One of the most distressing and disruptive symptoms of limerence is the onset of obsessive, intrusive thoughts.
The “can’t get them out of your head” effect.
Early on in the limerence experience, daydreaming about your limerent object feels wonderful. It’s all giddy thrills and walking-on-air dreaminess.
But, there’s always a dark side too. At first it stays in the background, but as time goes on, the anxiety of uncertainty starts to ratchet up the thoughts until they become intrusive.
“I can’t stop thinking about them!” turns from a kind of happy amazement, into a psychological burden.
It becomes difficult to concentrate on other tasks, it disrupts your sleep, and it feels like you’ve somehow lost control of your own thought processes.
So, what’s going on? How does euphoria turn to obsession, and what can be done about it?
1. What is obsession?
One of the difficulties in making sense of romantic obsession is trying to be clear about exactly what it is.
“Romantic” means different things to different people. So does “obsession”. So let’s start with what the obsessive thoughts of limerence actually feel like in commenters own words:
When she’s around I don’t know how to behave, nor what to say. It’s a mixture of uncertainty, fear of rejection and joy from feeling she’s in the same room. Oh, my. It’s killing me almost!
It hurts how much I love him
I’m just obsessed. I can’t turn the thoughts off, I can’t escape from the downs, and I keep chasing the highs even though I know I always crash after. I just want her more than anything I’ve ever wanted before… Everything about her is perfect.
The intrusive thoughts of limerence begin as intense desire, combined with anxiety about not being able to secure that desire.
The two always seem to come together
I want them more than anything, I can’t give them up.
That’s a big clue as to what’s going on in the brain, and why it’s very different to other kinds of obsessive thinking.
The best known example of psychological obsession is probably Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. That state also involves intrusive thoughts and involuntary drives, but they have a distinctly different character from limerence.
I’ve done a previous video analysing the neuroscience here, but the fundamental difference is that limerence is driven by desire, while OCD is driven by threat sensitivity.
The obsessions of OCD are not about desperately wanting something, they are about anxiety – to do with cleanliness, orderliness, security, safety.
That’s why techniques that help with OCD, like exposure response therapy, do not help with limerence.
You can desensitize anxiety responses through exposure to an irrational fear, but you can’t desensitize desire for a limerent object by being around them more.
The same principles apply to other forms of obsessive love – like stalking, delusional erotomania, or relationship OCD – those obsessions do not stem from runaway desire.
The intrusive thoughts of limerence are “desire thinking”, and that leads us into the world of addiction.
2. Where do cravings come from?
It’s obviously natural to desire someone who we find romantically attractive.
It isn’t really surprising that we would want to seek them out, because being with them feels rewarding, but why does this natural drive sometimes… well, flip out, into a completely insatiable, irresistible desire that feels like a psychic assault?
Limerence sets in when one person becomes a singular focus of romantic desire. The natural reward of being with them is astonishing – euphoric, exhilarating, intoxicating.
Rewards that powerful can become addictive.
The reward system of the brain becomes sensitized, until that one special person becomes an object of fixation.
I’ve talked about the neuroscience of this process of incentive sensitization before, but in this post, I want to focus on what it actually feels like.
Cravings are an involuntary urge. They are a sign that your reward system has been driven into a habitual state of high sensitivity to limerent desire.
Cues in the environment trigger the urge to seek your limerent object before you are conscious of the impulse. Emotional states can do the same – in fact almost anything can start the impulse to seek LO to get reward or relief.
Sometimes this can be enough to prompt us into action – texting them or seeking them out – but there is another internal process that typically happens too.
The intrusion is followed by elaboration – a more active thought process that refines how we react to the impulsive craving.
This idea – known as Elaborated Intrusion theory – lays out how unconscious triggers (like seeing something that belongs to them, or hearing a love song, or worrying that you haven’t had a text from them for a while) start the craving process, and that leads into loops of “desire thinking”.
Often, desire thinking is dominated by mental imagery – of how good it would feel to be close to them, of their beautiful face, or happy memories with them – but it can also involve self-talk. Repetitive arguments or justifications for why it’s OK to seek contact.
I’ll just quickly check in on them
I can handle it
Another common pattern of Elaborated Intrusion, is when anxiety about the bond triggers imagined contact or indirect contact (like looking at a picture on instagram for example), as a strategy for mood repair.
You panic that they might not be into you, and then vividly imagine a time when you were together and they were happy.
This cycle of unconscious urge followed by mental rumination leads to a predictable outcome.
Reinforcement of the reward-seeking drive.
3. A well worn mental rut
Desire thinking is triggered by cravings, but then intensifies and reinforces them.
The immediate impulse triggers a predictable habit of getting stuck in the same thought loops. As time goes on, this habit gets more and more ingrained. What starts as a natural process – indeed a useful process – becomes dysregulated.
You feel romantic attraction, you think about them because it is pleasurable, that makes you seek them out, and that increases the odds that you’ll give evolution what it wants.
But, the wanting drive can get stuck.
Think of it like a car driving in circles.
Each impulsive craving pumps the gas pedal.
Each loop of desire thinking elaboration pumps it again.
Over time, the car will start to carve out a psychological rut.
Your thoughts will be trapped going round and round in the same direction, and breaking out of that rut and going somewhere new will get harder and harder.
4. Rumination and worry
To keep the analogy going, your steering wheel has got jammed in one direction, and as you start to try and twist it free, the wheels that are stuck in the rut will be fighting you. Your mind is so used to repeating the same loops that it takes cognitive effort to break out.
Unfortunately, instead of conveniently helping us moderate the out of control desire, our executive brain can spend that cognitive effort on rationalisation.
Beliefs about your desire thinking – both positive and negative – determine how we make sense of what’s happening.
These “metacognitive beliefs” – the thoughts you have about your thoughts – can get deeply ingrained. It’s like your brain has noticed the obsession develop and then comes up with explanations to explain it.
After all, there must be a reason why you’re driving round and round in ruts and churning your subconscious into a quagmire.
Early on in the development of obsessive desire thinking, these metacognitive beliefs tend to be positive:
LO gives me energy
I’m just really connecting with them and it’s great
I’ve never felt so alive
But, as time goes on, and if the limerence drive is frustrated by obstacles, they can turn negative.
I just can’t help myself
I always give in
I can’t control these thoughts
Sadly, both positive and negative metacognitive beliefs reinforce the addiction.
Positive thoughts make the desire stronger.
Negative thoughts remove your sense of agency (making you feel helpless) and often lead to counterproductive coping strategies.
Instinctively, many people try to suppress the intrusive thoughts, become hypervigilant about LO’s behaviour, and highly sensitive and reactive to cravings and cues.
They end up trapped in a mental state of desire thinking loops that spiral into constant worry and rumination.
5. How to break free
Unfortunately, it’s easy enough to set out how romantic obsessions can develop in terms of neuroscience and psychology, but the best treatment strategies are less clear.
The core strategy is going to involve disrupting those thought loops in a constructive way – not suppressing or fighting them, but accepting them and letting them pass.
Then, you start redirecting the old habits of desire thinking about LO and change the messages you tell yourself about them.
Finally, those metacognitive beliefs need updating.
