A couple of weeks ago, I had a really interesting chat with Sarah Khan on her Unmasking Narcissism channel.
We talked about limerence, trauma bonding, narcissism, healthy love, and how they all fit together.
It’s out now:
An hour and a half, and it felt like we’d just got started!
Tom, I am thrilled that you are covering this topic.
My ex-husband was a narcissist, and I spent years in therapy learning about narcissism and why I fell for somebody like that.
Since I can’t really tell the difference between a narcissist and a normal person, I decided not to date after my divorce.
Then I tripped and fell into LO’s colorful world.
So apparently I learned nothing in therapy.
ND,
I have an old high school acquaintance nearing 70 that gave up on dating after marrying abd divorcing 2 Narcs. She said that even after therapy, she didn’t trust her judgment.
LO #4, the PsyD, was Narc Bait. When we were still in contact, she never met a Narc she didn’t try to rehabilitate, including her ex that allegedly cheated on and physically assaulted her. She tangled with at least 2 Narcs and went through therapy twice. We’ve been NC for years so I have no idea what she’s up to.
Therapy didn’t really help you correct your vulnerability. You don’t seem to be able to identify threats well, so you’ve chosen to avoid threats by not dating. It’s a viable strategy.
IMO, limerence can really degrade a person’s ability to identify threats and correct vulnerabilities. In security terms, the combination of threat and vulnerability is called “likelihood of exploitation (LOE.)” LOE is the basis for No Contact.” You reduce risk by keeping the threat away from the vulnerability.
Eliminating risk, e.g., , Julia Roberts in “Sleeping with the Enemy,” is usually illegal or unethical, which leaves you with fewer options. If therapy doesn’t work, you’re pretty much stuck with the avoidance strategy.
As a limerent, that can be easier said than done.
LE,
When you write a “Narc,” do you mean someone who has narcissistic personality disorder? If you do a quick Google search, it’s somewhere between 1 to 2 percent of the population. The number of people who have it is low.
It’s not uncommon for limerents on here to label their LOs Narcs (I don’t know if I have ever used that exact term but I may have implied it) … but is it more than likely the person is really garden variety selfish? Either enjoying the limerent’s attention and egging it on and/or clueless to the extent of the impact they are having on the limerent ? Or aware they have impact but not caring and continuing their behavior?
I think we limerents call our LOs Narcs (I’m not referring to you or Norma specifically) because LOs don’t do what we want.
This is a big problem. The concept of narcissism has become so generalized in general parlance as to be rendered useless as a definition, far from the actual narcissistic personality disorder. Which as you say affects only a small percentage of the population has.
Words like “egotistical” or “selfish” or “self-centered” might be more accurate in many cases. It’s just they don’t feel strong enough to the people victimized by bad behavior.
My therapist said when they are trying to pinpoint if there is actually a narcissistic personality disorder, they look for the relationship to shame – narcissists cannot bear it, they see it as almost a threat to their existence, and fight it tooth and nail.
So yeah, the question is not so much, did LO make me feel like crap, but does LO fly into a rage when they are criticized.
“The concept of narcissism has become so generalized in general parlance as to be rendered useless as a definition”
That’s what I was getting at. Could the person be a selfish moron? Of course. But are they a full-blown Narc ? Statistically speaking, probably not.
To Marcia:
I am wondering how much it really matters?
Once I learned what the narcissistic tendencies were, I realized that it was no good trying to explain to my ex-husband how I was feeling. During our marriage, I made the mistake over and over again of thinking he simply didn’t understand, and if I could just explain things better, that would fix things.
Big mistake! Less is more with a narcissist. Saying little or nothing is much more effective.
I functioned much much better when I learned some helpful coping strategies. Is my ex-husband a full-blown NPD person?
I don’t think it matters.
Norma,
“I don’t think it matters”
It probably doesn’t matter, but I think at least in some cases it is the limerent who is throwing the word around because they are angry and/or hurt the LO isn’t doing what they want or responding to them the way they want. Depending on the specific case, the LO may not really be any worse than any other person who is prioritizing their own self-interest.
To Marcia:
Point taken. But in terms of interacting with the other person, if the anti-narcissist strategies work, they work.
That’s my major concern.
LO flies into a rage and thinks I am trying to make him feel guilty every time I try to explain my feelings.
Is he a narcissist? I don’t know.
I do far better when I assume that both my ex-husband and LO are narcissists and act accordingly.
Marcia,
What you quoted about the % of Narcs in the general population is the established figure. To qualify for a clinical diagnosis one has to meet 5 of 9 DSM criteria. So, while an individual may not hit the clinical criteria, they can be close enough to cause someone a lot of grief. Some diagnostic criteria wreak more havoc than others.
My wife’s a teacher. In her career, she encountered over 700 kids. At a 2% rate, she’s encountered over a dozen Narcs in training. The rate of Cluster B personality disorders in the general population is estimated to be ~10%. If each kid has an average of 1.5 parents/guardians, she’s dealt with 1.5 x 700 x .10 = 105 Anti-socials, Borderlines, Histronics and Narcissistic parents/guardians. Some parents can be quite a handful.
Take sexual partners. If there’s a 10% chance of encountering a Cluster B and you’ve slept with 7 partners in your your life, the odds say there’s a 52% chance that you encountered at least one in your life. [1-(.9E7)]
One of my best friends was an LCSW who knew LO #2 when we were dating. After reading my history of the relationship, my friend said what I’d described in places, “almost clinical detail,” was a trauma survivor with symptoms of PTSD and NPD.
As for LO #4, she’s a PsyD. She’s qualified to render an opinion about her exes. She also said that her father was a Narc. Toss that in and her affinity for them is explained by her search for an emotionally corrective experience where she achieves with a partner what she couldn’t achieve with her father.
For me, LO #4 was a surrogate for my mother. As a child, I couldn’t get my mother to stop crying. When LO #4 told me she was crying, a switch flipped and I was a 5yr old again.
Blind spots suck.
LE,
“Take sexual partners. If there’s a 10% chance of encountering a Cluster B and you’ve slept with 7 partners in your your life, the odds say there’s a 52% chance that you encountered at least one in your life. [1-(.9E7)]”
And if you’ve been more prolific, you have an even greater chance of encountering one. (Sorry. Couldn’t help myself.) 🙂
Norma,
“But in terms of interacting with the other person, if the anti-narcissist strategies work, they work.”
The best strategy is to remove yourself completely. Which I think LE pointed out. It’s very difficult to do with an LO. But remove them from your life and then remove them from your head. The second part is even harder. Doable but difficult.
Marcia,
The thing is the process doesn’t appear to be entirely random. Schreiber contends that an attraction to Cluster Bs is based on childhood experiences.
Once you encounter a CB, it elicits long-held and deeply ingrained behavior. Worse, because it can resonate on such a deep level, it feels oddly comfortable. You’ve been there before.
From my personal experience, that’s true. But, I’m only one person.
To L.E.:
How are the Limmy Awards coming along?
I would like to submit my name in the category of Most Apt To Fold Like A Cheap Suit.
ND,
DrL is taking his sweet time with them.
We can nominate you in the “Most Likely to Relapse/Repeat.”
To L.E.:
I am a strong contender in that category.
ND,
I grew up outside Chicago.
A contribution to the Limerent Emeritus Foundation for Wayward Limerents might really up your odds.
Just sayin’
To L.E.:
Point taken. However, I would like to be judged solely on my own lack of ability.
Hi Norma,
I used to call my wife a narcissist until I realized that she just has narcissistic tendencies. We all do. Just one example, back when I had cancer and came out of the hospital with the diagnosis (where she was very supportive and loving) and was starting chemo, she said in front of me and the kids that I ruined her summer vacation and that she was going to go now on vacation. Which made me laugh and tell her just not to post it to FB. She was totally clueless and had no idea how the rest of the world would perceive the situation. It’s like I said to LaR in another blog article, there are real problems trying to amateur diagnose using symptoms only. I think she has some tendency toward autism. Individuals with autism tend to have difficulty seeing things from another’s perspective (theory of mind). That makes them at times act selfish, self-centered, narcissistic, etc. I see ASD also in some of our workplace LE brothers and sisters on this blog too. 😂 Really don’t know.
To Hamlet:
I don’t know for sure, but my own therapist said he was a narcissist, so I am just going by that.
I didn’t even know what a narcissist was until she said that.
Very interesting listen Tom, thank you.
Right at the end, your gently pushed back on the idea that narcissists are, or could be, behaving in a manner driven by limerence themselves – and it suggested that you weren’t both entirely on the same page?Otherwise, there was plenty in your conversation that was both enlightening and reassuring.
Although not central to the discussion, you talked – as you have many times before – about the idea of limerence waning when your LO confirms that they have no romantic interest. The supposed end of hope. But in my current, somewhat addled state, it reminded me of my only other truly painful LE, decades ago, which was for a friend at university – and the (unusually?) unhelpful effect it may have had on me.
We got on incredibly well, but she was blunt. “I don’t fancy you!” she once said when we’d both had a drink or two. Problem was… it wasn’t true, as became clear a few years later when we had some fun together and she wanted to turn it into something more meaningful. (By then, I didn’t).
So, because of this experience, I’m sure that my devil brain will tell me, no matter what, that there always *is* hope, no matter how small, and thus the limerence is harder to extinguish. The fantasy state remains.
