I focus a lot on the perspective of married limerents, for an obvious reason (I’m married).
However, that perspective tends to be backwards looking. What I mean by that is that limerence has typically arrived as a challenge, and the most immediate concern of the married limerent is to make sense of what happened and why.
The classic prescription at LwL for recovering from limerence is a goodly dose of purposeful living. Again, that can seem a little reactive, rather than proactive. If limerence arrived because your life was not going well, then a focus on improving life is the best solution to the immediate problem.
But for single limerents, the questions are more forwards-facing. Certainly the same historical issues can come up if a current limerent experience has been distressing, but there are also several future questions that are just as important. How do I handle it if I become limerent for someone bad? Or someone good? How do I find someone good, and should I avoid or seek LOs? What role does purposeful living play in that campaign? Is seeking romance purposeful in itself?
I suppose the cloud-level question here is: how helpful is purposeful living as a philosophy for single limerents? Let’s count the ways…
1. Know your limerence avatar
A useful exercise in self-awareness is trying to analyse what kind of person is an LO for you. Many people have a romantic “type” but this goes a bit deeper. It’s not just who you find attractive – physically or emotionally – it is who sends your reward circuits into overdrive like love heroin.
This is your “limerence avatar” – the idealised glimmer giver, who has that perfect amalgam of appearance and personality traits that triggers you at a deep level. It’s idiosyncratic. For some people it can be mostly physical traits. For some people it is most personality based. For others still it is about how the LO makes them feel. Some people meet many LOs in the course of their lives, others only meet one or two. But, if you have had at least one LO, it is plausible that you can start to piece together precisely what it was about them that you responded to so profoundly. This is rarely wasted time.
Now, some people feel profound emotional resistance to this concept. They feel that the specialness of the LO is encompassed entirely within their person – that it is not the way that their nose wrinkles up when they laugh, or the way they play with cats, or the fact that they make the limerent feel valued that matters – the specialness resides with their unique and indivisible soul.
Fair enough. I’m not here to persuade any besotted limerents out of their beliefs, but even if you feel this way, I’m going to assume that you are not able to be with that LO for one reason or another. Given that, it is probably useful to accept that someone else may be able to pull your levers too at some point in the future.
The value of this exercise is two fold. First you learn something about yourself. As I’ve said before, my limerence avatar is the damsel in distress (especially when they cover it up with a beguiling boldness of spirit). Knowing that is supremely valuable for me.
If I meet a future damsel I know I should be wary, and I also know that I will be tempted to try and ride in like a self-regarding white knight to solve her problems so that she’ll fall in love with me. That awareness of my own vanity is really useful for deflating my ego and diminishing the thrill.
Second, assuming you are not currently limerent, you can make a rational decision about whether your personal avatar is someone that you can form a meaningful relationship with. Someone who, once the manic pixie dust settles, is a viable match. Again – to carry on with my own personal navel gazing – a damsel in distress is not necessarily a bad prospect, as long as the distress isn’t a manifestation of a chaotic or dysfunctional life. If you end up saving each other, things can work out well.
Others may be less lucky. If your limerence avatar is a dodgy LO, you need to adjust your expectations. Long-term healthy bonding is formidably difficult if you are drawn to the disordered.
2. Know who you want to be
The core philosophy of purposeful living is to take decisive action towards becoming the version of yourself that you admire. This doesn’t mean selfless sacrifice and a life of virtuous restraint – it means being honest with yourself about who you really are.
Do you really want to be a digital nomad, or would you rather be a home body looking after a family, and an artisanal herb garden? Would you rather be a public artist, or a private businesswoman? A teacher or a joker? The freedom to choose is paramount; if you feel trapped or powerless your life will inevitably tilt towards resentment.
The big gain from knowing who you want to be, is it gives you a target to aim at. It gives you a direction of travel. You stop drifting through life in midstream, and start steering with purpose.
Life can start to get better in a dramatic way if you can make this mental mindshift towards being purposeful. To making decisions based on how well they will help you get closer to your ideal.
A non-obvious consequence of living this way, is that it makes you less vulnerable to manipulative limerent objects. If you are purposeful, you are far less inclined to reinvent yourself to please a dazzling LO. You are also less attractive to a narcissist, as you will have opinions and views that don’t hinge on how important they are to your life.
When you have a purpose that is focused on improving your life and yourself, other people – even romantic partners – become exactly that: partners. Not Gods or Goddesses. Not a purpose in themselves. Not someone to cling to. They become someone who can maybe bond with you, while you work together on a shared (or at least compatible) purpose.
When you know who you want to be, it is great to bond with people who are attracted to that version of yourself.
3. Practice authenticity to attract good people
When your life has a purpose you are proud of, it is easy to live it openly and authentically. There will be fear, for sure, and you will sometimes feel vulnerable about sharing your dreams – but because of how much it means to you, not because of shame or duplicity.
If you are motivated by making your life better, and not by seeking the praise of others, avoiding conflict, or accumulating status and power, it is a lot easier to just be honest about things. And that can be an enormous relief.