There have been several studies into this sort of approach, using variations on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and mindfulness techniques, and even using a self-help manual to counter nicotine cravings, with varying degrees of success.
(There’s a good review of the current state of evidence here).
But, to date, none of these methods have been tested for limerence.
That said, on a more positive note, I’m ploughing through these papers at the moment and putting together a plan for how to adapt the strategies for managing romantic intrusive thoughts.
I’ll be running a workshop on it once the work is done.
And then we can test whether the ideas really work in practice…
“But, there’s always a dark side too. At first it stays in the background, but as time goes on, the anxiety of uncertainty ”
I don’t think it’s uncertainty that is the dark side. There is no uncertainty. Not really. Not in the cases posted on here, anyway. Most limerents know what they’re going to get from their LOs and/or how their LOs are going to act. There’s a pattern of behavior that’s been established over time.
It’s the longing that is the dark side. The knowing that the LO is never going to feel for you or want you in the way you want them. It’s a horrible feeling. The euphoria of thinking about them or seeing them/being around them with that horrible, sinking realization that they don’t really care. Or not anywhere near as much as you do.
To Marcia:
I certainly agree with you that in my case, the longing is the dark side. I have zero uncertainty about LO.
Speaking for myself only, LO’s unpleasant behavior has helped reduce the limerence to a much more manageable level. As much as I have tried to handle it myself, I do think it has faded away on its own due to repeated exposure of who this person really is.
It’s impossible not to get exhausted and discouraged being around him for any length of time. LO is his own limerence-killer.
This is directly from today’s post:
“The best known example of psychological obsession is probably Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. That state also involves intrusive thoughts and involuntary drives, but they have a distinctly different character from limerence.
I’ve done a previous video analysing the neuroscience here, but the fundamental difference is that limerence is driven by desire, while OCD is driven by threat sensitivity.
The obsessions of OCD are not about desperately wanting something, they are about anxiety – to do with cleanliness, orderliness, security, safety.
That’s why techniques that help with OCD, like exposure response therapy, do not help with limerence.
You can desensitize anxiety responses through exposure to an irrational fear, but you can’t desensitize desire for a limerent object by being around them more.”
To Marcia:
Yes, I read that, but limited exposure to LO seems to be my best strategy at this point. If I go completely No Contact, the longing increases. When I see him, I am reminded why he’s not a candidate for a good friend.
I have been here for about 18 months, and I am actually very pleased with my progress.
Is the situation ideal? No, but it’s much improved and I am grateful.
To Marcia:
Here is an additional comment that may help illustrate what I am talking about.
Last December, Rob and Michelle Reiner were stabbed to death by their son while they slept. My own children had threatened to kill me numerous times when they were teenagers, so this triggered me. My twins were/are about the same age as the Reiners’ son, Nick.
I freaked out and texted LO. He was kindly but clueless and was completely un-helpful.
Yesterday I learned that actress Hayden Panatierre died. I posted on the Coffeehouse about this. I met her in 2007 at the Victoria’s Secret at Mission Viejo Mall. I remember thinking she was beautiful and completely put together, while I was a struggling wreck trying to recover from a scorched-earth divorce. I thought she had everything.
This young lady is also the same age as my older daughter.
So I reacted strongly and was tempted to text LO. But I remember the unhelpful things he said after the Reiners were killed, and I noped out.
I probably won’t even mention any of this to him, because I know there is no point. I learned from prior experience that saying certain types of things are a waste of time, and I am better off talking to one of my girlfriends who understands.
“I can’t go No Contact” —
https://youtu.be/9TZJqvSS994?si=uEFSSbHWtEH-LFrM
“Most limerents know…how their LOs are going to act.”
More or less. Limerents presume that they know how their LOs are goingto act and are usually correct in the presumption. But, things outside the limerent’s control, change. Not only do some limerents, likely limerents who are aware of the risk, presume they know how their LOs will act, they rely on their LOs staying on script.
IMO, one of the most potentially dangerous things in an LE is an unwitting but complicit LO.
What about an (un)available, kind, witting (knowing LE is not real love) and incomplicit LO? How would/should limerent deal with him/her? Could the LO help the limerent break the feverish LE “malady”?
For me (and some others), that icky Longing was generated the way back, mostly prior to puberty, by their caregivers or trauma inducers, ie. My narc mother’s abusive and neglecting parenting. But I mistook the longing for an ideal parent as LE longing (in all my previous crushes or failed relationships). I only realized the Root of Longing during the NC of the last LE.
Then that root was leaving/gone, the XLE simultaneously, permanently left with IT.
IMO, to prevent the future LE, one really needs to discover and eradicate root(s) of previous/current LEs, mostly independently exist(ed) outside of the LEs.
Snow,
“IMO, to prevent the future LE, one really needs to discover and eradicate root(s) of previous/current LEs, mostly independently exist(ed) outside of the LEs.”
I agree. Discovering and eradicating the root(s) of your LEs can be a daunting task for a lot of people. Even if they have the awareness, they may be incapable or unwilling to take it on. In my experience, it leads to some very uncomfortable confrontations. In my case, all the people I ended up confronting in some manner were either long dead or I was no longer in contact with them and I wasn’t about to re-engage them. My therapist role played those people and I confronted them vicariously. Maybe it wasn’t as satisfying but the vicarious confrontations posed no actual risk to me.
On the topic of risk, my response to Marcia’s post was to point out that limerence can be very complex depending on the people and circumstances. Two of the more obvious risks are professional and relational.
For example:
https://livingwithlimerence.com/limerence-for-celebrities/ – Unless you’re an over the top stalker (e.g., John Hinkley), for an unattached limerent, limerence for celebrities carries little or no risk in a professional or relational context.
https://livingwithlimerence.com/limerence-for-a-co-worker/ – This is a different story. A limerent who works for a company with an HR department is running some professional risk. There was a former poster who claimed that he disclosed to his co-worker and was fired for it. Being limerent for a co-worker in a different department may be viewed as less egregious than limerence for a subordinate. If the limerent is attached, there is an added risk to the relationship. Possibly, the worst of all possible worlds.
I knew that my LE with LO #4 carried risk to my marriage. While I don’t think it would have destroyed it, there was nothing about the LE that was going to improve my marriage. I knew that at some point the LE was going to end, it was a question of managing the exit. If things blew up on me, LO #4 was going under the bus. She was 2500 miles away, we had no personal or professional nexus, and we had never actually met each other.
I knew all that and limerence was sufficiently compelling to my inner 5yr-old that I didn’t want to relinquish it and accepted the risk. I got away with but I wasn’t good, I was lucky. My EAP counselor told me I had the best props of any client she ever had and there wasn’t a contingency that I didn’t have an answer for. She took a positive delight in knocking them out.
Crappy, I know.
👩🦰 🏃,
“Discovering and eradicating the root(s) of your LEs can be a daunting task for a lot of people. Even if they have the awareness, they may be incapable or unwilling to take it on. In my experience, it leads to some very uncomfortable confrontations. “
It’s unavoidable to face confrontations either in reality or in one’s head. My unresolved cptsd got “lucky” because Mom reentered my life 8 years ago and triggered all the old traumatic symptoms, so I had to deal with her, cptsd and the root of Longing, with two female therapist and XLO.