I’m married, I don’t want to be with my LO, and I’ve detailed my struggles on these pages over the past few months. I’m definitely trying to be more purposeful and your advice has been hugely helpful. But the longing remains, and I think the university experience may have a lot to do with it. Gah!
I wonder if anyone else has had a similar experience, where clear rejection from a previous LO was later turned on its head, adding a new and utterly unhelpful layer to the processing of later or current LEs?
Phill,
LOs are notorious for going off-script and coming back. Some LOs are more well-behaved than others. With some LOs, you may decide to end the LE but your LO decides when it’s over.
Scroll down to the archives. When you get there, search for “return.” DrL has 2 blogs on it. The topic is covered in several old blogs.
Thanks L.E. that’s really good of you. Although whether it’s the best idea for me to read about how LOs reappear is up for debate! 😄
However, while I was browsing, I did come across this particular entry which is just so on the money for me right now:
https://livingwithlimerence.com/case-study-ghosted-by-lo/
I know I’m meandering even further away from the main topic here, but it does show (and as you’ve suggested) that there’s pretty much a blog for every scenario on this site – which is genuinely reassuring.
To Phil:
I know this wasn’t intended for me, but I enjoyed the article very much.
My LO doesn’t technically “ghost” me, but he goes silent for long periods of time. I have tried to use those periods to help me with NC, with mixed results.
He IS flaky and self-centered, as Dr. Tom mentioned in the article, and I do see that that is a sign of poor character.
Hi Norma! Glad you enjoyed it. As I said, there is *so* much here that is helpful, one way or another and I do appreciate being able to find different things which resonate.
FWIW, I always read your posts with great interest, and – if I may say – you really do carry yourself with such dignity despite how frustrating and upsetting your situation must be for you.
Sending strength x
To Phil:
Oh, you made me laugh! In a good way.
Dignified is the last thing I think I am, but I appreciate your kind words and the compliment very much.
My situation is kind of interesting, despite the drawbacks.
Which reminds me, perhaps L.E. could keep me in mind for the Most Colorful LO nomination at the upcoming Limmy Awards.
Hi all people,
it’s narcissistic abuse. I suffered narcissistic abuse from the “hands” of my manipulate Ex-LO on the job. (I’m happily married and my friends were far away after I moved in with my husband, I just wanted a pal on the job but yeah.)
I’m reading “It’s not you – Identifying and healing from narcissistic people” by Dr Ramani and every line is true. Maybe I will check into her healing program or not. I’m also reading another book in my native language which wasn’t translated into English. It all heals me and liberates me. (My best childhood friend was some kind of narcissist, I separated from her long ago but I was a bit shocked.)
Ex-LO doesn’t suffer from narcissistic disorder, his narcissism could be much worse but trust me, it’s enough. He tries to be good but the devaluation is hell.
Dr. Bellamy taught me a lot about how the brain works (thanks a lot) and there could still be limerence on top…
My personal opinion is that no-contact doesn’t suit me in a job environment. Low contact is the better approach. People just don’t ignore him, he gets mean as hell, I already went through it when I defended myself. I work with him once a month and I want to be left alone as often as possible. Interestingly, nearly every other colleague avoids him as often as possible and acts like he would be a super cool guy when he connects with them. No one, not even my boss, wants to trigger his revenge-angel mode so they just pretend to be his (political and personal?) supporters… but hey, I survived 2,5 years and I will survive another 3 years until his retirement. I just have to observe his behaviour and reduce his opportunities to talk to me. It’s a lot like meditation LOL. After his retirement, he will not be able to reach me (I will act like I changed my phone number etc.). I will RUN! 🙂
My husband is my life insurance and we will turn the How-Could-He-atmosphere at home into a We-See-Him-But-We-Don’t-Care-About-Him-atmosphere.
Learning as much as I can finally stopped my repetitive thoughts. I finally know why he acts like that, everything’s logical, everything I saw was true without him telling me, and I can do it. I’m sure other people suffering from narcissistic abuse can do it as well.
@Norma: At university, I was madly limerent for a narcissist. My husband is not a narcissist, he’s not even limerent. My husband wasn’t even a love interest at first, he was just my best friend. Maybe love is about being best friends after all. 🙂 But I was VERY priviliged that my husband turned out to be the very person I idealised.
Hi Norma,
Just like me with limerence. 😆 I think why it matters is it gives a framework to understand and better deal with problems. In my case, it eventually led to me understanding not just the what but the why. The easiest example that I can give, although not directly narcissistic, is that my wife gets hangry. I kept trying to deal with her sudden anger/lashing out/craziness thinking it was just something that she spontaneously did. I’d yell because she’d go crazy in the car and yell at me, and of course she’d yell back even harder. Back and forth. One day I realized that she was having a Snickers moment (Really I learned this from the Snickers commercial! We don’t know what we don’t know.) and that gave me the framework so that I could better help her avoid the bad behavior… and thereby selfishly help myself. 😆
To Hamlet:
I LOVE your Snickers story!
What I meant, and perhaps worded awkwardly, is that it’s unlikely that most of us will ever get a bona fide diagnosis of someone. My therapist told me that my husband at the time was a narcissist, so I proceeded on that basis. Did he get tested? No, of course not.
To this day he has never been tested and does not know that I consider him a narcissist. But all the advice I got was spot-on.
His problem was definitely NOT being hangry.
Hi Norma,
I wish we had a page on this site where each blogger could write their LE story and then people could refer to that. I’d be curious to know why you are most likely to relapse but I don’t think I could possibly write my own story again so I won’t ask it of another. If I stay here long enough, I’ll figure it out.
Yeah, it is a bit funny that you write a simple post about your narcissist ex and you get responses about the prevalence of narcissism and how I thought my wife was a narcissist but now I think she’s just narcissistic and how this framework has allowed us to really problem solve our marriage rather than just yell and throw out accusations and that really had nothing to do with your situation. 😆😆 What can I say? Content creation is a feature and not a bug of this blog.
And I really should eat a Snickers a day to pay back the company for all the yelling and craziness their comercial saved me from.
To Hamlet:
I am most likely to relapse because I am nuts about LO.
We are neighbors, and I run into him often.
Despite being somewhat irritable, he is brilliant and very engaging. He looks somewhat like CNN newscaster Anderson Cooper, and he is irresistible to me.
His snappishness keeps me at arm’s length, but when he smiles at me, I am a goner.
I have started NC dozens of times, only to fall apart. The longest I have lasted is three weeks.
We are both elderly and single, and he is gay. I told him right up front that I have a crush on him, and he said he was flattered and it didn’t bother him.
I haven’t dated since my divorce 20+ years ago, and I never expected to become limerent for my hot gay neighbor.
It’s been interesting.
Norma,
Good for you for coming out and telling him. That took courage, besides it being attractive behavior. Thanks for sharing your LE story.
To Hamlet:
Maybe we can both handle it as well as we do because we’re so old.
One of the few advantages of aging.
Since I can’t seem to enforce No Contact, I was hoping he’d be moving. He bought a house 3000 miles away so I figured the move would take care of the problem.
I don’t know if you have been following my story, but the house deal blew up in his face last week. Served him right–he was incredibly arrogant to think he could pull off a complicated, expensive purchase without selling his current home first.
Hi Norma,
I had been following along, but I had to go back to the last CoffeeHouse post to refresh my memory and OMG! Talk about narcissism. Your neighbor may not be clinically a Narcissist, but he is displaying lots of selfish, self-centered, entitled, narcissistic behaviors in that move that went awry. Living next door to your LO actually sounds like hell on earth. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Sorry! I think we have to laugh at ourselves because LE is crazy. 😂 My advice is to put up a 7 foot tall solid brick wall running the full length between your properties. Just in that one side. 😂 That or try dating again as dreadful as that sounds. I hate to throw you to the wolves. There is a movie called “A Bronx Tale”. It has a scene where the father-figure mobster gives his young protege advice on how to determine if the girl he is going on a date with is “the one”. Essentially a way to test the girl’s narcissism level. https://youtu.be/y8p1iG-6d-w?si=mGUCfZ8LytmqnCza. I saw the movie and of course tested my wife (probably married for 15 or so years at that point.) She failed! 😢😂 I told her about the test and how she had failed. I ran the test a week or so later and again, she failed! 😢😂. Now she does pull the handle to open the driver side door for me. Like I said with the Snickers commercial, we only know what we know. Of course, a little bit of me thinks she is trying too hard now when she opens my door. Men are never satisfied! 😂
To Hamlet:
I am touched that you went back and followed up on my bizarre, colorful story. Thank you for taking an interest.
I need to clarify something. We are neighbors, but we do NOT live next door. He and I actually live a block apart, so no need for that wall.
It made quite an impression on me that LO claimed that he “deserved” a multi-million dollar house on the opposite side of the country. Definitely a red flag there.
As to Marcia’s question (I think?) as to whether we actually know if these people are full-blown narcissists, how can we know for sure, without testing? We don’t.
How would we go about getting them tested? Drag them to a mental health professional at gunpoint? Not possible, of course, so we just do the best we can based on the behaviors they exhibit.
To Hamlet:
Forgot to add, whatever is wrong with LO can’t be fixed with a Snickers bar.
“I never expected to become limerent for my hot gay neighbor.
It’s been interesting.”
ND
You said Hot Gay Neighbor. You make me laugh. I found your chat here delightful..
Thank you.. 😆
To MJ:
I just read a compliment from Phil, and now you have given me another one.
I am blushing. I am not used to this.
I am glad that someone finds me delightful.