But there is another strange consequence too. You start to notice that the people who are drawn towards you are not the game players or the narcissists or the jerks. They get repelled by authenticity and sincerity. Instead, you find stronger affinity with other people who are living purposeful lives.
It’s an old observation that romance arrives when you aren’t looking for it, and while it’s a bit of a hackneyed saying, I suspect that this “more attractive to other honest people” effect could be a factor. You kind of come at romance in a slantwise way. By living a purposeful life you are more likely to catch the interest and attention of other good people, who tend to be better prospects for healthy bonding.
And even if you find those people are few and far between, at least your life will be improving in many other ways while you wait.
The philosophy behind purposeful living can serve single limerents in even more important ways than married limerents. It is great for repairing damage, but it’s even better for forging a meaningful future.
I’m wondering if you get to the stage where your life is purposeful and you have the the life you want, do you never become limerent for someone again? I’m also wondering if the possible occurrence of limerence decreases as you get older. I’m just not in the cruising mindset I was in my 20s. 🙂
I don’t think so, Marcia. I think it’s more that you have the insight to respond appropriately. And the desire to resist if the limerence is not good for you and your goals.
I’m wondering about the age issue, too. I haven’t met a new LO in almost a decade — the longest it’s ever been between LOs. I don’t think I’ve even met a potential LO. I’m not saying I’m immune to limerence but I’ve either became extremely self-protective or with age comes fewer opportunities to meet someone who lights you up.
Marcia,
I don’t think it has anything to do with age. I do think it has everything to do with maturity. Perhaps you are a place in your life where you are content and happy. I find limerence creeps up on me when I am not happy or something is missing in my current relationship. Lately I feel as though I am a serial limerent, and I will never have a normal loving and lasting relationship. I wonder if I am even capable of love. Are limerents capable of love or are we just wired to fall head over heels with every shiny bloke who comes along and looks at us a certain way?
carried away,
“Lately I feel as though I am a serial limerent, and I will never have a normal loving and lasting relationship.”
I think if you want a lasting relationship you have to look for the opposite of limerence. Something stable, something safe, someone who lets you know how he feels right away and isn’t playing the old dip and dodge. I think there are posters on here who have written about having a lasting relationship with someone who was initially an LO, but I don’t know how common it is.
” Are limerents capable of love or are we just wired to fall head over heels with every shiny bloke who comes along and looks at us a certain way?”
I definitely don’t fall for every shiny bloke. I haven’t had a new LO in almost a decade, and there was a six-year gap between the current one and the one before him. But I agree that an LE starts with where the limerent is in life.
” Are limerents capable of love or are we just wired to fall head over heels with every shiny bloke who comes along and looks at us a certain way?”
This was sort of a rhetorical question – wasn’t really expecting a reply. Must have been lost in translation. I don’t really fall for every shiny bloke either though lately because I am not happy in my current relationship I am susceptible to one shiny bloke😁
Quotes of the Day:
“Specifically, women who are bold and confident on the outside, but hiding an emotional wound within.” – DrL https://livingwithlimerence.com/the-best-cure-for-limerence/
“There is nothing so alluring as a damaged soul you’re sure you can fix.” – DrL https://livingwithlimerence.com/the-glimmer-givers/
All that insight packed into 30 words.
Hard won life lessons.
Dibs on the redheads…
I wish my LO wanted to rescue this damaged soul! No, stop it – he’s a happily married man!
It’s a great romantic fantasy but wishing someone rescues you is hoping that a.) that person is mentally healthy (could or could not be the case) and b.) that person has your best interests at heart (again, could or could not be the case or their motives could be self-serving.)
“Long-term healthy bonding is formidably difficult if you are drawn to the disordered. ” DrL (see article above)
Dr L,
I think you’re seeing the trees for
the forest. appealing to the
reward system of the brain as
an explanation for ” person
addiction” sounds fancy. i dont
feel its an explanation.. it is but
a miniscule, microscopic fixation
on one part of the evolutionary
process of sexual selection, no?
That is after all why the reward
circuitry evolved in the first
place, to induce pleasure to that
which is evolutionary adaptive.
surely? Food. Sex..another person
who becomes a facsimile for
these targets maybe.. money
is but a proxy for food, shelter,
and sometimes sex also. You
could call it “money addiction”
but again I think youre missing the forest for the trees.. i don’t
know.. maybe im confused or
being too simple, i don’t see the
need to interject b.f skinners
school of thought, behavioralism,
mixed with neural science as
an explanation for limerence,
because evolution has already
designed our neural systems
to seek and repeat what is
adaptive anyway. Surely
what a person labels “person
addiction” is simply the universal
feeling of romantic longing for
a lost love designed to arise
from the evolved structures of
the system mixed with genetic
personality differences on the big
5. E.g. Neurotism. Some people
take it worse than others.
It would make sense to feel
pain when blocked from your
evolutionary success. E.g. your
limerent object.. maybe highly
neurotic people feel it twice as
hard. But that would be a genetic
differencee of personality trait
Neurotism?
