There’s an unusual phenomenon that sometimes happens during unwanted limerence where a limerent, in the throes of a painful and overwhelming emotional need that is in conflict with the practicalities of real life, decides they need to “get LO out of their system.”
This usually means having sex with their LO.
I’ll be honest, I’ve heard this idea most often from male limerents.
Now, I don’t want to stereotype, and I haven’t gathered data or anything, but anecdotally this sentiment seems to be expressed more by men than women.
If we could just hook up, the “thinking” goes, then it would rid me of this relentless, frustrating craving.
I suspect that this idea comes from the classic “pump and dump” strategy that some men adopt when they want to have sex but don’t want to commit.
These limerents come to believe that satisfying their erotic itch will free them of the insatiable desire for their limerent object—as though orgasm would somehow burn away the wanting drive.
It’s comically wrong, this belief.
Just like most of the other false beliefs that limerents develop, and which (by amazing coincidence) always turn out to involve justifications for them getting to bond and mate, it actually makes things worse.
Let’s go through all the ways this “get them out of my system” plan is likely to go wrong.
1. It won’t work
Limerence is a deep drive to form a pair bond. It may well include intense erotic desire for the limerent object, but it isn’t the same drive as lust.
The limerent might naively think that sating their lust will weaken their limerence, but it’s more likely to do the opposite.
Quite apart from the fact that “pump and dump” is a short-lived solution to the lust problem anyway (I mean it’s not as if the guys who employ it aren’t horny again a day or two later), sex usually deepens intimacy and strengthens bonding.
Limerence develops from the combined action of the arousal, reward and bonding systems in the brain, and sex, it turns out, is arousing, rewarding, and culminates in the release of a massive dose of oxytocin that causes a powerful feeling of connection to the person you’re rubbing up against.
So, thinking that an activity which fires up all the key limerence-reinforcing systems in the brain is a good way of getting rid of limerence is a bit like an alcoholic deciding to have a drink “just to take the edge off.”
Addictive cravings don’t disappear by indulging them.
Now, all that said, I do have to admit that there are sometimes scenarios where the “hook up to get rid of limerence” plan might work.
The first is if the sex is terrible.
Sometimes it does reveal an incompatibility that overcomes the limerence desire. As commenter Allie once put it:
When I had sex with LO2 it pretty much ended my LE as it was perfunctory and completely lacking any emotional connection.
In that situation, you’re not going to be bathing in limerence-reinforcing oxytocin. Instead, you are having an aversive experience that directly counteracts the “LO as reward” program and overwrites it with discomfort and disappointment.
But, I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that most rationalising limerents aren’t expecting to “get it out of their system” by having disappointingly bad sex with their LO. They think the purge will actually feel good, but then somehow… finish their business with LO?
A second scenario that could, potentially, work, would be if a major part of the allure of the LO is their mystery. If the glimmer is triggered by LO being intriguing and enigmatic, the desire could in part be about getting the “keys to the kingdom”—being the one person who can gain entry to their intimate embrace.
In principle, this could conceivably dispel some of the magic of an LO’s allure, but in reality it’s still going to powerfully reinforce the fundamental processes that strengthen limerence.
What’s more, if the plan actually did work then it’s an indication that the primary desire was not to form a bond, but to plunder LO’s treasure—the restless desire was in fact the thrill of seduction and conquest, not the formation of an ecstatic union.
So, those two outlier conditions aside, hooking up is very likely to make limerence worse not better.
2. It’s lousy behaviour
It seems unnecessary to say this, but using other people as an emotional purgative is selfish. You shouldn’t do it.
Quite apart from the fact that your LO obviously has to consent to the hook up, there are still a lot of consequences to deal with after the event and many of them will be unintended.
It’s likely that you will not suddenly feel relief from all the limerence symptoms as hoped, but will instead just move into an even deeper phase of the obsession. How you process that revelation (that you didn’t get them out of your system, you flooded your system with them) will determine what happens next.
Your LO might just have some feelings about the situation too.
Unpredictable feelings.
Perhaps—and hear me out because this is entirely possible—they didn’t actually intend to just conveniently rid you of your emotional turmoil but instead had their own needs and desires and hopes.
All these unintended consequences have even more impact if the limerent is already married or in a long-term relationship.
In that scenario, the selfishness steps up a notch.
Torn between a stable relationship and the thrilling intoxication of limerence, some married people genuinely think that “getting it out of their system” is a reasonable solution to the problem of not being able to decide what they want.
As I’ve put it before, they want to take a galactically selfish holiday with their LO, just to see how it goes, and then come back to their family when they’ve cleared their system of inconvenient cravings.
Truly the psychological derangement of limerence is something to behold.
If your motive for starting a sexual relationship with your LO is selfish, the consequences are going to be destructive. Good outcomes rarely come from bad starting points.
Other people are pretty much guaranteed to be hurt, and unlike you (who started the whole thing), they won’t deserve it.
3. It’s anti-purposeful
Drifting through life is one of the commonest ways that we can end up being vulnerable to limerence.
Not knowing who you are, what you really want, or what to do with your life, makes a disruptive romantic adventure seem like an enlivening prospect.
Hooking up with an LO you can’t be with, in the hope that it will help you figure out what you really feel and what you really want, is like setting fire to your house just to shake things up a bit.
You need to figure out who you are and what you want before you hook up with someone else and create lots of consequences.
Fundamentally, if you are stuck in a position where you know you can’t openly and honestly start a proper relationship with an LO, but you also can’t get them out of your head, then the problem is in your head.
Not their undergarments.
People who live with purpose will recognise an unwanted bout of limerence as a warning sign. A subconscious nudge to pay attention to what’s going on and how it could jeopardise what they’ve already built in their life.
It would prompt self-reflection and review, rather than indecision and impulsive action.
To think “I need to get intimate with LO before I can figure out what I want to do” is an admission that you’re surrendering your decision-making to someone else—trying to get relief from an uncomfortable temptation by giving into it.
A limerent who sees “getting it out of their system” as the solution is someone who does not understand how their system works or how to deal with emotional blockages in it.
Unwanted limerence can be a wake-up call that leads to personal transformation.
But that work is internal.
Pumping and dumping LO definitely won’t help.
Wow. What an amazing article. Thank you for giving me so much food for thought.
I must admit, this idea had NEVER occurred to me. I guess I am not a “pump and dump” kind of person.
I already suspect that my LO is terrible in bed, due to being such a defensive and self-absorbed person.
Not that I will ever find out.