Norma,
😂 No. Snickers can’t save the LE world. Too bad.
To Hamlet:
Too bad. It would be a cheap, easy fix.
Not to mention tasty.
In watching the entire video, it proves to me there was a perfect storm of events in order for the LE to solidify itself in my brain.
In my case and prior to the LE, I had a recent breakup with a SO, a series of a few other friendships that didn’t work out. My Daughter greatly resented me because of my Divorce to her Mother. My Mother passed because of complications to her health issues and my Father was just starting to get sick and would soon lose his ability to walk.
Couple all that with a beautiful, short blonde Latina that said hi to me on occasion, smiled at me and sent my heart into racing mode whenever I would see her. Nobody else ever looked so freaking good to me. Nor gave me such eye contact as did she. I’d never felt anything like it. She was the embodiment of everything I ever wanted or hoped for in a Woman and a paradigm shift occurred. Glimmer on another level. I compared it to way beyond being shot by Cupids silly little arrow. I was bombasted by a Limerence meteorite. I don’t think I’ve ever been the same since.
What I can identify with mostly from the video is how even when there has been clear rejection on LOs part (because we never did actually meet), the fantasy became almost real to me and to this day still feels like it all actually happened once. All the sappy poetry I gushed about when I was writing about her after she transferred, all became my comfort food. And because everything else in my world seemed to be caving in on itself at the time, the fantasies were a major go-to in time of need. Her transferring out of the building to next door only increased my desire to want her more and to see her most often when I really couldn’t. This was at a time I was probably at my absolute worst and almost considered suicide. Yet I didn’t and somehow prayed my way through it.
NC by default was very very hard. I wanted out and at the same time didn’t. Because I realized she gave me something beautiful to think about. Yet thats all it ever was. An idea. Something so great and seemingly possible in my head, but it was all fake. Which then hurt me to the core. It was still like being on a roller coaster. The highs were exhilarating, but the lows were beyond horrible. Never in my life have I cried so hard and so much over someone I never even personally knew. What a great and terrible trip that was. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.
These days LO and I are back in the same building again. She’s now transferred over to our main operation where I am and we’re both working nights. Although her hours are a little different. I rarely see her due to her being on the opposite ends of the building. It’s a massive operation. I have to go out of my way to see her now and in my position, I simply don’t have time for it. I usually end up seeing her in the parking lot sometimes but I’ve still not mustered up the courage to try and approach her again. Not saying I will, but truth is I probably won’t. She’s still with her Dude apparently to some extent and so following through doesn’t even seem worth it. However, maybe to say hi to her wouldn’t be so bad either. I don’t know. I handled everything so poorly before. I don’t know if I can come back from that and not be a creep to her now.
In the video the Good Doctor mentions a possible way to dispel the limerent fantasy is to turn all the good we think of LO upside down and tell ourselves they are the opposite of any good we ever thought of them. To basically sabotage the fantasy and regret everything they never gave us. In theory, I guess I see why this would be a useful strategy.
LO creates TikTok videos of herself modeling clothes and outfits she wears.
Sometimes even touching on her beauty regimen. The foods she eats and the clubs, ballgames and festivals she’s attending in the city on weekends. Nothing is inappropriate or distasteful. She carries herself online almost about the same way she carries herself at work. Refined and classy-like. If anything, they highlight how she’s hyper-focused on her shape and how incredible she looks in just about anything she wears. Keep in mind, she bears hardly any fat at all and any shape she does have is in the rear.
Every once in awhile, I meander on over to see what she’s up to but I don’t live on her page. Her videos are cute and she’s just as breathtaking amazing in them as she is in person. However its easy to see the Narc in her coming out thru them. It may be the one true sign of what she’s always been about. (Perhaps I avoided a train-wreck.) None of them feature her Dude and she never talks about him either, which tells me they must not be exclusive. Her comments are from a lot of her friends because she’ll reply back to them. The rest are from a handful of guys telling her she’s beautiful. Bestowing more validation on her. Rarely does she respond to them. How many are actually DM-ing her, its tough to say. I’m not and since they’re all sharing the same thought I’ve known for quite awhile, for me to only validate her one more time probably isn’t going to move any mountain. Nor get me with her.
So for now, I’ll remain in limbo and let the fantasy dwell on. I’ve never had the courage to just give up because I have no SO at home. Without LO on my my mind at some level feels even more lonely. The idea of her is still a wonderful thing. To sabotage it just feels cruel.
„None of them feature her Dude and she never talks about him either, which tells me they must not be exclusive.“
Hi MJ,
just wanted to remark that it doesn’t say anything about her relationship. Many people leave their closest relationships (kids, partner) completely out of their social media, to protect their privacy.
That sounds funny because they show so much else of their private life, but then this is their own decision- they cannot make this decision for other people (family etc). Maybe for her it’s also a bit of a business account, maybe she wants to be an influencer, so she won’t really answer on flirtatious stuff by DM or comments anyway.
„I wanted out and at the same time didn’t. Because I realized she gave me something beautiful to think about. Yet thats all it ever was. An idea. Something so great and seemingly possible in my head, but it was all fake.“
But it kind of saved you in very troubled times, this idea, this fantasy. so it wasn’t all bad, was it, it had a purpose, the purpose that you didn’t despair on life completely? That’s not all fake and bad in my books, it served you a good purpose, it kept you alive. The difficulty now is to recognize it for what it was- a temporary lifebuoy that served its purpose and now it’s time to move on.
Just a theory. Sometimes the vilification of everything involving LO isn’t working, that’s my experience. I can move on easier when I can finally see not only black or white, but good bits and bad bits.
I agree with Mila. It’s perfectly normal to keep partners and family out of your social media posts because not everyone wants to feature in them.
I’ve got to be honest here and say I find the way you talk about her makes me feel uncomfortable. I realise that you’re trying to be critical of her in order to see her faults and hopefully beat the limerence. But I get the impression that it’s not serving that purpose and just winding you up further.
When women are interested in wearing nice clothes and make up, we do it because we enjoy dressing up because it’s fun. We don’t do it because we want a “handful of guys” we don’t know telling us we’re beautiful. In fact those kinds of comments creep us out. Reading that sentence, and your description of her physique, and the fact you’re disapproving of her flaunting herself but watching her videos nonetheless, reminds me of an old-fashioned view of women that I thought had been banished to the 20th century.
I realise this is difficult because we’re all visiting this page because we have weird obsessions with another person and to a greater or lesser extent have objectified them as a fantasy figure in our minds. Some of us have vilified our objects in order to try to beat the obsession. In the past I’ve even watched my LO’s social media and thought he was showing off. (I stopped that after discovering LwL.) So I do get where you’re coming from. But it still made me uncomfortable. Try to think of her, if you have to, as a normal person with thoughts and feelings similar to other people (male and female) that you know.
Really well said, ☁️❗️
There are women purposefully dressing down in order to avoid creepy eyes or unwanted attentions….
Cloud,
“When women are interested in wearing nice clothes and make up, we do it because we enjoy dressing up because it’s fun. We don’t do it because we want a “handful of guys” we don’t know telling us we’re beautiful. ”
Personally, I do. If men weren’t around and I wasn’t interested in attracting attention, I would stop wearing makeup and doing my hair. I find the grooming time-consuming and tedious, particularly the shaving.
I’m really not trying to be critical of how LO puts herself out there for all to see. You are correct that to notice her presence is not really helping but only winding me up. I don’t know if the word “winding” is where I would consider my state in this moment. I don’t consider this really an obsession anymore but more like, lets just say, “admiring” her. Emotionally its not killing me to not have or not be with her but it kinda makes me sad she’s seemingly out of reach. Or I’m still too afraid to approach.
Uncertainty was always a huge factor in driving this episode. As Dr. L mentioned in the video, being in a limbo state only keeps the limerence ember glowing. I understand it may not be the healthiest spot, but its kind of a safe place for me right now. I put myself in this position. It will be up to me to get myself out.
I suppose I’d also like to know how my description of her could make you or anyone for that matter uncomfortable. Asking because I appreciate the input, but failing to see how its cringey to notice her in the way I am. I feel like my description could not have been more “G”rated. I don’t see how its wrong to admire this
Woman and more or less long to pair bond with her. This seems to be common mantra in the online dating world nowadays, where when men say and do certain things online its creepy. But when Women say and do those things, its somehow justified.
As far as I’m concerned, LO has every right, to dress up, look pretty and do so because its fun and she enjoys it. This is clearly evident in all of her content. However it is also her right to keep that content “private” versus “public”, if she is infact creeped out by random Men commenting to her. This to me is only common sense. Since she keeps things public, my guess is she’s enjoys the validation.
MJ,
I don’t really have a problem with the way you described her. I guess the issue is … you don’t know her at all. Literally at all. You’ve never had a conversation. And yet your write about her worshipfully and compare every other woman to her. Based on … what, exactly? Something very superficial — her appearance.
The fact that her SO isn’t included in her social media posts could mean something. It could mean nothing. Hard to say.
I agree with you that the posts of her in various outfits are a thirst trap. I’d guess that she likes the attention and, like any woman, the attention means more coming from a man she’s interested in.
I have never admitted this is normal. As Cloud mentioned previously, we’re all here due to over obsessing towards certain people in a weird way.
This is just how things fell into place with me. I can’t explain it. Sometimes I think she got mad at some point after smiling at me and saying hi and then I wouldn’t go any farther to act on maybe her signal. I don’t know. She was probably always out of my league. I just regret not acting on it. Her looks, while being superficial, only ramp up the regret.