“Surely what a person labels “person addiction” is simply the universal feeling of romantic longing for a lost love designed to arise from the evolved structures of the system mixed with genetic personality differences on the big 5. E.g. Neurotism”
Interesting theory although that explanation doesn’t fit completely with my experience… the limerents on this site comprise a wide range of personality types. Some neurotic, and some not remotely neurotic e.g. me! – yet I am a lifelong limerent. There are more introverts than average here (though also many extroverts), and many great imaginations I think. I think you are right in that degree of romantic longing is a factor in how limerence starts, and who is more prone to it. What I am experiencing now may have started as romantic longing, but it is now also a compulsive addiction for sure.
Allie 1 – Interesting. For me it seems linked to being anxious with OCD tendencies. But also, as you say, addiction and generally I’m not someone who has addictions. It’s all quite complicated! I haven’t been in a relationship with a LO, but would be interested to see how it planned out if it happened! LO2 was someone I could’ve seen myself in a long term relationship with, if things had been different. I don’t know about the other 2 as I didn’t know them well enough.
I’m single and have three times been limerent and each time towards happily married men. It’s not done on purpose, I met them all when they were without their wives/families and only the first one wore a wedding ring. Actually the second one wasn’t married, but in a long term partnership. Still together from what I’ve heard, but I’m not concerned with him – only LO3! The last man I fancied was also happily married, but luckily I didn’t get limerent for him. I haven’t been in a relationship for a few years!
Song of the Day (Redux): “Holding Out for a Hero” – Bonnie Tyler (1984)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-DdasBCal4
Another Jim Steinman classic!
If you ever get this vibe from someone you’re interested in, run! Just run!
Unless, of course, you like tilting windmills…
https://i1.wp.com/www.skeptical-science.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/tilting.jpg?w=634&ssl=1
carried away,
“though lately because I am not happy in my current relationship I am susceptible to one shiny bloke😁”
LOL. I know exactly what you mean. You’d trade the entire cast of Magic Mike for that one shiny bloke. 🙂
Interesting exercise about the limerence avatar. I’ve only had 2 LEs and 2-3 almost-LEs. Based on those, I think my limerence avatar is someone I can see myself with and have reason to believe it will be a good match.
I think that’s why the almost-LEs didn’t pan out into full blown LEs: I noticed enough signs of mismatch that fizzled out the LE. With my current LO, who is a close friend, while there have been some mismatches, somehow they evolved into growth opportunities for me as I spent more time with LO.
I don’t know whether to feel good or bad about the limerence avatar. As far as limerence avatars go, I probably have one that in theory shouldn’t be bad for me, but it still poses a challenge. On one hand, limerence and subsequent rejection has led to a pretty bad case of adjustment disorder, so I don’t know that I want to experience another LE. On the other hand, if my limerence avatar is someone who is a “good fit” for me, I don’t know how I can meet a potential LO, and then simultaneously fight the limerence while trying to pursue them.
Ahh, the purposeful living. What if I feel as my life no longer has purpose if and once I let go of my fantasy that one day, just maybe one day LO will “want” me… We’re both single, he said he had a crush on me, lured me into a sexual relationship then swiftly cut it off for no apparent reason and now I’m suppose to find some meaning in my life? I’m utterly devastated instead.
One thing I’ve learned (and I learned the hard way) is that you never, ever, ever make securing a relationship (particularly with a particular person) your purpose. You can’t rely on other people to give you purpose or be your purpose.
“One thing I’ve learned (and I learned the hard way) is that you never, ever, ever make securing a relationship (particularly with a particular person) your purpose. You can’t rely on other people to give you purpose or be your purpose.”
That’s a really great insight, Marcia. I suppose limerence is by definition one (mostly subconsciously) making securing the affections of another person (LO) one’s purpose or one’s chief reason for living life. And that’s part of why it’s so hard to give ’em up. I mean, what’s going to fill the emotional/spiritual vacuum left behind? I think a lot of us intuitive introvert types are looking for something meaningful as a substitute and not something overly practical… The only thing I can think of is art. 😛
Sammy
“I mean, what’s going to fill the emotional/spiritual vacuum left behind? I think a lot of us intuitive introvert types are looking for something meaningful as a substitute and not something overly practical”
You hit the nail on the head. The emotional/spiritual vacuum. And when someone starts giving me a list of “practical” solutions to the limerent issue .. I tune out. Processes, procedures, lists to consider … that’s job! HELLO! I’m a limerent. I’m NOT practical. 🙂
How about purposeful living for single parents?
I feel an almost unbearable amout of shame that I have to force myself out of limerent daydreaming and obsessing over LO to be present with my son. Often enough I fail at it and I’m not “quite there”, when this really is the most important job I have in my life. He deserves a mother who is engaged and responsive instead of just going through the motions like a zombie. Especially since there is no second parent to compensate my mental absence. He doesn’t have a choice but to depend on me and I’m not bringing my A game. Why isn’t my son purpose enough? It is the shame of my life!
I have a wonderful child, a meaningful job, great friends and I should be thankful and happy. Instead I respond with being an inadequate mother, employee and friend.
Life as a single mother does get lonely, but it’s not an excuse.
