology resources together were enough to cure the limerence thingy eventually. I want to write up some post on it later about how I did it. I think it can be seen as consciously falling out of love, yes… in a sense. If it was even love. So yeah, depends on the definition of love… Flicker and glimmer, if that means attraction, then no, I don’t think that can be gone entirely. The feelings on top of attraction though, yes, they can be neutralised. And perhaps those brain thingies in the limbic system or whatever are turned off during that process, yeah. A top-down process to control and switch off low level emotion things like the limbic stuff. That is certainly how I’ve experienced it.
Anyway Dessa’s approach. I don’t know if that’s just a gimmicky meditation thingy, as I didn’t try it myself. I know the usual meditation techniques do not work on me though. … So who knows if the brain treatment would’ve worked.
I really liked Sammy’s post… I did not have the option to do 1) but I’m sure that’d have worked too. I also didn’t have the option to do 2) but I do think the solution includes becoming realistic instead of idealisation of it all. 3) I have to strongly agree matters. I can’t relate to 4) really as a solution. 5) makes sense though I did not use that approach either. But yeah 3), I would add, getting more emotional skills rather than just empathy… emotional skills include more than just empathy utilised for people skills. It includes ability for emotional processing, emotion management and last but not least, moral aspects too and I think that’s very important too in managing all the LE issues. By moral aspects I really mean… consideration of what’s good, constructive and rational for people’s well-being: your own well-being and other people’s as well.
Hi all,
I am not actually new here, but have never commented… I feel like this might be the right time because to be honest, I’m exhausted. I met my LO a little over a year ago and since then my life has been… Well, I suppose you know what it’s been like! I recently met LO after a long break and since then my life has been like a rollercoaster and I honestly don’t know how long I can take it anymore. We both have a SO and have all this time been ’friends’ . Lately I’ve been struggling with a kind of nausea whenever we have been in contact, I actually felt sick after the meeting. It’s like… he’s too much. I would describe him ’the love of my life’ and admitting he’s LO seems almost impossible, although I know that’s what he probably is. I don’t know what to do. I always try to go no contact, but he always texts me if he doesn’t hear from me. Two weeks is the longest I haven’t heard from him. I don’t know what to do. I literally feel like I can’t live without him. Dr L. Help me!
Hi NorthernStar, and welcome (to the comments!).
Your best bet is to hop over to the resources page and sign up for some of the free materials on limerence recovery. The Take Control guide and the free email course (Fast Track to Freedom) lay out the quickest route to recovery that I know of.
If you’re getting physical symptoms now, I’d say the time has come to admit that the limerence is causing more harm than good, and so take the first concrete steps to freeing yourself. You can live without him. In fact, you’ll likely find it a huge emotional relief once you start to disentangle yourself from him.
Thanks Dr. L.! I’ll check the resources. Reading your blog posts and the comments really helps too. Lately I’ve been wondering if LO could be limerent for me too, because it’s just hard to understand this kind of unhealthy ’friendship’ otherwise. We had a short NC last winter but it was actually covid that brought us back in contact because we were worried about eachother. He knows (I’ve told him) how I feel about him and still he keeps going on. Luckily we don’t live in the same city, but I have to go to his city for work sometimes and everytime it’s hell. I would love to have him in my life somehow, because he is super inspiring (yup, I’ve put him on a pedestal) but I guess that’s not possible. The thought of losing him just breaks my heart because I’ve never met anyone like him.
Thanks for this website, there seems to be wonderful people here and always such a supportive tone on the comments!
@Kata. Thank you for liking my post. Sometimes I regret posting. Limerent? Who me? No, I’m a logical person I am! I can’t possibly be guilty of having experienced something so irrational and embarrassing as limerence, etc. I just want to forgot this whole chapter in my life and move on. However, I see there’s a certain value in us limerents sharing our stories with each other, even if one feels very vulnerable afterwards. Limerence is part of the human condition I guess…
@NorthernStar. I wonder if there is any scientific explanation for the “kind of nausea” you feel when being in contact with your LO? Is it a manifestation of, say, heightened anxiety? A knot in the stomach – I’ve often felt that around potential LOs.
In fact, I have a story to share about recent run-in with a potential LO. Or at least a man who glimmers quite strongly for me, even if the interaction hasn’t turned into full-blown limerence. (If only!)
This man is gay, so at least I’m infatuated with someone of the right sexual orientation this time round. (Hope?) We go to the same place to socialise and have known each other a couple years. No intimate contact. Just the whole limerent dance and it seems mutual e.g. lingering eye contact, little smiles, compliments mostly about each other’s looks. (I’m playing with fire I know).
Interesting aside: this guy reminds me of my LO#1 (my first “great love”, who was straight). What’s the similarity? Well, I finally figured it out the other day – it’s all in the hands. My gay friend waved at me and when he raised his wrist I saw for the first time he has the exact same hands as LO#1 (chubby fingers).
Comical and ridiculous I know. How many people find big, awkward hands attractive? But I apparently have a subconscious sexual attraction (a limerent attraction?) to men who have disproportionately large hands. It’s enough to tip me into infatuation. Good looks, eyes, face and body are all nice. But not enough to tip me into infatuation. It’s the hands! I’m “getting the glimmer” from this guy because of HIS HANDS and until a week ago it was completely subliminal. (I didn’t know what it was about him that was affecting me so powerfully).
This chap paces a lot. He has enormous amounts of nervous energy and he stutters when he speaks. He’s clumsy and freezes when we touch, even when he’s initiating the hug. Hugging him is like hugging a tree. He can’t relax. He’s forever on his phone, so he has obsessive tendencies. I believe he is one of us, a fellow limerent. However, I don’t think he’s limerent for me because of the amount of time he spends on his phone. (I’m not on his phone, and he’s not on mine).