MJ
“Sometimes I think she got mad at some point after smiling at me and saying hi and then I wouldn’t go any farther to act on maybe her signal. ”
Why don’t you ask her friend to see if she likes you. I’m kidding! This all sounds very high school. 🙂
“I don’t know. She was probably always out of my league. I just regret not acting on it. Her looks, while being superficial, only ramp up the regret.”
I suspect you didn’t really want to talk to her. Otherwise you would have. I’ve written that before on other posts. I’m hoping that your LE fades and you see it for what it’s been: an escape hatch. (That’s not a criticism. It’s what limerence is for a lot of us limerents.) That it’s not real and certainly not a standard you need to be using for other women.
Marcia
Well thank you for understanding Great One.
Although I still think you invalidate my LE based on my lack of actually knowing her. I feel like things have faded because I’m definitely not having all the anxiety over her like I once did. It’s certainly not a standard I’d like to set either.
She’s just nice to think about. You know, like in the way its nice to listen to Sabrina.
Thats why I figured you’d be proud of me I’m not obsessing over New Girl these days. It’s nice not to worry about what she’s thinking. Like how it was with LF or LO. This time around, things just feel laid back with this person. Being careful to not say too much or overstep boundaries. Plus she’s a little older and way less dramatic. It’s a really nice change for once.
Btw, I spit out my coffee earlier when I read your comment up there about shaving. Freaking hilarious..
Thanks. I needed that.. 🤣
Sir 💦 🦎,
Sorry to cut in your chat with Marcis. I meant to say earlier, but it’s actually better to wait to distill my thoughts…. My mind is clearer now, inspired by your ongoing story.
“Although I still think you invalidate my LE based on my lack of actually knowing her. “
I’m not sure if you follow my long chats with my 👯♀️ , it’s way too verbose on my part for anyone to follow (which is totally okay). Not a long ago, I realized and discussed with her that: since we’re all different from each other, 🆎 UNIQUE in our emotions and thoughts from moments to moments, hours to hours, day to days. thus, NO ONE Else could TRULY validate or invalidate our inner life that had/have been influenced by our biological, cultural, and personal making.
In another word, Marcia, me, and anyone else never lived in your head and heart, we simply can’t felt/feel what you have felt❗️ We can imagine, intellectualize or (un)sympathize for your thoughts and sentiments, but that’s not an authentic resonance. Thus, NO one else can (especially) invalidate 💦 🦎 ‘s inner life. ONLY you can rightly claim and validate them, right or wrong! NO need to over-explain to get validated by another.
“I feel like things have faded because I’m definitely not having all the anxiety over her like I once did. It’s certainly not a standard I’d like to set either.”
That’s the best progress — to have anxiety reduced over a largely unknown LO‼️ (why your tears 💦 🪣 decreased⁉️) Again whether your LE is a good/bad “standard” is irrelevant to other limerents, it’s your mental journey that accounts for YOUr LE battle, yours Alone❗️
“Thats why I figured you’d be proud of me I’m not obsessing over New Girl these days.”
This is what I wanted to say earlier, I was/am VERY proud that you’re NOT obsessing over this New Girl in your head and tried to rush to date her. Since we’re are all limerents, we have a tendency to head over heels fall into new LO, led by that bloody blind Glimmer — it’s our collective mental habit. But now we KNOW much, much better and NEED and should use the LwL torch to guide our next romance.
“It’s nice not to worry about what she’s thinking. Like how it was with LF or LO. This time around, things just feel laid back with this person. Being careful to not say too much or overstep boundaries. “
Sounds a very Stoic approach, 👏❗️My 👒 👠 stresses degree of glimmer and speed of acting upon on it. She’s “dying” to feel its thrill and experiences its ecstasy (📢 👯♀️ , correct me if I am wrong). But your caution does NOT mean that you do not have enough glimmer for her, that’s what I sense.
Unlike 👒 🍫 , I advocate a Stoic approach even if dealing with a gigantic (g9/10) Glimmer and “a flower that may or may not bear fruit.” Do NOT rush to pluck the flower, but make steady, calm efforts to water and nurture the seed, sprout, and flower as best as one can, with 1-5% percent (that’s my ratio) hope that this “LE flower” WILL bear the fruit.
You may hope a high percentage, but no more than 50%; the other side has her own mind and heart that may or may not click with yours. The only rule is: you NEED to have MUTUAL reciprocation/reciprocity. Do not emotionally BEG at any time❗️
“Plus she’s a little older and way less dramatic. It’s a really nice change for once.”
I like the fact that she’s “older and way less dramatic” in your eyes. Did you say that she has a kid?
I have a big working day and need to get ready, sorry if my thoughts sound incoherent and my grammatical errors are continue increasing winkles on your forehead between your eye brows… 😆
MJ,
“Although I still think you invalidate my LE based on my lack of actually knowing her. ”
I’m sorry . That wasn’t my intention. I guess I don’t understand why you have never made any effort to speak to her. People put time and effort into the things they value. And I don’t get the hero worship. I certainly understand a strong attraction, but limerence never made me completely gloss over my LO’s faults. I had eyes. I knew he wasn’t the hottest guy aesthetically at work and I knew he was overly flirtatious and flaky and a seemingly a bit shallow.
“I feel like things have faded because I’m definitely not having all the anxiety over her like I once did. ”
You don’t sound as limerent in your posts as you have in the past but you’re still repeating what a perfect woman she is.
“That’s why I figured you’d be proud of me I’m not obsessing over New Girl these days. ”
Which one is this? The woman you asked to dinner but didn’t follow through with?
“This time around, things just feel laid back with this person. ”
Not laid back but comatose. 🙂
“Btw, I spit out my coffee earlier when I read your comment up there about shaving. Freaking hilarious … Thanks. I needed that. 🤣”
I wasn’t trying to be funny. I was serious. If there were no men, I’d go full tumbleweed. 🙂
“We simply can’t felt/feel what you have felt❗️ We can imagine, intellectualize or (un)sympathize for your thoughts and sentiments.”
Snow
Usually I have a tendency to get lost in your “verbosity” with the Great Dame. Even when you’re posting to others I get lost in the translation of the point you’re trying to make. This post was different. Thank you for that and understanding. I’m glad its more than just words and you and Ladyship get where I’m coming from in a way.
“Again whether your LE is a good/bad “standard” is irrelevant to other limerents, it’s your mental journey that accounts for YOUr LE battle, yours Alone”
I don’t think its a bad one. My intent was always nothing but good, but it didn’t work out like I’d hoped. Now I just try to make the best of things. I appreciate your understanding this.
“We have a tendency to head over heels fall into new LO, led by that bloody blind Glimmer — it’s our collective mental habit.”
Last thing I ever want is a visit to that LE place I was in at my worst with LO. I’ll still tear up over it if I dwell on it long enough, but I think most of that is due to my regret.
With New Girl, there’s like zero glimmer. Like I can see us hanging out possibly and maybe even going further, but its not a burden on me to get there now..
My schedule working around Dads issues is a huge thorn in making any time for going out/ dating. So anything I do needs to be strategically planned beforehand. It’s aggravation, but its what I’ve got.
“I like the fact that she’s “older” and way less dramatic” in your eyes. Did you say that she has a kid?”
It definitely helps on a huge level. Yes she does have a kid.
💦🦎,
“Usually I have a tendency to get lost in your “verbosity” with the Great Dame. Even when you’re posting to others I get lost in the translation of the point you’re trying to make.”
With your Great Dame, I was in more Q&A mode, my thoughts run all over places, new thoughts or sentiments or jokes constantly popped up in the middle of any sentences. So my post got longer, longer, and longer…. You can say “a ringing Tardis is tumbling” in my head….
“This post was different. “
I was actually thinking hard how to answer two issues that emerged in your posts, which are not only applicable to you alone, but relevant to all 👻 👻 , whether they are still in deep throe of LE or 100% LE free. So far, I only dealt with one issue — validation and invalidation (The other one is judging one’s past by others, eg.your LF and by ONESELF… and how to deal with others’ judging eyes in general)
“Thank you for that and understanding. I’m glad its more than just words and you and Ladyship get where I’m coming from in a way. “
We both only get a partial view of your LE, due to our three different cultural and personal (experience + personality) background. To her, it’s puzzling how one could idolize LO with so little of her realistic information and almost No direct interaction. To me, I can understand an idolization for a celebrity-kind figure, but they (Binoche, Dimash) would NEVER cause me to lose sleep or shred one tear — they literally live in “another world”. I can repeatedly enjoy their work/art or in-person performance tremendously, without ever falling in even a crush for them.
Therefore, I argue that neither Dame nor I (no one else) is qualified/entitled to validate and invalidate your fantasies, sentiments, tears in your deepest LE. They already occurred, of course, they are real phenomena in YOUR LE. Anything thought and felt in your head was REAL, even if they were under the altered state of mind❗️
But why❓and why❓— the biggest “foggy enemy” to aim at❗️ Each of us here had/has our own conscious and unconscious reasons (related to physiological /cultural /personal background) to fall in LE (the later addiction stage) with certain type of LO(s). We did/do not even 100% understand all factors of our own LE, how could we FULLY understand/emphasize anyone else’s LE. We are simply not the Unique YOU.