BLE,
Have you read https://livingwithlimerence.com/my-story/ ? DrL went through a similar experience. I went through a similar experience. There’s a lot of discussion in some of the blogs more directed at attached limerents.
Just because you don’t have an SO doesn’t mean you don’t have other attachments that are affected by limerence.
Guilt and shame can be motivators for improving your life but they can also become crippling demotivators. They can occupy head space that could be occupied by more productive thinking. Guilt and shame are wonderful tools for not anything. You spend so much time feeling guilty and ashamed, nothing ever gets done.
You’re working on it. It’s going to take time. I don’t think anybody here has gone to bed in the middle of an LE and woke up the next morning saying, “Great! I’m not in my LE anymore.” It doesn’t work that way. If anyone did, they didn’t post much about it.
There was poster on LwL named Mia. She doesn’t post anymore. She got to the point that she felt she didn’t need to. She’s a single Mom. If you poke around and read her stuff, you might relate to her.
“I feel an almost unbearable amount of shame that I have to force myself out of limerent daydreaming and obsessing over LO to be present with my son.”
@BLE
I believe – purely on a hunch – that there might even be something I’d call “pre-limerence headspace”. This is what is felt by someone who’d like to experience limerence, but hasn’t found an LO yet, but they’re on the hunt, shall we say?
The result? Extreme irritation with platonic friends who want to chat about trivial stuff or invite one out to random social activities. In this state of mind, I was unconsciously obsessed with finding the one. I didn’t want conversations/social activities unrelated to romance, and felt platonic friends were needy for demanding so much of my time/attention.
I.e. why can’t people leave me alone? I want to … daydream! 😛
Hi Sammy,
that sounds right to me.
What seem to get me into limerence is the combination of two things. One is a yearning for romantic love. Sometimes my heart just wants to love. And combine that with the second, a situation where I don’t actually feel capable of sustaining a “real” relationship. Those situations seem to get me into that “pre-limerence headspace” you mentioned, where I actively seek our someone to “fancy”.
So limerence seems to fulfil two purposes: Giving me a vesel for all the love my heart wants to pour out, while at the same time avoiding getting into a relationship. That’s also pretty much my situation now. I want to love, but I don’t feel ready for something real.
I don’t think it would be particularly hard to find someone suitable to have a good relationship with. If that was what I wanted, I’d seek it out. Instead I actively avoid it and choose limerence.
Your comment reminded me of the case study in Tennov’s book that I quoted in this post, BLE.
It’s a really important topic, and I haven’t really written about it specifically before. I’ll do a post.
So, that’s where the story from the attorney that got into an LE with his client was. I knew there was one but I could never find it.
As cautionary tales on LwL go, his is up there with the best of them.
Maybe that could be a future blog, “The Havoc of Limerence.”
“Limerence doesn’t have to wreak havoc on your life, but it can…”
What happened to Tom? I really want to know!!
At the time, I thought Tom might be a troll.
But, match the right white knight with the right damsel in distress and you can go on some pretty wild rides.
Even if the story is completely made up, it fits and it’s still one of the best stories on LwL.
LwL is probably a wealth of data. The problem mining it. I know of two stories on LwL where limerence contributed to two people getting fired and one divorce.
It’s also all anecdotal and probably impossible to verify.
You are amazing and what you have created here is as well. Thank you for giving us limerent lost souls a place to show ourselves. (It’s what I imagine a huge digital AA meeting would look like – Hello, my name is BLE and I’m an addict)
BLE – sounds to me like you’re doing your best. You know your son is the most important thing, but you can’t be perfect – my sister’s a single mum who works and it’s exhausting enough without Limerence. Limerence gets in the way of a lot of things! You don’t need to add guilt and shame onto it. Have you tried meditation? Headspace or free ones on YouTube.
Thank you, Sara. I’m obviously more of a “distraction” kind of person, but we know what happens with that…so I’ll give meditation a try.
I can really relate to this BLE. I am a mother too, and my LE has certainly downgraded the quality of my parenting. When floating in my limerent fog, I lie to myself that my sometimes just going through the motions of parenting is the same thing as doing it conscientiously. I occasionally experience periods of clarity where I fully realise that my LE has consequences beyond myself, not huge consequences, but small ones that I painfully regret. The trouble is my automatic response to this emotional pain is LE rumination. I do feel like guilt and shame are triggers for my LE, and not the motivators to do the work to dig myself free that they should be.
So I am trying to be kind to myself, accept the past, accept my human flaws and focus on a better, more purposeful future. It was hard to work up real enthusiasm for this at first but I am slowly finding myself getting somewhere now I think. They key for me was giving up all hope of *something* with LO (I still have contact which I find reassuring), really working on reducing my romantic and sexual reveries, and upping my mindfulness & meditation practice. Fingers crossed this is not just another temporary reprieve and I can keep it going.
Hi Allie,
thank you for sharing. It’s good to know others are going through the same thing. Of course I don’t wish this on anyone, but I’m still happy I’m not alone-
Sammy – I can relate to what you say while I’m limerent. I’m irritated with platonic friends, relatives, colleagues who aren’t the LO. And I find men around my/my LOs age particularly irritating, because I can’t help comparing them unfavourably to him! Don’t think I felt like that before I was in this latest LE though.