“My therapist role played those people and I confronted them vicariously. Maybe it wasn’t as satisfying but the vicarious confrontations posed no actual risk to me.”
I think that can be an effective way working with a trustable, skillful therapist, if one feels very vulnerable to confront originators of their past painful “stuff”.
“This is a different story. A limerent who works for a company with an HR department is running some professional risk. “
I totally understand the risk mentioned here. But what if they are “Jim and Pam” in the same division of an office? (I’m not sure either Jim or Pam was in LE, though). They dated, moving from best friends to lovers.
“If the limerent is attached, there is an added risk to the relationship. Possibly, the worst of all possible worlds.”
Yep, there are a lot of the above case in LwL, and they’re still rationalizing their LO/LE existence and unable to let them go.
“I knew that at some point the LE was going to end, it was a question of managing the exit. If things blew up on me, LO #4 was going under the bus. She was 2500 miles away, we had no personal or professional nexus, and we had never actually met each other.”
Now, imagine a variation of your LE4 scenario: you’re unattached. How would you deal with LO4 who lives 2500 miles away and you have never met each other in person?
“I knew all that and limerence was sufficiently compelling to my inner 5yr-old that I didn’t want to relinquish it and accepted the risk. “
In this alt case, you are still carrying your 5yr-old stuff. Are you going to run to LO4 to fulfill this boy’s needs? What happens when you find out LO4 can’t meet your past unmet needs?
Would you believe that LO4/LE4 could remove your LE root, or is it up to your adult self to eradicate? If former or later, HOW?
Snow,
The alt case is what Fantasy Island is all about.
When I disclosed, LO #4 kind of implied that if I was available, she might have let me take the shot.
Would it have cured my problems, likely not. It might have added a few more.
👩🦰 🏃,
One’s own issue, originated from the long past, can only be resolved ultimately by one’s own hand, perhaps with assist of another intended or accidental hand… if s/he is lucky…
Alt LO4 let you take the shot… 🥵, 🔥… What would you, a die-hard romantics, do?
Coming from an Eastern savage/communism land, I can’t wait to see what happens in your Fantasy Island with a few LE scenarios… 😋
Can I be an ignorant or uncanny foreign tourist on your Fantasy Island? Give me some lines, and I can exotically spice them… 🙃
Ok, Snow,
You can have recurring roles teaching yoga and mindfulness classes on Fantasy Island and Limerence American Style.
Just remember on the shows, you’ll be working for Marcia.
👩🦰 🏃,
After a shipwrecked, I’m just a new immigrant washed up to your Fantasy Island as a refugee of your hospitality. I speak little English with marble-heavy accent like crow quacking, know zero knowledge of limerence; and my BP (blood pressure) has been too low to teach Yoga in any Style or to physically work.
I can possibly “work” ONLY to guide Vipassana Noble Silence Meditation — no phone, no talking, no whispering, no pen, no paper, no eye gazing, no mouth winking, no hand/finger/toe gesturing with any gendered co-habitants. Just shut down eyes free breathing in sitting or lying posture.
Otherwise, I’ll put on my chameleon hooded jumper, hide in bushes, steal your food/water, peek at your show and ear drop all juicy EA or PA chats….
LE,
“Just remember on the shows, you’ll be working for Marcia.”
I have no interest in any leadership role. 🙂
I just want to put my cute uniform on and stand around with my clipboard, cruising the hot guys. That’s what a CRUISE director does. She cruises. 🙂
👩🦰 🏃
By nature, no limerent can sit still, their mind is filled with LO 24/7. LO will be stuck in their mind stronger and longer if you send them to a yoga/meditation center.
So how about creating a new role for the latest version of “Fantasy Island” in the globalized era —
1. I’m an immigrant survivor out of a shipwreck, and washed ashore to your Fantasy Island, not a planned guest by the captain.
2. I hide in camouflage, steal your good food to survive while curiously observing interactions of hosts and guests. I’ll locate the hottest dude, single or partnered.
3. I recover my strength and health. On a full moon night, walk out of the sea (just like in the song, “can’t get it out of my head”) and then into a mind of a single or a partnered dude at a campfire party.
4. I become a siren LO, mostly appear at night walking /dancing in, out, or above sea water… no need to talk, accidentally or intentionally seduce limerent candidates.
5. My fate would depend on if I can find/secure my own LO among the guests or hosts. If yes, I’ll marry him and get a green card! 🤭 (you need a priest in this island and a lawyer for divorce)
6. If not, I stay in the island waiting for new guests and new LOs candidates.
7. Then I come to the mainland with my LO husband to live happily ever after.
👩🦰 🏃,
Please leave plenty nutritious food and water/tea at the convenient places for me to take away… 😜
Then imagine after I recover my health and strength, I’d look like one of them, alway in a black top with black hair, walking out of the sea….
Ah, Blockhole —
https://youtu.be/1Lmy7qwmSMc?si=wbvjC8McX6U4mqSB
Your Fantasy Island needs modern exotic spice! 🌶️
Marcia,
The last post was back on Fantasy Island. On Fantasy Island, you’ll be wearing a tropical sarong with a long slit up the side. But, you’re still Tattoo.
Snow,
If you don’t want the job offered, you’ll be on the next plane off the island, assuming that you wash ashore alive in the first place.
Or, maybe, while trying to outrun the FIST (Fantasy Island Security Team), you climb the wrong fence, find yourself in Fantasy Island Jurassic Park and end up as Raptor chow.
Greed kills.
LE,
“The last post was back on Fantasy Island. On Fantasy Island, you’ll be wearing a tropical sarong with a long slit up the side. But, you’re still Tattoo.”
Typical man. You have the audacity to think you can dress me. 🙂
I’m not on Fantasy Island. I’m on the Love Boat. I’m an independent contractor and the producers offered me more money.
I’m a limerent. I don’t have any loyalty. 🙂 (Sorry. Couldn’t help myself. 🙂
👩🦰 🏃,
Fine, if you insist that I hold a job that doesn’t involve too much speaking (if I open my mouth, all hosts, liemrents and LOs would be scared away), I can be a Vipassana meditation 🧘♂️ guidance, hypnotist 🌀. Some insomnia limerents need quantified and qualified relaxation 🧖♂️🧖♀️and sleep. 🛌
Of course, I’ll be washed ashore safely first to Fantasy Island, where anything is possible. As soon as my health recovers under your hospitality 🍱 , I’ll start working 🧑🏻⚕️.
Song of the Day: “Can’t Get It Out Of My Head” – ELO (1974)
https://youtu.be/BuRjSkQ1Bbo?is=kW0Dy2n8yLMwz5bi
To Limerent Emeritus:
You come up with the best songs. I had almost forgotten this one. I haven’t heard it in years.
👩🦰 🏃,
In my anti-Romanticism and anti-individualism COO (also some Eastern cultures), up to the last two/three decades, no one had ever heard one romantic/LE song like what you just posted…. We simply didn’t know or couldn’t imagine such an emotional/mental existence.
That’s why I assumed and still believe, there are much less LE cases, because there is little cultural soil to breed/amplify LE fire.