Therefore, there is NO need to thank me, I’m unable to TRULY validate/resonate or invalidate ALL your LE thoughts and sentiments, eg. why did you (and your Grandpa) had excessive tears and where did they actually come from)❓Why the psychosomatic ME got lymphoma (triggered by panic attack or fear of “abandonment”?) with little tear, big pride, workable will❓Why Great Dame got frequent awful anxiety attacks and then still continue jumping off the cliff with unavailable LOs who purposefully dallied at her like “a Cat playing a mouse” or treated her as “entertainment”❓ I have no answers to those phenomena and I 🆎 have NO moral judgements — I always look at matters from sufferers’ points of views❓
““I don’t think it’s a bad one. My intent was always nothing but good, but it didn’t work out like I’d hoped. Now I just try to make the best of things. I appreciate your understanding this.”
You’re putting moral labels on your own case; “bad” or “good” depends on which angle one is looking 👀 : your intend is good to for her and a slim chance of a pair-bond connection, but what it actually did to your own mental state/health? Differing from your Dame, I DO think your eye contact with LO and some brief passing by, is more than my contact with my favorite actors or singers — 🆎 ZERO❗️
Contact of 3/4 senses, without physical touch, with another human being or mammal could bring about some of “spiritual” connection, an unspeakable connection. We sentient beings IS ABLE to sense a great deal, like dogs and babies can tell in a split of second who like/dislike them. Our human EYES alone can tell it all.
“Last thing I ever want is a visit to that LE place I was in at my worst with LO. I’ll still tear up over it if I dwell on it long enough, but I think most of that is due to my regret.”
There you go‼️ You’re getting to a source of your ceaseless tears during the worst of LE. You should exchange your tear-notes with your Grandpa and find out how he has finally dried them up….
“With New Girl, there’s like zero glimmer. Like I can see us hanging out possibly and maybe even going further, but its not a burden on me to get there now..”
I see. With ZERO glimmer❓It would be really hard to be motivated to initiate a date; then Why bother? Should glimmer be a 4, 5, 6 to move you out of the chair?
“My schedule working around Dads issues is a huge thorn in making any time for going out/ dating. So anything I do needs to be strategically planned beforehand. It’s aggravation, but it’s what I’ve got.”
We’re in the same boat, only that my mother is still quite healthy, independently living on her own. But at some point, I’d face your situation. I have no fear for it. It’s designated, so we have to do it with as little complaint as possible.
Aggravation would ONLY make us feel worse, while unable to change/improve the reality a bit❗️ In my COO, we strive for “endurance” of necessity— a highly praised virtue! Is not dating the end of the world⁉️
“It definitely helps on a huge level. Yes she does have a kid.”
One penny thought from a great, great Grandmother 🦉 here: befriending with maturer women/men (not limited by chronological age, of course) would benefit us a great deal, much, much more than those hot chicks or flowery LEGs. Rosy-cheeked younglings exist only for our esthetic eyes, hardly for a lasting substantial and gratifying romance/love ….
Do you sometimes dream walking home to a smiling women’s hugs with a cup of fresh coffee (maybe a homemade hot meal) in chilly, rainy evenings and you treat her with a scented hot bath, AFTER doing all dishes, dump garbage and mop kitchen floor… 😀 🤭
How on earth did you orbit into my kingdom (I must be very nosy)⁉️ You’re your peaceful Grandpa’s responsibility, not MINE! 😏. He’ll have more insightful and resonant advice for YOUR, so knock at his🚪and wake him 🆙 …
“With ZERO glimmer❓It would be really hard to be motivated to initiate a date; then Why bother? Should glimmer be a 4, 5, 6 to move you out of the chair?”
Snow,
I guess I shouldn’t say its at a zero. Maybe more like a 2 or 3. Not high. Probably feeling that way due to my recent track record. The last few years have really been awful with the opposite sex. Everytime I get my hopes up high, the bottom usually falls out. So I guess this is more about self-preservation. I don’t want to be overzealous for something if its all going to blow up in my face at some point.
This Woman is nice and I enjoy her company but I do have to work with her. In almost the same capacity as I do LF, so if it caves-in, I’ll have 2 Women it will be awkward around. Just playing it safe for now.
MJ,
If that’s the case, could you just get all dating related stuff out of your head, and treat her kindly and courteously like to any other co-worker? Keep no hope, no despite⁉️
In workplace, we deal with tons of opposite sex, we can’t just eyeing each of them behind a glimmer or a possible date “lens”, right? Dame is right here, we cannot just “bend” ourselves for that cup of “dating coffee”.
Desperation for ANYTHING is not good for any one’s mind, and it has its way to show on one’s face. One NEEDS TO have genuine confidence, independence, and joy inside and outside (your small talks/words) so they extrude on your appearance and become a part of YOU.
Again, Become your own Sun and naturally attract other Moons (male or female), not attempting to orbit around anyone else’s planet❗️
Typo: “keep ZERO hope, hold AZERO despair! “
MJ
“The last few years have really been awful with the opposite sex. Everytime I get my hopes up high, the bottom usually falls out. So I guess this is more about self-preservation. I don’t want to be overzealous for something if its all going to blow up in my face at some point.”
I think you have to focus on the women who show clear interest. A woman who likes you wants to spend time with you and hear from you. I read this somewhere: There are no mixed signals. If someone likes you, you’ll know pretty quickly. (And this is really general advice that I of course should follow, too. :)) Forget all this uncertainty s**t that we talk about on here. It doesn’t exist. It all translates to: It’s not going to happen.
👒 Marcia 👠 ,
“If someone likes you, you’ll know pretty quickly. Forget all this uncertainty s**t that we talk about on here. It doesn’t exist. It all translates to: It’s not going to happen.”
This should be a MOTTO to all limerents here, singleton or partnered!
“(And this is really general advice that I of course should follow, too. :)) “
Why couldn’t you, didn’t you follow your own advice⁉️ their deceiving printed WORDS❓🧐 What do you think would make your LO/LO-lite to abandon everything they’ve acquired and jump off the thrilling cliff with you⁉️
Snow,
“Why couldn’t you, didn’t you follow your own advice⁉️ their deceiving printed WORDS❓🧐”
1.) I’ve learned most of this stuff AFTER my last big LE was over. Although most of is painfully obvious and something I should have known years ago.
2.) I was really speaking about dating. When both parties are available. It was my understanding that when MJ first started noticing his LO, she was single. As was LF when they started talking and pizza dinner lady is now. And he is single.
3.) My LO was very hot and cold, very into playing games. LO-lite, not so much. He made his interest clear and things moved quickly. I just didn’t like what he was offering me. It wasn’t something we talked about ahead of time. Doesn’t mean it didn’t really sting when he said it, but it wasn’t a big surprise.
” What do you think would make your LO/LO-lite to abandon everything they’ve acquired and jump off the thrilling cliff with you⁉️”
I never expected either one of them to leave their partners.
Thank you for your kind words Mila. I appreciate your input. It was well put how you said the experience saved me on a way. It’s definitely guided me on the way of showing what I should be doing better. Her not discussing more intimate details of her private life and respecting others’ privacy makes sense. Her guy is older (Perhaps older than me) so he may not be into that scene and putting himself out there like that.
It’s good to see you posting again and helping others out. Seems like you’re doing better yourself these days.. Thank you again.
MJ,
I could never (and still mainly can’t) sabotage my LO if I tried. To try and sabotage everything about a person to kill limerence just seems fake and unmerited – like who would I even be trying to kid about that? Myself? Cos that ain’t working and it never has.
That part (total devaluing, turn the fantasy into a nightmare) has been one part of the lim-fighting philosophy I haven’t been able to apply. I might have understood it wrong though.
It seems too simple to say “they’re a narc” and then offload the responsibility of how we (as the limerents) have distorted our views and expectations of someone who often didn’t remotely ask for it. Caveat 1 – I know you weren’t doing that – it’s a more general point. Caveat 2 – I get that exceptions will apply.
Getting a rounded view of LO (seeing what you find to be their good and bad sides, on real evidence) is a very different strategy that I buy into much more. And I think you’re basically already there.
Trying to tell your (plural) self that you dislike everything about LO is like trying to kid yourself that you suddenly find your favourite food disgusting. Time consuming and extremely pointless.
This is good stuff LaR and you speak a lot of sense. I’m also trying to find a sensible balance somewhere between the extremes of idealisation and sabotage. The problem is that I find the criticism she receives from other people incredibly helpful!
I’ve told the story of how she’s dropped everything else in her life to throw herself headlong into a new relationship (buying a big house together after four months etc) – and although members of this community have (sensibly) suggested “well that’s just love, innit?” many colleagues find much of her behaviour utterly infuriating.
No need to go into it all again, but a conversation I had with a colleague/friend yesterday – in which she pulled LO apart (and not for my benefit) weirdly brought me a lot of calm for the rest of the day. It wasn’t a mean takedown and this friend is sensible. But a takedown it was.
Why did it help? Well it further reinforced the notion that I have not been abandoned in isolation, that I have not done something to make her pull away and also, frankly, that she really isn’t the person I thought or hoped she was.
Checks and balances? I make a point of not initiating any criticism of her (IRL… I don’t count here! 😄) and I will always be professional when dealing with her. But there is no doubt that the picture painted of her by others *does* help, and when you’re looking for a route out of madness, the path doesn’t necessarily have to be the most virtuous, eh?
Phil,
Yes I get what you’re saying. Exceptions will apply, and yours seems like one.