“And I find men around my/my LOs age particularly irritating, because I can’t help comparing them unfavourably to him!”
@Sara.
Ooh, yes. Now that’s an interesting thought. Do LOs seem to outshine all the romantic competition? Is their real and/or perceived excellence (the perfect male specimen, the ideal woman) part of their “fatal attractiveness” to us?
My LO stood head and shoulders above all other men – at least in my imagination! Absurd in some ways. But pretty funny, too. I thought he was the cat’s meow, the bee’s knees, the cream of the crop … well, I think everyone gets the picture. 😛
Sammy,
“My LO stood head and shoulders above all other men – at least in my imagination!”
My private nickname for my LO was X. As in, the seXiest. And every other guy was Y. As in … why, oh why, are you blocking my view of X? 🙂
“My private nickname for my LO was X. As in, the seXiest. And every other guy was Y. As in … why, oh why, are you blocking my view of X? 🙂”
@Marcia.
Thanks for sharing that little nugget of humour. It made me chuckle. And I guess it’s incredibly apt too, even from a biology perspective, given males have an XY chromosome…
I told me LO’s little brother that I thought I personally, as a man, couldn’t “hold a candle” to my LO. LO’s little brother, who obviously had a more realistic assessment of LO than me, thought I was joking and complimented me on my “self-mocking” sense of humour.
Only I was mocking myself that time. I really did think LO was … dreamy! LO’s little brother, of course, didn’t see it. Darn! 🙂
Sammy,
“…LO’s little brother, who obviously had a more realistic assessment of LO than me…”
This reminds me of another blog I used to read. People would write in and ask for dating advice from a dating coach. One letter was from a woman who said she thought she was as hot as some movie star and her boyfriend disagreed. Now, it’s probably not the best idea to ask your SO to rate your level of attractiveness as compared to a movie star, but my argument was that most women want their SOs — the men they are SLEEPING WITH — to find them hot, whether the rest of the world thought so or not. And several of the male posters asked, “But what if she’s not hot to the rest of the world?” This was a very clinical endeavor to a lot of them. They did not possess a shred of romanticism. I asked, “So how do you compliment your SO? Do do say, ‘You aren’t objectively hot to the rest of the world, but I find you reasonably attractive.’?” And they shot back that they didn’t SAY that. Uh … yeah, but you’re THINKING it! It made no sense to me as a limerent because, as you have written, I viewed my LOs as head and shoulders above the rest, but I don’t know if the rest of the world, objectively speaking, would agree. I sometimes forget there are people who rate others’ attractiveness on a numeric scale. It’s so foreign to the way I process the world. I wrote that I could go into a room and be lit up by someone who wasn’t the hottest guy in the room, and nothing I would write could make them understand that.
That is foreign to me also Marcia. Someone’s attractiveness to me is about so many different factors beyond just looks & obvious charisma, and it is all about how I personally perceive that person. And all the different factors combine to make them, as an entire person, attractive or not. So someone objectively physically attractive can seem ugly to me if I perceive other aspects of them poorly, or I can find someone seemingly ordinary wildly attractive. I also find that someone’s attractiveness can change massively over time as I get to know them better.
Saying that, the admiration of others is one of the many factors that influences my perceptions of a person, but it is certainly not the overriding factor.
Allie,
I agree with everything you wrote. I had a friend who had several pictures of her husband hanging in a nook in their living room. She said one day, “Isn’t he handsome?” To be honest, he really wasn’t, but she was in love with him, so to her he was the bee’s knees. Isn’t that how it should be? I think getting a traditionally hot woman meant status in the hierarchy of dudes for a lot of these posters on this other site.
“Saying that, the admiration of others is one of the many factors that influences my perceptions of a person, but it is certainly not the overriding factor.”
Is it? That is something that has never really influenced me, but then I’m looking for Marlon Brando in “The Wild Ones.” I don’t think he exists. 🙂
“I sometimes forget there are people who rate others’ attractiveness on a numeric scale. It’s so foreign to the way I process the world. I wrote that I could go into a room and be lit up by someone who wasn’t the hottest guy in the room, and nothing I would write could make them understand that.”
@Marcia.
Hm. I sort of feel that LOs (in the minds of limerents) have a kind of aura about them, and it’s the aura that’s attractive. It’s definitely one of those “the sum is greater than the parts” things.
I think if someone is invading one’s dreams at night, one’s subconscious mind already finds that person insanely, supernaturally beautiful. Who cares about numbers on a scale? But maybe our admiration of LO’s beauty is a side-effect of the emotion we invest in them and the dopamine washing our brains?
(LO isn’t beautiful, but dopamine sure is. More dopamine, please! Dopamine makes me feel beautiful and LOs appear beautiful).