The Glimmer definitely has taken place for thousands of years; but, if unavailable, mostly killed quickly by rationality and reality. NC was/is the only way! (There were few death/suicides reports related to unrequited love/a broken heart)
Even if coming from a non-limerent camp, I think I’d be easily converted to a limmie in this highly romanticized culture. Words can be “poison” or “medicine”.
There are some advantages to age and arrested development.
Sadly, DrL has closed the comments to https://livingwithlimerence.com/limerence-music/. Also, many of the links to songs no longer work.
Music can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Kind of like a drinking buddy.
👩🦰 🏃
“Music can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Kind of like a drinking buddy.”
Totally agree. Music with lyric can serve as ice or fire to one’s mental/emotional states. (In the past, I always liked classical music or sad operas in a foreign tongue)
Before and during the XLE, I was totally ignorant of the modern Western pop songs… so I took a little time during this summer break to explore them (listening over 3000 times over 800 pieces). The singers “in love” can be so cute, sweet, funny, illogical, clingy, knee-weak, feverish, or even hysterical… Sometimes, I rolled my eyes 🙄, sometimes sad 😢 , upset 😤 , giggling🤭, laughing 🤣…. LE can make one “lunatic” or “crippled” for the time being.
I wouldn’t be surprised that if DrL’ survey says that 80% of Westerners are limerent at least once in their lifetime. Other 20% are either too poor or too busy to experience it.
To L.E.:
I also suffer from old age combined with arrested development.
LO says that half of me changes chronological age every year, the other half of me turns twelve over and over.
I’m a big fan of a psychologist from England who specializes in Limerence and has a wonderful YouTube channel. He did a video roughly a year ago titled “Limerence for 3+ years?”.
And the analogy he used was similar to Dr L. He simply said that after a while the intrusive thoughts about LO simply become a habit/ routine and said that if you practiced the piano every day for 3 years think of how good you would be after that 3 years! It’s no different fantasizing about LO. It just becomes part of your daily routine so even if it doesn’t give you the highs that it used to your brain is just naturally hard wired to think it.
After almost 3 years thankfully I don’t get the massive highs and terrible lows like I used to even after LO confronts me and ends the conversation by squeezing my arm while smiling at me but still every day there she is!
The big question we’re all looking for is how do we finally break the cycle?!?!?!
“… LO confronts me and ends the conversation by squeezing my arm while smiling at me…”
Wow, that’s 🔥 🥵 🔥… LO is pulling!
Boy, what are you doing to do with 2 SO in your LE?
Snow I always appreciate your comments.
As for what I’m going to do with my SO the answer is nothing. Like so many people on this sight stuck in LE they’ve got no plans of divorce or doing anything to stupid it’s just something they have to keep fighting until they can break the spell of their LO once and for all.
As for the LO “pulling” by squeezing my bicep as she says goodbye I think some people are naturally that way. I’m not sure but she could simply be the touchy feely type?
I don’t know whether she’s a touchy feely type. You said before that you two never went beyond casual talking. Now, she confronted you and then squeezed your bicep while smiling, which sounded to me a lot like pushing-n-pulling you.
Why did she “confront” you? For what? How did you feel after she did this, since you claimed that you’d calmed down a lot.
I mistook that you were working together, but it seems that you’re associated through your kids at school.
To Snow
I guess the best way to word it was to say she confronted me. There was a large town event last week on a beautiful summer night and I was walking with my daughter and she walked up behind me causing me to turn and say hello and we started talking from there.
I was honest when I’d said we’d never gone past conversation and that was the first time she said goodbye by squeezing my arm/ bicep and it caught me a little by surprise but I enjoyed it.
As far as me getting better from what I used to be if this had happened 2 years ago I literally would’ve spent that night pacing around the house not getting a wink of sleep ruminating about all the possibilities and what that simple squeeze could’ve signified? Instead I just enjoyed the moment and definitely gave it some thought and 4 hours later I was sleeping like a baby.
Wow, after arm pinched by (seemingly compatible) LO and still slept like a baby? Your LE has really been tamed from a wild 🐎 to a fluffy hamster 🐹 or chipmunk 🐿️, munching just a few pellets of your ‘old’ brain cells at a time …. Not bad!?
Could this be a goal for all long term LE past/passing 3 years? 🤔
Hi,
just butting in here,
I don’t see anything like „pulling“ in someone squeezing your arm when saying goodbye. I do something similar sometimes, if a hug seems too over-familiar but I want to be cordial. It definitely means I like the person, but it doesn’t mean anything in terms of pulling, flirting, whatever.
Just saying. I think you‘ve hit the right attitude here, Richie, in not making too much of it.
🔥 🍑 🍷,
I disagree with you here. If she touches his arm gently saying goodbye, that’s polite or warm. But squeezing flesh anywhere, even during handshaking (subtly ‘tickling’ other side’s hand with any of five fingers), is a type of physical flirting or signals a wish for more contact/connection. It’s the same as someone’s foot gently but intentionally touches/steps on your foot under the dining table while smiling at you.
In the peak of LE, such a tiny fleshy touch/squeeze from LO could send limerent to the cloud or put her/his nerves on fire. I knew what it was like, even done accidentally by LO.
Mila,
I got the feeling from Richie’s message (maybe I’m wrong) that was the first time she’d touched him.
If I had an LO who had never touched me and then he did … you’re darn right I’d notice. 🙂
And I’d definitely say that would “pull” a limerent in more. (Now, maybe she hasn’t done the “push” away behavior along with that. Idk. I don’t know their full dynamic.)
Breaking the touch barrier isn’t always a sign of flirtation but it certainly can be.
Hi Snow and Marcia,
I don’t agree that squeezing someone‘s upper arm after a cordial conversation as a goodbye is the same as playing footsie under the table. Maybe in the States? But definitely not in my country.
Of course I understand that for a limerent, it might be very upsetting and starting thoughts, and it would have had an impact on me as a limerent for sure, but then, limerents don’t really have a grasp on reality. For her, it might have been nothing more than a friendly gesture. At most, she was flirting a bit, but she has no clue that he‘s limerent and could be led on by this.
I just think it’s not in Richie‘s interest to over- interpret it, it’s better he stays with the notion that she‘s just a touchy- feely person , and doesn’t suddenly believe that it was a hidden gesture of mutual limerence or something.
Mila,
“At most, she was flirting a bit, but she has no clue that he‘s limerent and could be led on by this.”
Yes, that was all I was saying. I never implied she was conveying mutual limerence.
But that’s when I started to suspect something was up with LO-lite … he started to touch me and compliment my appearance. No other male co-worker was doing either.
Richie,
“if this had happened 2 years ago I literally would’ve spent that night pacing around the house not getting a wink of sleep ruminating about all the possibilities and what that simple squeeze could’ve signified? Instead I just enjoyed the moment and definitely gave it some thought and 4 hours later I was sleeping like a baby.”
There has been quite a lot of interesting debate among the posters about your LO’s arm-squeeze and what it does, or doesn’t, signify. But this one observation (above quote) from you about how it affects you so much less than it would have done 2 years ago, tells me you are making progress. I could have written your comment almost word for word to apply to my own slow LE recovery over the same time period.