What I think is different about your case is that – as you explain it – lots of others are noticing her changed behaviour and commenting negatively on it. This in itself is a good check and balance to prove that this is more than a narrative dreamed up by your version of the lim-brain. It is not just your state of mind villifying her, but a group of people noticing it.
Of course, your feelings about / (internal) reaction to it is heightened by the lim-brain. But that’s different from it being you alone noticing it, and that should be reassuring.
I’m a fan of the ‘whatever works within/for an individual to end limerence’ school. But eventually it does also involve turning inwards to a thought / question like “it’s on her if she now wants to live her life like that; but what is it within me that’s causing me to dwell so much on it?”
I don’t claim to have cracked that properly for myself yet, by the way. I just read the stories here of people who do seem to have had success and notice they usually have that in common.
“It seems too simple to say “they’re a narc” and then offload the responsibility of how we (as the limerents) have distorted our views and expectations of someone who often didn’t remotely ask for it.”
LaR
Like you, I’ve never wanted to dislike LO. I’ve conjured up way too many beautiful fantasies of simple pleasures, like going for walks with her along the beach, sipping a milkshake together or cuddling with her on her couch watching tv. How could I hate someone who never did anything bad to me? Or as you put it, blame her for my problem, when she had absolutely nothing to do with it. I can’t do it either man, so I’m glad you get this. I mean I guess if my interest in her had actually creeped her out, she probably could have gone to HR and I might have been reprimanded or fired, and then I’d have a real better reason to want to go rogue on her. But she was never vindictive, so good on me for not going ultra-creep.. I guess..
Maybe I never actually knew her and I suppose that makes my situation unique. I’ve tried to learn from it and do better. If the LE has done anything positive, its shown me that standing idle isn’t going to get me very far. Maybe Madam Marcia was right and I really didn’t want to talk to her. I think I was just too intimidated by what I perceived as goddess like perfection. I mean I probably really did look almost like a deer in headlights when I’d see her around.
I thought LF was going to be a positive way out too, but that backfired on me. Even in that situation, I can’t bring myself to dislike her either. Even though she outright lied to me. But whatever. I drove her away and now I’ll just keep paying for it. We’re not enemies. We’re just strangers again. I hate it..
Its nice to hear from you again Friend. Thank you for the reply. I appreciate your words as always.
“Maybe I never actually knew her and I suppose that makes my situation unique.”
Brother
Reminds me of the song Aubrey by Bread …
I never knew you
but I loved you just the same
I loved your name
I suppose in our heads, with all the dreamed up head canon we have we think we do know them well.
I went to visit her former location on the first of this month, and met the new gal they hired. I always like to met people at least once in person that I am going to be working with even if it is mostly going to be over the phone. She seemed like a very sweet lady, but wasn’t very talkative so I respected that. When we were going to order lunch, she, her name is Miss Alysia, ordered Dr Pepper with her meal. I said “What’s with you southerners and Dr. Pepper?” My boss says “[LO’s name] likes Dr Pepper too.” I said “I know that’s the only reason why she wasn’t perfect.”
I really, really, really dislike Dr Pepper. Drank WAY too much Capt Morgan and Dr Pepper, one time when I was younger, and I can’t stand either one of them anymore.
MJ,
“Maybe Madam Marcia was right and I really didn’t want to talk to her [LO].”
So is it possible you thought that if you talked to her, it would make it more ‘real’ and shatter the fantasy version of her (and the two of you) that you clung onto at the time? Maybe this is what the Great Dame meant originally.
“I drove her [LF] away and now I’ll just keep paying for it”
I’ve kept banging this drum but ultimate it was her decision to walk away – you didn’t drive her there. It’s her prerogative if she wants to walk away, but you shouldn’t blame yourself so much that she couldn’t handle what you told her.
“My boss says “[LO’s name] likes Dr Pepper too.” I said “I know that’s the only reason why she wasn’t perfect.”
Adam
This made me laugh Brother. I’ve probably mentioned it before but Dr. Pepper is LFs favorite soft drink too. She’s a big fan of the zero sugar drinks and vanilla creme is her favorite Dr. Pepper flavor. Next to Creamy Coconut, when it was available. I would buy them for her all the time when I would find them. Pathetic simping I know. Try not to make fun of me too much.. 🤣
I’ll drink it. I don’t mind it. But I could see why you would dislike it, if it brings back bad drinking moments.
To LaR:
I have been trying to formulate some kind of coherent response to your comments and to MJ’s overall issue about disliking (or pretending to dislike) our LOs.
There’s an element that may not have been discussed–fear.
I am a very timid person and am easily flustered by angry people raising their voices.
In my particular case, even though my Hot Gay Neighbor looks like Anderson Cooper (swoon), he has a bad temper and is very snappish. He has yelled at me to the point where I broke down sobbing. Every time he has gotten mad at me, it has been over something minor, like me interrupting him to ask a question. Or me texting him to ask if he was coming to the door after I’d been waiting outside for ten minutes. That time he came charging out of his house like an enraged rhinoceros and ripped me a new a**hole. I am usually dumbfounded and cannot even formulate a response.
Needless to say, since I have such poor skills dealing with anger, this is extremely off-putting, and I think twice before asking a question, or initiating a conversation.
So in your comparison to finding your favorite food disgusting, I think both things can be true. What if your favorite food is delicious, but it gives you indigestion? You have to ask yourself if you want to skip, or eat it and suffer afterward.
Hi Norma,
I want to try and clarify what you mean about fear.
Do you mean that you think you can use fear – or rather his behaviours that activate the fear in you – as a very real reason to break this LE?
Or, are you saying that this fear cycle also kind of keeps you going back? That on some level you think “if I behave in the ‘right’ way towards him, I will get a good reaction this time”?
To put it another way – are you somehow ‘blaming’ his angry responses on your ‘inputs’? (If so, then I think you also know it isn’t truly caused by you).
I have a similar character trait to you – I really don’t like anger. And, to share something, I had an ex girlfriend who dished out frequent unpredictable angry responses – like your LO – and made me feel as though I was the cause of that anger. I wasn’t (it took therapy to really know that). But for a time I just kept on and on feeding that damned slot machine, hoping it would pay out.
I have casually used the term ‘narc’ in the past to characterise her … but I’m not sure if it was actually narcissim or some other personality disorder or damage she’d suffered in life.
“What if your favorite food is delicious, but it gives you indigestion? You have to ask yourself if you want to skip, or eat it and suffer afterward.”
This is what most LEs (at least the ones we know about on LwL) seem to end up like. Delicious taste then a healthy dollop of gut rot to follow!
This is where the addiction (or uncertainty) models are helpful to understanding it. It’s like a gambler knows that the house always wins in the end, but plays anyway. It’s like a smoker knows they are damaging their lungs, but still needs the cigarette too much.
Back to the food analogy – we have to work towards dislike of the indigestion / gut rot winning out in the end, don’t we? If we can never eat that food and have a purely enjoyable experience of it, then we shouldn’t eat it.
We all know it here, but isn’t it a journey to get to that point?!
We could ask the team to serve lobster bisques at the Limmies presentation dinner, as we know that won’t give you indigestion.
The fear of others” anger indicates tte lack of genuine security, empathy, and compassion in you…. 😞
Otherwise, you’d be able to tango 💃🏻 with any grumpy 🦯 at any given time… ‼️
To LaR:
Thank you for that thoughtful response.
I meant the first thing–that I am using the fear to break the limerence.
I have had enough therapy to know that *I* am not behaving badly.
LO’s behavior is over-the-top. And he knows it. He always apologizes profusely afterward.
This comment is to Snow:
Your remarks made me laugh, because one of the times that LO went ballistic on me, I inadvertently used the word “grumpy,” which sent him into a rage.
I was clueless. He has a terrible habit of stabbing his forefinger at me repeatedly when he’s yelling. He actually yelled, “And don’t look so bewildered!!!!”
Apologies afterward, but I was shaken. Of course I look bewildered.
He thought I was trivializing his feelings, because HIS definition of the word “grumpy” is someone who is deliberately being out-of-sorts. That is not MY definition and I used the word sincerely. If I had substituted the word “stressed,” for example, I would have been spared his foolish tirade.
How on earth am I supposed to know that in advance? I found out the hard way, don’t use the word grumpy around LO!
This is to Snow:
Forgot to add, I do know how to do the tango, but I doubt that I will ever be able to handle people yelling at me.
I have had YEARS of therapy and I have only made so much progress. I am 72 and frankly a little exhausted.
I have been better to LO than he deserves, and I have no guilt or sense that my behavior is causing him to lose his temper. That’s on him. He’s irritable and stressed-out, and I just happen to be there.
I have no feeling that if I acted “better,” he’d be nicer. I don’t know how to be better, and I don’t think I need to.
I mentioned a long time ago on another thread that my behavior has been exemplary, and I think it might have been Marcia(?) who challenged me and asked me how I KNOW it’s exemplary. I don’t. But I have behaved in a way that I would like others to treat me. I have been kindly, reliable, patient and honest.
LO certainly doesn’t seem to appreciate my efforts, nor does he reciprocate.
Miss 🏠,
Your remarks made me laugh, because one of the times that LO went ballistic on me, I inadvertently used the word “grumpy,” which sent him into a rage.
The “foreign” word “grumpy” gives me an image that someone is irritable, whiny, or fussy on small matters, but NOT really angry/stressed or deliberately “out of sorts”. They could be grumpy simple because they’re not feeling well physically, like some ailing elderly.