I find it hard to engage in sustained eye contact sometimes. It’s a smile wide enough to reveal teeth that makes my heart do somersaults. I don’t know what that’s about. I like men with … all their own teeth? Thank God I wasn’t born during the Dark Ages. 😛
I was recently browsing a site online that I probably shouldn’t have been browsing. Long story short, it was a site where people can post sexy pictures of themselves and get/solicit feedback from others. I guess it’s the ideal place to meet … a new narcissistic LO? 🙂
Being a gay man, I only glanced at the women (all spectacularly beautiful) and didn’t read the male comments on said women. However, I did enjoy the first (and only) female comment I read on a male picture. Basically, the girl said something along the lines of: “Oh, thank goodness, dude. You actually clean your bathroom!”
I think that comment in a comical way reveals something of men and women’s different priorities when it comes to mate selection. Men are big on looks – judging from the lengths women go to to look amazing. And women are into … fellas with sparkling sinks! 😛
Sammy,
“I think that comment in a comical way reveals something of men and women’s different priorities when it comes to mate selection. Men are big on looks – judging from the lengths women go to to look amazing. And women are into … fellas with sparkling sinks!”
Depends on the woman. It’s actually a myth that women don’t care about looks. Some do. I used to work with a woman who only liked really pretty men. The Hemsworths. Clint Eastwood’s son (can’t remember his name). Pretty and buff don’t do much for me. Although I am sucker for good hair. 🙂
This is an immensely enjoyable thread of comments. I had to laugh out loud several times.
It seems to me that among men there’s more consensus on what attracts them in women (youthfulness, full hair and lips, long legs, big…ehm…”eyes” etc.) and for women it’s more individual (call me out if I’m completely wrong here…I just judge from experience. My straight female friends and I are completely baffeled by who the others find attractive.)
But after all, I think we all want to be with someone who we find beautiful. And that can mean something different to everyone. I second Marcia on the hair thing – I’ve been told several times by friends that I obviously have a hair fetish. I wouldn’t call it that but I am very attracted to good hair. But these things usually aren’t the deciding factor in mate selection. I think they are more relevant to who we become limerent for than to who we start a relationship with. (Surprisingly, LO has very unspectacular hair though 😛 )
“Depends on the woman. It’s actually a myth that women don’t care about looks. Some do. I used to work with a woman who only liked really pretty men. The Hemsworths. Clint Eastwood’s son (can’t remember his name). Pretty and buff don’t do much for me. Although I am sucker for good hair. 🙂”
@Marcia.
Well, I certainly don’t know everything about the fairer sex. So if I say something glaringly wrong, feel free to call me out! 😛
Actually, I’ve heard it said that women don’t dress for men. Women dress for other women. It can be a status thing for really rich women or it can be just a bonding thing for women who can’t afford designer labels. It takes the eye of another female to identify what constitutes really great earrings, shoes, “style”, etc, etc.
In other words, I’m sure the average husband is very appreciative of wives who make an effort to look nice, but I think fashion is a social language predominantly spoken by women. It’s secret women’s business. 😛
I agree with you – a woman’s SO should definitely think she’s hot, and tell her so regularly. If nothing else, it leads to a happier relationship overall. It’s such a small thing – a man complimenting his missus’s appearance. But I think it has a huge positive impact on a woman’s mood. It’s about emotional security, feeling safe, etc. Of course, all compliments should come from a place of sincere caring.
I don’t think any woman really wants to know that her bum looks big when she asks, “Does my bum look big in this?” She already knows exactly how big her bum is. She wants her man to tell her, “Oh honey, I find you irresistible and adorable in everything and anything you wear. Every part of you is just perfect to me.”
I don’t really care whether a guy is buff or not. Aesthetically, big muscles don’t really speak to me, although I respect the work that goes into building them. I like things like, yes, big eyes, natural body hair, a certain way of walking. It’s actually very hard to say what constitutes charm or what constitutes one’s ideal of beauty. 😛
I’m ambivalent about “pretty”. Let’s go with “interesting”…
Do you mean hair as in hair on top of one’s head, a full head of hair, or does facial hair come into that too? I love a full beard. A surprisingly large number of men I know can’t grow a full beard. Maybe hair is a really good indicator of a person’s health?
“This is an immensely enjoyable thread of comments. I had to laugh out loud several times.”
@BLE.
Glad you’re enjoying the thread. Though I think we might have gone a tiny bit off-topic, which does happen occasionally here at LwL. 😛
Sammy Sams,
“Actually, I’ve heard it said that women don’t dress for men. Women dress for other women. ”
In middle school and high school and even college, when I had a group of girlfriends, I definitely dressed for other women. I guess I wanted to fit in. But once I started hitting the clubs, when I was in my 20s, I definitely dressed for men. I didn’t so much follow fashion trends as I was trying to … make the most of the assets. 🙂 By then, my best friend was a gay man, so the friendship dynamic was different.
“Do you mean hair as in hair on top of one’s head, a full head of hair, or does facial hair come into that too? ”
Yes, hair on the head. My last LO had delicious hair and you could tell he spend a lot of time on it.
BLE,
“But these things usually aren’t the deciding factor in mate selection. I think they are more relevant to who we become limerent for than to who we start a relationship with.”