It is frustrating how
long limerence takes to die, with 3 years a number that often crops up. But without an NC option, there is no silver bullet to speed it up. From the way you talk, it reads like you’re on decent tracks. I hope you continue to recover.
🔥 🍑 🍷,
I guess it’s a culture thing. In COO, with little hug or airy/cheek kissing ritual, people could only shake hands mostly between men. Women don’t have to extend her hands upon meeting a new person, but just knotting head a bit (or lower knees, like in other Asian cultures.)
Between peers, or older to younger people, one can touch/pat arms or backs showing warm affection or agreement. But younger one could NOT do that to seniors or people in higher social position.
Between lovebirds or dates in public, they could touch or lightly pat other side’s hands, arms, waist or back, nothing below naval point IN PUBLIC. But gently/subtly squeezing any body parts, even just finger tips, you’re conveying something more than ordinary friendship or normal amount of affection.
For people whom I don’t care, I’ll ignore their squeeze or pinch and avoid them henceforth. But if it came from LO, even just accidental, then I’d feel being invisibly electrocuted.
In love/LE has physiological effect on limerent’s body.
To LaR
I really appreciate the words of encouragement and I too feel like I’ve made a lot of progress over the past 2 years and I credit the vast majority of it to this website.
Another point I’d like to make that Dr L has written several articles on is we Limerents need to reach a point where it doesn’t matter if our LO ignores us altogether or gives our bicep a big squeeze as they’re saying goodbye, maybe something in between. To truly break the addiction and be totally free I have to one day reach a point where I have pure indifference towards my LO. I don’t care who she’s talking to, what she’s wearing, what I’m wearing, what did that last gesture mean? Etc…
I personally can’t wait for that day!!!!
Hi Richie,
I also give a lot of credit to this website for my being able to make progress – both the articles and the community/ comments.
One older post (I can never refind it) that had a big effect was about giving up on closure. I used to obsess – despite all barriers – about wanting to know if LO reciprocated my feelings. One way or the other I just wanted to know. Kind of as an answer to the question ‘am I going mad here or not with the vibes I feel?’. This post of DrL’s talked about giving up on getting that closure – becoming OK with not knowing the answer, and eventually coming to see it as better not to know. I have reached that point now.
Other signs I’ve had that it is getting better, listed so you or other limerents can check if you can find similar progress – she doesn’t pop into my head unwanted so much anymore, and when I pop her back out, she stays away; she is no longer my first thought in the morning or last one at night; I don’t so much analyse our interactions afterwards – I am more secure that anything that happens doesn’t mean nearly as much (positively or negatively) as my limerent brain used to tell me it did.
Have you read the post on the Death of Hope? Do you feel you’ve gone through it? Everyone’s experiences are different, but for me there was a defined point where that happened, followed by a pretty painful spell, but afterwards I felt much more out of the woods. It happened between 18 months and 2 years in. There have still been embers for a long time afterwards but it changed the complexion of the LE inside my head into something no longer urgent or frantic. I think this is the point limerents who can’t get to NC need to aim for.
“The big question we’re all looking for is how do we finally break the cycle?!?!?!”
You have to redirect.
1.) Go NC. Remove the LO from your life.
2.) Start doing some “self-work.” I hate that expression but not sure what other term to use. Therapy, this site, other sites online about limerence, etc. Figure out why you were suspectible to limerence.
3.) Plug back into your own life (get the energy/focus off the LO). Focus on other relationships (current or new ones, romantic, platonic, familial), activities you like, goals you want to set for yourself.
4.) Time.
There’s no easy formula.
Marcia those are all wonderful points and I agree with them as well. The NC is difficult as our kids are in school together but all of the other points I really think are a leap in the right direction. I’ve been focusing for well over 2 1/2 years to truly redirect all that energy towards the truly important things in my life and even though it’s a slow pace I believe I’ve made good progress.
Richie,
“If you can’t go NC, can you go as LC as possible?”
If she still being touchy feely or was that a one-time thing? Because that can obviously be very triggering/push-pull.
Can you be a bit standoffish? Cordial but keeping your (emotional) distance? Like … you’re standing near her if you have to but you’re kind of checked out?
Did you become limerent when she grabbed your arm? Was the act of her giving you attention what caused the limerence? I ask this as a general question to the male limerents on here. From what I’ve been reading, women, as a general rule, get more attention from men as they go about their days/daily lives than men get from women. But if true, isn’t that kind of dangerous? Because isn’t it a matter of time before a married or partnered man gets attention from some woman? And is the very act of getting attention from a reasonably appealing woman enough to really turn his head? (If that sounds flippant or sarcastic or scolding, it isn’t meant to be. I’ve just always been curious about this.) What about the guys who get a decent amount of female attention before marrying? Do they get the need for “outside” female attention out of their system, so to speak, and are they therefore less susceptible to it? (Not sure any other way to word it.)
To Marcia
The arm grab just happened last week and the Limerence started almost 3 years ago. It just simply took me by surprise because it was the first time it had happened. As I’ve said I’ve noticed this person for well over a decade and one night after a wonderful 1/2 hour conversation with her Limerence hit me like a freight train eventually leading me to this website.
As for LC when NC isn’t possible that’s the method I’ve been using for over 18 months now and I’ve seen real improvements. Not an overnight fix but unless your LO does something horrific right in front of you it takes time to wear off like running a marathon vs a 5K. As for NC it’s virtually impossible because our kids play the same sports at the same school etc…
However this website has had some great articles about when NC isn’t possible and LC is the best.
Thanks.
Just found this site and it explains perfectly what I have been going through for last 6 months. Just as you describe.
My LO is a much younger woman and a remote colleague. We used to do daily video work calls and always talk a bit about our lives. Met maybe once in a couple of months and had meals together. LO has an uncanny similarity to my wife when we first met so I think rekindles those magical times in me. We hug warmly when we meet and leave and those moments are the most tough.
Anyway, now I have a work change opportunity to go full NC or LC (to use terms here). I am really struggling to do that despite the change being much better for me, both work-wise and to reduce the LE. I would appreciate your advice.
Milan,
I’m not partnered so only try to imagine your situation.
I’m wondering if you can take your wife for a second honeymoon soon to rekindle the magical feelings when you met her the first time. By doing so, you could psychologically redirect your LE energy to your wife and fall in love with her again?!
Some partnered limerents probably can suggest better solutions. We singletons tend to imagine or idealize too much, the whole world is still open to us… 🙂
A good luck!🍀
Thank you. I analyze my LE more as a longing for the younger days that the LO is tapping into. I don’t feel any less love for my wife but that initial spark goes away after being married long time.
I do agree that men are more susceptible because we get less attention. So an attraction to LO is easy to develop if they provide eye contact, physical touches, smiles, laughs, even heart emojis in texts.
What I am struggling is that I may be staying at this workplace just for the LO even though I should be looking for much better jobs.
Milan,
“I analyze my LE more as a longing for the younger days that the LO is tapping into.”
It indeed sounds like so. Very natural and understandable! That’s why I still have Glimmer for those flowery boys in their 20s… But I’ve made sure that I don’t slip into LE with them, so they lasted at most 1~3 months.