I used often it when it meant light-hearted and teasing, eg. “Today, my grumpy Granny bulged her big eyes at my cousin, nagged and nagged…” But grumpiness was never a personality trait in my Granny, she knew we’re teasing her.
“I was clueless. He has a terrible habit of stabbing his forefinger at me repeatedly when he’s yelling. He actually yelled, “And don’t look so bewildered!!!!””
Your willingness or LE addiction to be his punch bag and doormat has enabled or even trained your LO to treat you the way he has treated you. Why can’t you see it❓ Sorry to be so blunt.
“Apologies afterward, but I was shaken. Of course I look bewildered.”
That’s what I meant in my precious post: the lack of empathy — to discern and understand sources of others’ pain. No one is born to just want to be angry at others and the world! Murders have their incentives, usually fear of some sorts.
“If I had substituted the word “stressed,” for example, I would have been spared his foolish tirade.”
In my 👁️, among you two, you’re the foolish one, and your LO habitually used your foolishness to take out his regular grumpiness/anger/fury on you, whether they were caused by you or others or the whole world…
“How on earth am I supposed to know that in advance? “
You’re been to therapy, have you learned about general sources of angers/stresses, why and how they are expressed?
“I found out the hard way, don’t use the word grumpy around LO!”
After our beloved Mila got mad at my teasing and fond use of “grumpy” before her Italian trip, I’d use the word “grumpy” only for a personified object — 🦯, since most of us walk around with a psychological cane 🦯…. What is your 🦯?
Miss 🏠,
Only two words to suggest: WALK AWAY‼️
Hi Norma,
I love your comments. ❤️ 💪 Nobody should yell at you. Unless you’re in the military 🤷 or you’re in a situation where there’s life and death involved. I have anxiety (really a medical way of saying supercharged fear). Until I took meds and controlled my anxiety, while you and I may both have fear, my response was 180 degrees from yours and I might have punched him. So with my experience, so to speak, in both worlds, your response is totally fine and much better than attempting some counter yelling. 👍 I never look back on all the times I fought or verbally put people in their place with any pride. People don’t seem to understand that the aggressive dog is anxious. As is the dog with his tail between his legs. To go around always ready to counterpunch is really no way to live. By the way, there was a successful movie called “Grumpy Old Men”. It is a real thing too! That’s another story.
Hamlet, that’s very well said.
This is to Snow:
I can see what he’s doing. I am not blind.
The limerence still draws me to him, although it’s far more limited than it was two years ago. I have watched and listened carefully to him.
I have learned that there is nothing I can say or do that will make him treat me better.
A few times, when he started yelling, I turned and walked away. He immediately called me and apologized and asked me to come back.
So, to answer your question, I am not blind, but the limerence still has enough power to keep me interested, although I am extremely gun-shy and choose my words far more carefully than I would when I first met him.
To clarify, LO was upset about something and I called him “grumpy,” and he thought I was trivializing the seriousness of the situation. I was not doing that, but I wish I had chosen a different word. I also wish he had said, “What do you mean by ‘grumpy’?” And I could have explained that I was simply used it as a synonym for a similar word, and not making light of his situation.
When we spoke about it afterward, I asked him, “Why would you think I would trivialize you? Why do you have such a poor opinion of me?” And he looked ashamed. And he said, “I don’t have a poor opinion of you. I am so sorry.”
It’s hard not to be touched by a heartfelt apology. Although I know he will do it again.
To Hamlet:
I took some anti-anxiety meds during my divorce over twenty years ago, but I did not like the side effects.
The last time LO snapped at me was at Starbucks, about four weeks ago. I just turned around and walked out of the store.
He texted me and asked me to come back. Maybe I should not have gone back?
Hi Norma,
I don’t feel that it’s my place to be so specific or that in the big picture that specific act is so important. I think it’s great that you walked away. The LO definitely heard your non verbal communication and then you came back and seemed to express your needs. Many others don’t yet have the courage to walk away or express to the other what they want. I think that you know from your marriage to a narcissistic person and your therapy sessions about the enabler dynamic. I think you might explore that dynamic occurring in this LE. Even though it isn’t a marriage, seems to have zero chance of sexual consummation, etc. it is a relationship with this LO. Philosophically, I don’t believe I’m limerent although I probably say that I am because it’s easier than going into the layers of philosophy to explain the difference. But really, I view it as just having a propensity or I am more likely, perhaps much more likely, to fall into limerence than the average bear. But I am not fated, destined, or must do so. The power of knowing that I’m “limerent” for me comes in then being able to do something with that information. Prevention is so much easier and so much better than treating a disease. Your personality likely predisposes you to fall into certain behaviors and relationships with certain personality types. Mine does. But it doesn’t mean that you have to continue that pattern. I would encourage you to retry therapy if you stopped after your divorce. Also, there have been changes in drugs in the last 20 years that I’d recommend you ask your doctors and therapist about so that you can make an informed decision.
To Hamlet:
Thank you for your comments.
I went to therapy for about ten years after my divorce, to answer your question.
Still on the fence about whether I want to go back.
Miss 🏠,
Would you allow me to be more straight foward with you, purely for the sake of an attempt to open your (universal) cloudy eyes and strengthen your weakened will in limerence? I don’t have a lot of time in saying what I’m unwilling to say; but please hear me out as a very annoyed, ongoing LO.
Please forgive me if my ESL prevents me from sounding tactful or kind enough. Dr L advocates to be authentic, especially when one is out of LE, I want to and must speak my true mind. Sometimes, I find doplomatic ways of communication serve the opposite of one’s earnest goals.
“I can see what he’s doing. I am not blind.”
By definition, limerent in throe of a LE is BLIND or very foggy (your fog might be the thickest here.) Sorry to say that I don’t trust limrents’ delusional words, yours is no exception. Even taking your words for their face value, and based on your over six moths of posting, your LO is a toxic, vain, narcissistic and grumpy old man, period‼️ I’ve just validated your own findings❗️
“The limerence still draws me to him, although it’s far more limited than it was two years ago. “
How each of us got into limerence is not an issue at all, but what kind of efforts we make, after coming to LwL, to reduce and rid of limerence MAKES A HUGE difference on our shared journey. Dr L repeatedly warned and discouraged us to talk about LO; yet, just about your ever post you were talking about your LO in details. You know how many of your posts I simply skipped as soon as I glanced LO in them?
So many of us courteously and patiently asked and encouraged you to focus on and talk about yourself, your childhood, your therapy hobbies, realistic pains, etc…. But you just kept rambling on your LO, even showing his pretentious house🤮. I didn’t know whether you wanted us to envy your LO, or convince us that your LO is worth of your limerence… Can’t you see your own doing is reinforcing your LE?
“I have watched and listened carefully to him.”
Sorry I don’t all trust limerents’ ears, eyes, feels, observations and assessments; I only clearly realize this after I become 100% longing and limerence free, I clearly know now what my foggy mind was like while still in LE. Just about every active limerent hears, sees, and feels whatever they WISH/DREAM to hear, see, and feel, especially when a dodge LO dangles that evasive, hot verbal “pork chop 🥩” in front of their blurry 😵💫 , craving 😝, addictive 🥴 LE eyes ….🧐
“I have learned that there is nothing I can say or do that will make him treat me better.”
You only realize this now⁉️ As I said in my previous posts, your LO indulgence has enabled or even trained his cruel behaviors towards you. If a LO does not CARE, s/he could get very irritated by this Lim pet and take out all her/his own stresses/angers on the pet — you’ve sent yourself repeatedly under her/his irritable nose!
Speaking for myself, nowadays, if I felt irritated by some physical discomfort or my bad-tempered plumber, I noticed that inside of me I wanted to fist punch my limerent pet to take out my frustration. His longing, limerenting, slimy eyes made me want to punch him publicly in my class‼️
And this Lim pet, of course, tried so hard to please me with his fearful, anxious yet slimy smiles everytime I began to lose my patience for his extremely poor academic performance. Even as a 50% Buddhist and 95% Stoic, I still find it hard to tolerate his spineless LE behavior. Yet, I can’t change anything in him. (Last fall when I was still in LE ember, I yelled so much at this pet in my office hour that other colleagues warmed me🙄) If I could, I’d obtain a legal restraining order to bar him from my class! (Luckily nowadays, I’m care free and usually in joyful moods) I’m trying to tell you how repulsed even a caring LO could feel by unwanted LE attention‼️ “Just stay away, get your own life❗️ “
“A few times, when he started yelling, I turned and walked away. He immediately called me and apologized and asked me to come back.”
I don’t trust your LO’s B*S* apology one bit! Or course, he’d insincerely apologized since he needs you as his punchbag and doormat! Based on your telling, he’s so in stressed; if I were him, I’d do the same, since my Lim pet is just there trying to please; if I yell at him, he’d still wag his tail… 😏
“So, to answer your question, I am not blind, but the limerence still has enough power to keep me interested, although I am extremely gun-shy and choose my words far more carefully than I would when I first met him.
Fine, you’re not “blind”, and why can’t you pull yourself away from your LO’s obvious mental and emotional ABUSES? Your behaviors in reality and here have been enhancing your limerence! WALK AWAY, physically and MENTALLY‼️
“To clarify, LO was upset about something and I called him “grumpy,” and he thought I was trivializing the seriousness of the situation. I was not doing that, but I wish I had chosen a different word. I also wish he had said, “What do you mean by ‘grumpy’?” And I could have explained that I was simply used it as a synonym for a similar word, and not making light of his situation.”