That is an interesting observation. Does an LO tap in to some fantasy? My LO was definitely my physical type. Although other posters have written about an LO who tapped into them emotionally. I wonder if an LO taps into something we don’t have.
@Marcia.
It just occurred to me you must be pretty deep in withdrawal by now. And I know how difficult withdrawal pains can be. So I’d just like to give you a shout-out for being so brave. Your voice on the blog always sound so confident and articulate, so it’s easy to forget you must be struggling at times too…
I think you’re quite marvellous. Hang in there, huh? 😛
Sammy,
“It just occurred to me you must be pretty deep in withdrawal by now.”
That is sweet. I am fine. Sometimes I think a lot about LO. Other times it doesn’t bother me at all. I just made some friends in my apartment complex and for the first time have a sense of community since moving about 1 1/2 years ago. (The pandemic hit just as I moved and started a new job so I haven’t met most of my co-workers. They sent us all home.) Being around other people and listening to their stories really does help to get me out of my head.
You have written a lot about your high school LO and subsequent LOs. Are you currently LO-free? 🙂
“You have written a lot about your high school LO and subsequent LOs. Are you currently LO-free? 🙂”
Ooh. now that’s a loaded question, isn’t it? Are we ever completely free of an LO who succeeded in capturing our imaginations?
I would say that I’m the freest I have ever been in my adult life, although I might not be as free as someone who has never experienced limerence…
I’m actually shocked at how helpful this site has been. I didn’t think I needed to recover from anything. I thought I just needed to trade in the wrong LO for the right LO and life would be peaches!! 😛
I think I have recovered from my high school limerence/s, though, and talking about them has certainly helped. For me, a really important measure of recovery was when my negative emotions e.g. anger, resentment, jealousy, started mysteriously dissolving one day. Jealousy has never really been part of my conscious self-image. But apparently I do have a strong jealous streak, and limerence disturbingly brought out that side of my temperament.
Also, when I cease arguing with LOs inside my head about who’s in the right and who’s in the wrong – I think that’s another important sign of recovery. Although some part of me often wants to reopen old arguments. I have to remind myself that intellectual “triumph” over an absent/indifferent LO is a massive waste of time! Why am I arguing in my head with somebody who doesn’t even care? 😛
Humorous aside: I’ve worked out how straight boy tricked me into limerence. He brought me presents – lots and lots of presents. Yes, apparently, I really am that shallow. I’m a sucker for presents. If a man wants to inspire limerence in me, all he has to do is buy me presents. I’m ridiculously easy to manipulate! Haha! 🙂
Sammy,
“Are we ever completely free of an LO who succeeded in capturing our imaginations?”
Yes, just get into a relationship with them. 🙂 In all seriousness, yes, I think it is entirely possible to get completely over an LO. I am over all of my previous LOs except the last one, and I’m a big part of the way there.
“I didn’t think I needed to recover from anything. I thought I just needed to trade in the wrong LO for the right LO and life would be peaches!! ”
Is there a “right” LO? Did you want your LOs to be long-term partners? I wasn’t paying any attention to long-term potential in the height of limerence. I was just feeling the feels, as they say.
“If a man wants to inspire limerence in me, all he has to do is buy me presents. I’m ridiculously easy to manipulate! Haha!”
No. Your love language is gifts. Nothing wrong with that.
@Marcia.
“Yes, just get into a relationship with them. 🙂”
Ouch! 😛
“I was just feeling the feels, as they say.”
Same here.
“Your love language is gifts.”
Guilty as charged. 🙂
Sammy,
“Yes, just get into a relationship with them. 🙂”
Ouch! 😛”
That could have been my particular LO (the one who became a boyfriend). He became a stage-5 clinger overnight. 🙂 That cleared the limerence right up. 🙂
There’s a reason marry trophy wives.
tl/dr
I did. My father did. I had a trophy mother. It was pretty cool to know all the other kids thought my mom was the prettiest. When it came to women, my father may have been a lousy judge of character but he knew a lot about them and he had a great eye.
My wife could have been Kim Basinger’s shorter sister. She was head-turner. Change her eye color and LO #2 could have been Annette O’Toole in the 80s.
Once again, going tangential…
When I met them, neither of them believed it. They both had body image issues. They didn’t believe they were beautiful women. I changed that. What did I give them?
Confidence.
I appreciated them for a lot of things but I was the first man who ever appreciated them for their looks. And, they responded to it. After a year with me, when they wanted to strut their stuff, not a woman in the room could stand up to them and they knew it. You could see it in their eyes. They had power and they liked it. Being with them made my stock go up.
When I was in high school, one of the seniors on the tennis team was dating the sister of a freshman on the tennis team. I don’t know how the conversation started but I remember hearing the senior say, “Your sister is the hottest thing on two legs.”
It’s simple, it’s elegant, and it works.
I used that line on LO #2 and my wife. The other line that never failed was, “The only thing better than seeing you in that dress will be helping you out of it.”
And, they remember. At the end, one of the things LO #2 said to me was “I never thought of myself as attractive or desirable but you always made me feel like I was.”