“I don’t feel any less love for my wife but that initial spark goes away after being married long time.”
That’s great. Your love for your wife sounds a real, deeper bonding which any new LE can’t break (not yet).
“So an attraction to LO is easy to develop if they provide eye contact, physical touches, smiles, laughs, even heart emojis in texts.”
The last contact, heart emojis in texts, more touches your imagination and spirit, not your physical body. But the brain goes/acts first, prior to other physiological and emotional phenomena. As it is said scientifically, the brain is the most powerful organ for all sorts of human connections — mental, spiritual, emotional, sensual, erotic, sexual… (may not all at the same time, though)
“What I am struggling is that I may be staying at this workplace just for the LO even though I should be looking for much better jobs.”
Well, if you think the contacts with LO won’t affect your love for your wife, then there is no urgent need to change the job yet. But based on Dr L’s theory, it’s almost impossible to remain at a mild LE, where you seem to be now.
What happens if your LE for this LO continues strengthening or burning, then tips into a state which your logical mind can’t control your LE’s physiological symptoms?
How can you be sure that your LE won’t deepen?
Thanks again. I would say my LE is more than mild already and as you said is likely to worsen with more LO contact. I am searching for new workspace primarily for much better work/pay as well as cutting off contact with the attractive LO.
But the LE seems to sub-consciously make my job search less effective for exactly that fear of NC. Though my rational mind says I need to really go for it.
What and how would you advise I tackle this?
Milan,
I’m glad to hear that your logical mind is telling you what I wanted to say before but didn’t want to push too hard —“really go for “ a better work/pay.
Doing it is inevitably fearful, because you don’t know yet how your system is going to react to NC, which WILL hurt mentally and physically!
So please prepare for it now, Everyday! Once prepared enough, NC would not hurt so badly when it takes place. (Stoic)
Also, a new, challenging job would demand your focus a great deal for a while, which will also help you calm down the currently LE.
Good lucks to you in a new job and NC!
Hello Milan and welcome ,
Just to add that in future, when you have hopefully pulled out of your LE, you will most certainly reflect back on this time in your life.
Therefore, maybe try to imagine your future-self being disappointed if you hadn’t taken potentially life-enhancing opportunities ( due to some empty fantasy LO dreamland) ?
I made some bad decisions to not go places or do things with special people in my life, on the off chance of having LO encounters, which I prioritised but did not always materialise.
I have regrets, however, I later came to learn that I was in the height of limerence at that time. I only learnt about limerence later on after coming across this website.
However, you now know about limerence before you have to make these choices, so I guess that I would just implore you make some informed decisions.
Best wishes
Just to add that I still made questionable decisions when I knew about limerence, but they were slightly more grounded or at least more conscious decisions!
Thank you so much TM and IT! Amazing how complete strangers can help when you cannot talk to anyone you know.
Until I came across Limerence as a real affliction last week and read Dr L’s clear explanations, I though I was alone in this. Just attaching actual terms like LO and NC helps me set the right direction in life.
I agree change of workspace will help me great deal both in terms of a new set of projects and colleagues and get out of the ’empty fantasy LO dreamland’. Now I can focus on getting there!
I don’t know if this is common but I am most badly hit by LE if woken up at 2 or 3am. Mostly fine during the day.
„I don’t know if this is common but I am most badly hit by LE if woken up at 2 or 3am“
I don’t know if this helps, but literally anything hits worse at these hours late night/ early morning. Every small or bigger problem seems doubly difficult and scary, that’s my experience…
Maybe it helps to know that and tell yourself that these hours aren’t the right time to think or solve anything, they lie, so to say- tell yourself you will assess this in the morning when you are fully capable, that it’s no use now, and start counting sheep or focus on slow breathing.
OMG, everything hits at 3am: limerence, something your boss said, imposter syndrome, existential crises….
🦇 📕:
Yes, they do! But they’re truths, not lies. They’re mostly covered by daytime noises and busy-ness, or numbed in chemical or behavioral addictions.
But our issues, vulnerabilities are always under our skin, unless we face it at 3am, converse with them, understand them until we insightfully, therapeutically guide them out of our system and heal “wounds” within ourselves. Then we’d be at least at peace at 3am….
Heard on a psych podcast why the 2 or 3AM wakeups make all our fears seem at their worst. Evolutionarily humans were woken at that time by threats like predators, fires, floods, whatever. So there is a built-in crisis reaction and if there is no external crisis, then your mental fears take over. This seems very plausible.
Anyway, this site and your responses has helped me already. I have eliminated all unnecessary chances to initiate contact with LO which I would have pursued before.
That’s very plausible evolution theory!
Living in a peaceful region when there is no immediate external threat or little crisis, we still share an universal fear especially between 2~4am —
*****
When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be
John Keats
1795 –1821
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact’ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.
*******
Milan, glad to hear you’re feeling better and more decisive.
To LaR
I think I have read the post about the death of hope at least it sounds familiar.
I remember for the first year of my Limerence towards her unless I was on a run, doing an intense workout I felt like I was going insane just picturing her face. Like so many limerents I felt like I was going insane. Just when I would see a glimmer of hope and the light at the end of the tunnel I would see her at school pickup or just passing by in vehicle and I felt like I was having a heart attack.
However similar to you at around 18 months I was able to go NC for over a month and I noticed small improvements which is better than nothing. At the 2 year mark we were talking face to face and the moment hurt like being only a foot away but afterwards I noticed the pain wasn’t as bad. To take one of your quotes I still feel the ambers burning when I see her face or she initiates conversation but the physical and emotional pain have dampened and I expect will continue to.
The psychologist I was talking about which I’m sure many on this website already know is Marios Georiou. His specialty is limerence and He has a whole series of videos on YouTube that have also helped me tremendously.
It’s definitely worth a watch!!!!
Milan & Mila,
„I don’t know if this is common but I am most badly hit by LE if woken up at 2 or 3am“
“I don’t know if this helps, but literally anything hits worse at these hours late night/ early morning. Every small or bigger problem seems doubly difficult and scary, that’s my experience…”
Based on “The School of Life” and some other philosophies, these hours (2~4m before a dawn) are the time we’re closest to our Unconscious/soul, to true state of our emotions, and to be an accurate measure stick for our life quality. If you feel secure, content, peaceful (alone or with SO), then your life is happy or nearly “perfect”. If something or someone “bothers” you at this hour, then cause(s) of them is your Achilles’ heel!
It’s during this most vulnerable time (both physical and psychological), wealth, power, popularity, and other worldly matters mean Nothing! You alone (or with SO sleeping next to you) is confronting your spirit (or God), mind, emotions, IFS members… Whatever you dwell on is related the metaphysical matter, ie. what’s meaning of my existence, my reality, my LO/SO, etc. It’s during this hour, current issues /fears /anxieties /desires /hopes … could (may not) all intensity, or they are pushed to the front brain by the Unconscious.
“Maybe it helps to know that and tell yourself that these hours aren’t the right time to think or solve anything, they lie, so to say- “
Mila, I disagree with you here. Whatever comes into our head during those hours do NOT LIE. But they might be most unwanted by our logical mind. You’re right that this time might not be the best time to solve anything; however, it definitely TELLS one what’s existing deep inside oneself. During waking hours, our mind and body are so distracted by the external bustling world.