Still, out of sheer curiosity, I decided to give him a chance to say anything to me he wanted to say. I was coming out of the bathroom and he was at his locker. He made eye contact with me again, like he wanted to talk to me. So I went over. I felt sick to my stomach, my legs so weak I could barely walk. Also, embarrassingly, I developed selective mutism. (Sudden inability to speak). So I was standing there, in front of my crush, undressed and incapable of speech. I’m almost 38 by the way and my crush is 5-10 years younger than me (I’m guessing).
Crush was also almost incapable of speaking. All he could say to me was: “See ya. See ya. Just see ya.” (With these oh-so-eloquent lines will our fantasy romance be immortalised?) I still couldn’t say anything. So impulsively I put my arms around his trunk, like a mentally retarded child, hugged him, and ran off, feeling ashamed of myself the whole time. I think he’ll forgive me – we’ve had awkward hugs before, some he initiated, some I’ve initiated. But yeah. If this is what mutual limerence feels like, it’s seriously awkward and not that sexy.
I did feel a little sad that he wasn’t warmer toward me, that his body didn’t melt into mine, etc. (Was he afraid? Does he not like me, after all? Darn all those cute boys on his phone!) But I didn’t feel wiped out or devastated by the apparent absence of reciprocation. I know I’ll be okay if he doesn’t like me back, because I’ve weathered romantic rejection before in my life.
I have felt euphoria at times in the presence of this guy. I was hoping that one day the euphoria might turn into a real friendship and honest communication. I can’t speak for him, of course. But now it just seems like there’s fear and reserve on both sides.
I thought I’d share this little experience anyway, because it sounds like “classic limerence” to me. And it might make people feel better about their own experiences, remind people of feelings that they themselves have experienced. It’s a sweet, sad, and funny story of limerence that just happens to involve two guys. (But how easily it could have been a guy and a girl. Limerence is clearly universal).
Sammy,
“But I apparently have a subconscious sexual attraction (a limerent attraction?) to men who have disproportionately large hands. ”
Well, there are about a million jokes in that statement. 🙂 Anyway, ask him out for coffee. Yes, I know it will not be easy to do. I’ve done stuff like that myself. It took everything I had. I was a nervous wreck, but after a while I got disgusted with myself and forced myself to push through the fear. Sometimes my first effort was so botched, I had to go back and make a second.
“Well, there are about a million jokes in that statement. 🙂”
@Marcia. Yup, after writing that, I knew I could be setting myself up for a joke or two. Freudian slip? Probably. Haha.
Less embarrassing though then the time I offered to help a young lady studying nursing find library books on “liver implants”. (Hint: there’s no such thing as “liver implants”, only “liver transplants”. This young lady was handsomely endowed in the chest department, if you know what I mean, and appeared to be braless under her sweater). I apologised profusely once I realised my verbal mistake and we both blushed.
Nausea can be a response to trauma.
When LO #2 told me she was seeing someone, it felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach and I’d throw up. Interestingly, a few seconds later, I felt this overwhelming sense of calm wash over me like someone had hit me with a shot of Demerol.
Maybe DrL can explain that.
@Sammy Yeah, it’s interesting how we can develop limerent feelings for someone because they have some feature that is otherwise unremmarkable but we fixate on it because it reminds us of someone else. I know that this is something that happened with my own LO. I actually think that is a fun game, not only because it helps us de-idealize LO, but also because we can learn a lot about ourselves on the process.
And on the subject of awkwardness, I remember the first time I asked LO1 out for a coffee. You could be forgiven to think that I was trying to propose, by the way I was stuttering and looking for the “correct” words. Or the first time I talked with LO2. As you say, is something that is universal for all limerents.
Thanks for sharing Sammy. I feel for you and I think we can all relate to that! The shy awkwardness is the worst isn’t it. I feel overwhelmed when I first see LO these days as it is a rarer event nowadays – it can be humiliating, given the work context. I think that is why so few cases of mutual limerence ever work out… you need one person in the pair to be capable of speech!
But do try inviting him out for a drink…preferably an alcoholic one.
My SO is the only LO I have ever successfully dated… during my LE, I purposefully organised day or evening social events every few weeks and they all involved alcohol. I invited LO and a group of friends, some mutual, many of whom knew of my intense infatuation. All arranged with my sole aim of spending time with LO, where I have a few loyal friends on hand for conversational backup in case I clammed up. We did wine tasting, party cruise on the Thames, clubbing, dinner/discoes, pub crawls, etc. And my plan worked in the end as we have now been married 13+ years!
And if it hadn’t worked out? My friends and I always had fun anyway. Aah..to be young and free again.. sigh 🙂
Happy Christmas all x
Benjamin,
“Yeah, it’s interesting how we can develop limerent feelings for someone because they have some feature that is otherwise unremmarkable but we fixate on it because it reminds us of someone else.”
I think this is one of the key differences between a limerent and a non-limerent — they way each experiences attraction. For a limerent, it often has very little to do with the other person’s appearance (minus the one feature you mention). What I mean is: the LO is very rarely the hottest person in the room. And you can’t explain that to a non-limerent. I have had friends met my LOs and ask, “That’s him?” Because to them the LO was unremarkable, but I had made him into James Dean. 🙂
Allie,
Yeah. Good idea. Maybe skip the coffee I recommended and ask him the LO out for a drink. But skip the wine and get a shot. 🙂 Seriously, it will help.
Thanks for your kind words, Allie. And yes, Merry Christmas to everyone!
Sammy,
And lets us know what happens. Not only do we want to know what happens between you two at the bar, but we also want to know what happens AFTER the bar … because we are very noisy and pushy. 🙂