As arrogant is this will sound, when LO #2 came back into town 10 months after we broke up, a lot of that confidence was gone. Apparently, my successor didn’t recognize that need in her and him cheating on her didn’t help. I told her that I wasn’t going to pat her on the head, tell her she was wonderful and put her back together. I told her I’d rebuilt her once and I wasn’t going to do it a second time for another man.
Clip of the Day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a04clgR-5us – “Play It Again, Sam” (1972)
I love this movie! This is one of my favorite scenes.
So, what does this have to do with limerence?
Two different women, one an LO, one not an LO. In some ways, they have a lot in common. In some ways, they were very different.
Conclusion: What made one an LO and the other not was entirely in things one was able to elicit in me. Limerence came entirely from within.
Hi, a question about the limerence avatar here. Is the limerence avatar someone we can never experience REAL love with? Should they be kept at bay as much as possible. Is there a good chance that a real match will be very different from the usual stuff we go for?
I am asking because I have never had a successful relationship with LOs and they’ve always been the same type, not unhealthy people but . My two real love relationships were very different and kind of crept up on me without any of the limerence symptoms, felt more realistic, safe and grounded.
For the past two years I have been discarding every man I was interested in as a LO. I think I have come to fear the Limerence state way more than the LO’s. It’s just such hell. Years ago, it was pleasant in the infatuation period and then hell, now it’s hell pretty much straight away … Thanks!
Yeah you can experience real love, with someone who you are limerent for. It just takes time and closeness. Hell you can experience real love for anyone if you take time and have permission from the other person to get close enough. Of course if your limerence avatar is just people who are dodgy, then yeah probably shouldn’t pursue it, unless you want to get hurt, by their tomfoolery. But if your limerence avatar is pretty decent, then it doesn’t hurt too much to pursue it. Just know that you will probably want them a lot more than they want you, if they want you at all.
As a recently divorced Limerent, I’m both relating to a lot of this and struggling with it. I’m trying my best right now to detach from an LO who in many ways has been great for me — she’s inspired me to get better at my work and earn a promotion, she makes me feel more attractive, she encourages me to broaden my social circles and re-engage in hobbies I’ve neglected. We’re never going to be in a real romantic relationship, and that’s painful for me, but she’s been a really positive presence in my life and I think the world of her. She helped me get over the first LTR (which lasted about a year) since my marriage broke up.
But, she also has a live-in boyfriend and I just can’t be her back-up guy. We work together, so I can’t just cut her off, but I told her yesterday that I’ve developed really strong feelings for her, it’s not her fault for it happening, but I’m going to have to dial our connections back purely to work issues. She’s been wonderful about it so far, and yesterday felt kind of euphoric, but that’s because I was in contact with her so much. Today is really day one and it’s painful. And worst of all, I feel demotivated in my work — she’s like a muse to me there. Life seems to exist in muted colors now and I’m joylessly swiping dating apps to remind myself that I’m still an appealing person, but the matches just seem hollow compared to her.
Limerence has ruined my life – now 47 and single and perimenopausal and limerent for third time with a younger man which I stupidly stayed friends with after an intimate encounter with him that didn’t continue in intimacy at all- he continued having other girlfriends and staying friends with me – and i have been in denial about my limerence for him and having that hopeful hunger for reciprocation which never happens. Im hanging onto every text and call we make and have lo mg conversations which I have a feeling I’m just an ego boost for him to speak to when he wants and no plans to meet much – and not get invited to anything he does: The painful shame of it;
– looking back I was first limerent in an intense way at university- for someone I did get together with and eventually married – wasn’t until about 4 years into the relationship that my feelings normalised ( suffered anxious attachment and got depressed for first few years with anxiety and depression and low self esteem being with him) and then had a good relationship. It wasn’t until I got attracted to someone outside my marriage 14 years later, a younger man who was part of our friendship circle: he was attracted to me too and my attraction was really strong – overwhelmingly so had emotional and bit of a physical affair- for about a year it didn’t last long. He strayed away and got a girlfriend and I was left devastated and limerent and not sure what hit me: I lost feelings for my marriage I was 34 by this point and lost the feeling for him and the whole life I was in. I totally lost the feeling of wanting kids with my husband and had really strong urge to have them with my then LO. I tried to carry on my marriage and going to therapy, but all felt broken. I got pregnant with my husband and I had so much distress in me and couldn’t go ahead with it ( I felt like death was inside me) I had the baby aborted. From this time the marriage completely ended. From feeling like my husband was my best friend who I was with for 15 years now not having seen or spoken to him for 10 years now. So after spending so long to normalise with my husband – losing the marriage after a catalyst of a LO and several years after that another LO. I feel so utterly alone, confused, lost all those fertile years single / limerent trying to find out who I am etc and wonder if I will ever know what real love is. It has been torture – to see my friends in conscious happy relationships and have families. I noticed with all of them – I became strongly limerent after intimacy and not at the attraction stage. It was only with my husband the linerence went away as it turned into a long term relationship ( after a lot of suffering of anxious attachment). If I’m intimate and it doesn’t continue into a relationship- that’s when it went on for 3 or more years each time.