With a nap during early evening, I usually ended up staying up half or whole night through. My mind was often at a sharp state observing my mental/emotional reality: what’s there, not there, out of imagination, wishful thinking, paranoia, of reasonable cautions… I figured out more of my issues (cptsd pains, Longing, past or present desires… ) during and post my XLE. I knew if I run away from them, I’d never found out my Achilles’ heel or “grow/mature”.
Milan: if you want to stay sleep without breaks, or sleep deeper, perhaps you can try herbal Melatonin (starting from 1 or 2mg) for a month at a time, then take a break, and then take it again (told by my pcp). I sleep deeper even just with 1mg pill, 30 minutes before bedtime. I also have more vivid dreams every night while taking it, which distresses the logical mind by “telling” me what’s in my Unconscious. I always felt rested better if I had colorful dreams.
I just read a lovely comment on another limerence site that really resonated.
“What you’re longing for is not LO’s to give.”
I need to remember that one.
Scene 3: Still in Roark’s office. Roark is seated at his desk. Tattoo comes in and slumps in a large peacock back rattan chair, her arms on the arms of the chair. She looks slightly fatigued. A staff member arrives with a tray holding a pitcher, two glasses, a sugar bowl, spoons, and cut lemons. She places it on Roark’s desk and stand backs.
Roark: “Thank you. That will be all. Ice tea, Tattoo?”
Tattoo: “Yes, Boss, please.”
Roarke: “Are our guests settled in?”
Tattoo: “Yes, the single woman said that the was feeling slightly nauseous. There was some turbulence on the way over. She took something and will be fine for the luau tonight.”
[Phone rings]
Roark [glancing at his watch]: “Right on time.” [Roark presses a button] Good morning, Doctor. I’m here with my assistant, Tattoo.”
Voice on phone (VOP): “Good afternoon, Tattoo.”
[Roark gives Tattoo a nod]
Tattoo: “Good afternoon, Doctor.”
Roark: Shall we get down to business?”
VOP: “I assume our guest arrived safely.”
Roark: “They did. Tattoo has just returned after getting them settled in.”
VOP: “Have you formed an opinion, yet? As we discussed, I’m particularly interested in triage for limerents.
Roark: “My initial impression is that they are as you described them. As for triaging them, that will happen at the luau tonight when the limerents are first exposed to their LOs.”
[Tattoo shaked her head and mouths “triage.”
VOP: When can I expect your assessment?”
Roark: “By noon, tomorrow.”
VOP: “I’m looking forward to it. Good day.”
[Phone goes quiet]
Tattoo: “Boss, are we running some kind of experiment on these people.”
Roark: “Not exactly an experiment, more of a controlled observation.”
Tattoo: “Do they know about it?”
Roark” “Oh, yes. They are all willing participants. They all jumped at the chance to see how their LE might play out.”
Tattoo: “How were they selected?”
Roark: “They were all winners of this year’s Limmy Awards.”
Tattoo: “What?!…Limmy Awards? This gets more bizarre by the minute. What are Limmy Awards?”
Roark: An award conferred by DrL to acknowledge achievement in some aspect of limerence?”
Tattoo: “Seriously Boss, they have awards for that?”
Roark: “Indeed.”
Tattoo: “Oh, and what’s this talk of triage? This isn’t a hospital.”
Roark: “There is a theory that some limerents will thrive no matter what is done to them. Some limerents will fail no matte what is done for them. Then, there may be a large group of limerents for whom the outcome is dependent on the help that they receive. For some, the benefit may be fractional. For others, it may be exponential. The assessment will attempt to determine which category the limerent may be in.”
Tattoo: “And, the luau?”
Roark: “The luau will be the first exposure of the limerent to their LO. It should be very informative.”
Tattoo: “I can’t wait…”
To Limerent Emeritus:
I can’t wait, either. I haven’t been to a luau in years.
“As for triaging them, that will happen at the luau tonight when the limerents are first exposed to their LOs.”
Oh man, first exposed to LO. I’ll be on the lookout for limerence meteorites. Especially if she’s in her summer best with matching sandals. I might pass out. 😱🥵😵
Hope Marcia remembers to call 911 if I do. If not, perhaps this will be her opportunity to revive me by slapping me around a little. I’m sure she’ll get a sick thrill. 😁
MJ
“Hope Marcia remembers to call 911 if I do”
I am not on Fantasy Island.
I on the LOVE BOAT!
And just from your post here, with references to your LO … you have been banned from the fun table. You’ve been fired from the whole boat.
We’ll find a new Isaac.
A fun one. And a younger one. 🙂
I’m serious. Don’t want t
“You’ve been fired from the whole boat.
We’ll find a new Isaac.
A fun one. And a younger one. 🙂”
Marcia
You can’t fire me because there is clause in my contract that prevents exclusively, angry middle aged women from having the ability to make that call. I’ve also been a stellar performer and have fantastic attendance, so based on those merits, I am outstanding in all my efforts and a good all around team player. Not only that, I look good for my age. We just need to get the word out. 😁
Are you picking up what I’m putting down?? I’m not going anywhere. 😆
MJ,
“You can’t fire me because there is clause in my contract that prevents exclusively, angry middle aged women from having the ability to make that call. I’ve also been a stellar performer and have fantastic attendance, so based on those merits, I am outstanding in all my efforts and a good all around team player. ”
It’s an at-will contract. They can fire you at anytime.
And, yeah, you show up (the bare minimum) … but it’s your Debbie downer attitude.”Woe is me … my LO … Woe is me … LF.” The guests are complaining. Ain’t nobody on vacation want to hear that shit! 😀
“Not only that, I look good for my age. We just need to get the word out. 😁”
Unless you’re doing stuff to look younger you haven’t mentioned. At our age, nobody gets away with “natural.”And, no, you are not the exception. Everything about you is the rule. 😀
The mooring lines are cast off on the Limerence Boat and the guests are planning their fairy-tale-endings to start at the luau.
My work here is done.
👩🦰 🏃♂️,
I’m still on the Island! Does it mean I can just walk to your camp to eat all those aphrodisiac food?
Last night I had a dream, staying at a buddhistic monastery meditating with some female school teachers from the city. I ended up oversleeping on the floor mat for 4 hours, left alone with two nuns, and missed my school work, feeling very tired and blue in the dream!
Upon waking up, I’m double tired and depressed in my reality, it’s not a joking matter anymore…
👩🦰 🏃, it’s all your fault to force me to work in your Fantasy Island! 🔨
Now, among your guests, it’s better to include my potential LOs there… 😜
L.E.,
Remember you have picked a bunch of
addicts for your readership / viewership. People (well, me and Norma at least) are hankering after the next scene.
Please ignore all the bickering among your cast and don’t leave us hanging. Ultimately, they must deliver their lines as you as creative director script them, or they don’t get paid – it’s that simple.
I agree with LaR. We need good leadership now. Don’t let a feisty old crab pot (love u Marcia) deter your efforts.
Thanks!
I’m reluctant to go down individual storylines at the risk of offending posters.
However, I have some other ideas…
“Severance- LwL” – While working on the severed floor, a man becomes limerent and enters an LE. Off the severed floor, they don’t know each other.
“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – LwL” – After a breakup, a man undergoes a mind wipe but the procedure is botched and he becomes limerent with his ex as his new LO.
“Westworld – LwL” – Evan Rachel Wood and Thandie Newton become renegade android limerents who escape Westworld and wii stop at nothing to find and connect with their LOs.
👩🦰 🏃,
How about Eastern mismatching Western LwL: one Western men falls in LE with the shipwreck survivor immigrant, who falls in LE with another Western LO, causing endless cultural, verbal and body language misunderstanding, which then leads to jealousy, hope, despair, laughters, sad tears on all sides?
She will choose a SO among two, so she could can get a real love ❤️ and a 💚 💳 ?
No more 🛶 riding for HER under Sunshine ☀️ or Moonbeam🌙 .
“Marcia to Isaac (MJ) ”
Marcia
I get the Issac reference but I’m not black. Issac though is infact the name of my Daughter’s bf. So we gotta come up with a better name than that one. I keep seeing his face and it’s weird. 😆
“I will wear the necessary uniform, yes. 🙂”
Good. I like a Woman in uniform. 🫡
“I’ll be logging the names and room numbers of the hot guys who check in. That’s the job of the cruise director. To greet everyone. 🙂”
Yes but logging room numbers of hot guys screams stalker-ish. Where’s my rubber hose so I can beat you with it.
Know your place woman. 😆
“You can talk to whoever you want to. Unless I get complaints. 🙂”
No complaints. At least from the ladies themselves. If there will be any complaints, it will be from the rest of you complaining about the noisy headboard smacking the wall in my suite all night long. And no I won’t be alone.. 😆
“Meanwhile … don’t hover around me. I don’t want you to c-blok me. 🙂”
Yeah because you don’t want the young studs thinking this sexy older dude is your Daddy. Gray hair and all. I might have to kick their a$$es.. 😁
“I can’t — nor do I want to — try to understand what goes on in your head. 🙂”
Think its because I put your name with the 70s and that Marcia Marcia Marcia from the Brady Bunch. (Even though her hair was long and straight.) I positively hated that show in every facet. It’s so pointless and not funny. I could never understand the appeal. Even the movies weren’t that great.
“The captain’s daughter?
Yeah, they both fit what I thought you’d like.”
You know me so well don’t you? I forgot she played the daughter. Man you make it sound kinda pervy when you write it like that.
The hell is wrong with you? 😆
“MJ and I will be sitting at the FUN table. Join us if you dare. 🙂”
Fun table with lots drinks and Hors d’oeuvres. Pardon all the very loud laughing going on. 🤣
“I’m an independent contractor and the producers offered me more money.
I’m a limerent. I don’t have any loyalty. 🙂 (Sorry. Couldn’t help myself. 🙂)”
Just for that comment, I’m gonna hover now and c-block all the Dudes. Love Boat is a different story. I found my rubber hose. 😆
MJ
“I get the Issac reference but I’m not black.”
For criminy … you are the world’s most literal person! How have you ever managed to read a book or poem? Have you ever read a book or poem? 🙂
You are Isaac because, during the show’s opening credits, when the camera pans to him, he points at the camera in a very goofy, silly way. That has your name written all over it. 🙂
“Issac though is infact the name of my Daughter’s bf. So we gotta come up with a better name than that one. I keep seeing his face and it’s weird. 😆”
Oh, no, no … Isaac is perfect!!! 🙂
“Yes but logging room numbers of hot guys screams stalker-ish.”
I plan on getting the seating chart for the dining room so I know where the hotties will be sitting. Then I’ll walk by and drop my clipboard right in front of their tables … and bend over to pick it up. 🙂
“Know your place woman. 😆”
I don’t have a problem knowing my place. No one has ever told me to stay in my lane. 🙂
“If there will be any complaints, it will be from the rest of you complaining about the noisy headboard smacking the wall in my suite all night long. ”
Every young woman’s dream … sex for a long time with a much older man. 🙂
“Yeah because you don’t want the young studs thinking this sexy older dude is your Daddy. ”
SUGAR daddy, maybe.
“Think its because I put your name with the 70s and that Marcia Marcia Marcia from the Brady Bunch. (Even though her hair was long and straight.) I positively hated that show in every facet. It’s so pointless and not funny. I could never understand the appeal. Even the movies weren’t that great.”
I don’t get its appeal as an adult. But I watched the reruns on TBS as a kid. I loved the dad. He’d call one of the kids into his study — OMG, he actually noticed something was wrong and he didn’t just ignore it — and he discussed the issue. He came up with a solution. He guided the kid along. The perfect dad.
“You know me so well don’t you? I forgot she played the daughter. Man you make it sound kinda pervy when you write it like that.”
It SURE does. I was about to open a can of bust ass on you when I read your previous post about her. But I’ll cut you a little slack …as we were in grade school when the show first aired.
“Fun table with lots drinks and Hors d’oeuvres. Pardon all the very loud laughing going on. 🤣”
Yes. No talk of ailments, LOs or adult responsibilities.
“Just for that comment, I’m gonna hover now and c-block all the Dudes.:
Come to think of it, I’m not worried. No one would ever believe we’re together. I look like I have more taste. 🙂
Marcia,
How about I make LaR the ship Maitre’D? I still need Doc. Maybe LaR can be Doc. I don’t see anybody as Captain material. He can pick.
This is a show. We can bend reality a little and let you into the main dining room. https://youtube.com/shorts/1MupTAwb3s8?is=8-J2Ye2nhe1ROJPk
Just remember, Gopher (ND), as Purser, is responsible for maintaining good order and discipline.
LE,
“I don’t see anybody as Captain material. He can pick.”
I assumed you’d make yourself captain. People who start their own productions usually cast themselves in the lead. 🙂
“Just remember, Gopher (ND), as Purser, is responsible for maintaining good order and discipline.”
I’m a limerent. The rules don’t apply to me. 🙂
To L.E.:
Does that mean that anything that goes wrong is my fault?
Sounds like my marriage all over again.
L.E.,
Assume my American cultural references are near zero … when did we start being on a ship instead of an island? Or are you casting two shows at once now, to keep Marcia and MJ happy?
Maitre’D I can work with. I know what I’d need to do in that role on a limerents’ cruise ship – ensure all the waiting stuff drop their pencils regularly.
If you don’t want to be captain, I think you need to bring back an LwL alumnus to do it. You remember them best.
Off to the coffeehouse y’all with all this fantasy chit chat 😉
Marcia,
I know that you’re limerent and don’t follow rules. Why do you think I picked you for Cruise Director.
ND,
I needed a Duty Grown Up. If you don’t want the role I’ll offer it to someone else. Nobody expects you to actually do it, not with this crowd.
LaR,
As Maitre’D, just do what Marcia tells you and let her sit wherever she wants.
MJ,
This is the revisionist, woke, reboot. You get the name, how you play the rest of it is up to you.
Snow,
You’re free to play it as you see it.
The are two shows running simultaneously. Please keep that in mind.
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