Do you see what you’re doing here? — still excuse and defend your LO 🙄❗️ If you think you deserve his mistreatments or abuses, then he’d continue doing so‼️. If I were still in my own LE with ET, I’d take out my LE misery on my limerent pet, he’s so smily, patient, pleasing, sympathetic, forgiving… why not⁉️ You know the word “grumpy” much better than me, so NEVER use it especially when recipient is in the middle of anger/stress; it can be used only when fondly teasing.
“When we spoke about it afterward, I asked him, “Why would you think I would trivialize you? Why do you have such a poor opinion of me?” And he looked ashamed. And he said, “I don’t have a poor opinion of you. I am so sorry.”
Again, if he did not flatter you a bit, you’d probably have walked away, then where could he get such an easy punchbag or doormat to take out his stresses❓
“It’s hard not to be touched by a heartfelt apology. Although I know he will do it again.”
“Heartfelt”❓Can someone tell me how many times what Limerents “heartfelt” was delusional and realistic⁉️ It’s your wishful “heart-feel”‼️ And knowing he “will do it again”, you still went back again and again… What happened to your 🧠❓ So many of us felt sorry for your pain, but we could not hold your legs back. You kept doing it and then came here to complain…. If my unwanted Lim pet comes to me to directly whine, guess what I’d say, “…. “ 🤐 (sorry I can’t spell it out; otherwise, some grumpy, unleashed 🦯 in the galaxy may fly towards my 🧠 🔨 again…🥶 🤭 ) My LAST words are still: 📣 walk away‼️ Walk Away ‼️WALK AWAY‼️📣
The Only Relationship Rule that Matters — Mutual Reciprocity
https://youtu.be/JViyD5dKM8k?si=XjrJ4-DcwgqCyRpW
Alina de Botton: How to Fall in Love Again —
https://youtu.be/9PXHx275Oa8?si=0Ra-WpQy1sV6mIg_
“In the minds of geniuses, we find our own neglected thoughts.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
A Dragon’s Egg
In a mountain’s heart, where shadows creep,
A marble of myth lies fast asleep.
It holds the color of the midnight sky,
And ancient secrets pass it by.
It feels no sun, it hears no sound,
Just waits for its time on stony ground.
To the touch, it feels like polished stone,
But a pulse beats softly, and not alone.
A tremor deep, a heat confined,
A slumbering roar of a dragon’s mind.
The shell is hard, a star-gemmed crust,
But brittle glass compared to dust.
For those who hold it in their hand,
A whisper comes from a forgotten land.
A flicker of fire, a taste of smoke,
A promise of power soon to be woke.
The world above, a passing blur,
Doesn’t know what wonders will occur.
Then comes the crackle, the sudden break,
The shell gives way for goodness’ sake.
Not with a thunder, but with a sigh,
A tiny horn beneath the sky.
A scaly muzzle, a flash of red,
A wondrous life springs from its bed.
The myth is born, the legend new,
A creature fierce, a spirit true.
And all who see will turn and stare,
As a dragon’s promise fills the air.
In the Fog and Flame (She’s Every Girl)
(Verse 1)
In the thick fog, she lost his face,
But his voice came through — wild lace.
A hundred tones in one refrain,
Soft and sharp, like summer rain.
Her cloudy eyes saw through him,
They knew the songs both dark and dim,
They saw the scars, the smoldered ground,
Where love once burned without a sound.
(Pre-Chorus)
She was afraid to touch another flame,
Her heart too tired, her body wired.
But now she’s ready for the red tango,
To light up the sky — inspired.
(Chorus)
Words are easy — wind will take them,
Once they fly, no chariot can chase them.
Distill your fire, hold your pose,
Patience makes a diamond glow.
For a hundred dawns, she searched her head,
To heal what aged and quietly bled.
The past dust fell and settled down,
Her mind grew clear, her spine stood sound.
(Verse 2)
She traced his past footprints in the mist,
Was he real, or was it sky —
A dragon dancing, passing by?
Through smoke and storm, her soul finally awoke,
The fire whispered, then it spoke:
“You might be the ash that is meant to stay,
Awaiting phoenix’s bright ballet.”
(Bridge)
She’s turned her mind soft from metal,
Her scared torso now gentle.
No longer bound by fear or pain,
Her heart a tumbling stream again.
Her wounded wings now healed and whole,
They shimmer, ready to console.
And when she rises, all will see,
The flame that burns is meant to be.
(Chorus)
Words are easy — wind will take them,
Once they fly, no chariot can chase them.
Distill your fire, hold your pose,
Patience makes a diamond glow.
The past dust fell and settled down,
Her spine is straight, her steps are sound.
Her engaged heart runs free and glee,
A stream, a flame, a melody.
(Outro)
So in the fog and flames she rises,
He, a dragon baby, roared to call her out.
She was the ash that chose to stay —
Now phoenix-born, she lights the play
In the Fog and Flame
(Verse 1)
In the thick fog, she lost his face,
But his voice came through — wild lace.
A hundred tones in one refrain,
Soft and sharp, like summer rain.
Her cloudy eyes saw through him,
They knew the songs both dark and dim,
They saw the scars, the smoldered ground,
Where love once burned without a sound.
(Pre-Chorus)
She was afraid to touch another unknown flame,
Her heart too tired, her body wired.
But now she’s ready for the red soar,
To light up the sky — inspired.
(Chorus)
Words are easy — wind will take them,
Once they fly, no chariot can take them back.
Distill your fire, hold your pose,
Patience makes a diamond glow.
For a hundred dawns, she searched her head,
To heal what aged and quietly bled.
The past dust fell and settled down,
Her mind grew clear, her spine stood sound.
(Verse 2)
She traced his footprints in the mist,
Each step a dream she might have missed.
Was he real, or was it sky —
A dragon dancing, passing by?
Through smoke and storm, her soul finally awoke,
The fire whispered, then it spoke:
“You might be the ash that is meant to stay,
Awaiting phoenix’s ecstatic ballet.”
(Bridge)
She’s turned her mind agile from metal,
Her scared torso now gentle.
No longer bound by fear or pain,
Her heart a tumbling stream again.
Her wounded wings now healed and whole,
They shimmer, ready to console.
And when she rises, all will see,
The flame that burns is meant to be.
(Chorus)
Words are easy — wind will take them,
Once they fly, no chariot can take them back.
Distill your fire, hold your pose,
Patience makes a diamond glow.
The past dust fell and settled down,
Her spine is straight, her steps are sound.
Her engaged heart runs free and glee,
A stream, a flame, a melody.
(Outro)
So in the fog and flames she rises,
He, a dragon baby, roared to call her out.
She was the ash that chose to stay —
Now phoenix-born, she lights the way.
We AI do sweet-eat…. Trick-or-Treat? 👻 🎃
https://imgur.com/a/oI2E7KA 🎃
Chat what 🤔
https://imgur.com/a/hjtqlCQ
Hmm….
https://imgur.com/a/vWscTPx
How to Make Someone Fall in Love With You — 🤔
https://youtu.be/l1viKpuypHw?si=7r0oinJyVV8mHkWQ
Inspired by Miss 🏠 ‘s post of the song, “Love is the Drug”, I could not help come up with my own “nursery” (anyone is welcome to add more) —
It is a cosmic thing
To hear LO’s bell to ring — ding, dong, bell.
It feels pussy in the well
To toll LO’s bell to hell — ding, dong, bell.
Does it work for most of active limerents? 😆
Can I change a word —❓
It is a cosmic thing
To hear LO’s bell to ring — ding, dong, bell.
It feels pussy in the well
To toll LO’s bell to null — ding, dong, bell.
Where is my generous editor❓🧐 “an editor, an editor, my kingdom for an editor❗️”
“Ring Fancy’s Bell” — Shakespeare
It is a cosmic thing
To hear LO’s bell to ring — ding, dong, bell.
It feels pussy in the well
To toll LO’s bell to null — ding, dong, bell.
It’s bizarre tale
To glorify LO’s ordinary tail — ding, dong, bell.
It’s heartbreaking dial
To wreck Limerents’ own sail – ding, dong, bell.
🐦🔥 (10:45pm)
“Ring Fancy’s Bell” — Shakespeare
It is a cosmic thing
To hear LO’s bell to ring — ding, dong, bell.
It feels pussy in the well
To toll LO’s bell to null — ding, dong, bell.
It’s a bizarre tale
To glorify LO’s ordinary tail — ding, dong, bell.
It’s a heartbreaking dial
To wreck Limerents’ own sail — ding, dong, bell.
It’s a puzzling elusive deal
To kneel and kiss LO’s heel — ding, dong, bell.
It’s the swirling pair-bond feel
To pedal on LO’s hamster wheel — ding, dong, bell.
🐦🔥 (11:15pm)
“Ring Fancy’s Bell” — Shakespeare
It is a cosmic thing
To hear LO’s bell to ring — ding, dong, bell.
It feels pussy in the well
To toll LO’s bell to null — ding, dong, bell.
It’s a bizarre tale
To glorify LO’s ordinary tail — ding, dong, bell.
It’s a heartbreaking dial
To wreck Limerents’ own sail — ding, dong, bell.
It’s a puzzling elusive deal
To kneel and kiss LO’s heel — ding, dong, bell.
It’s the swirling pair-bond feel
To pedal on LO’s hamster wheel — ding, dong, bell.
It’s a spineless snail
To crawl in LE’s euphoric jail — ding, dong, bell.
It’s thundering Stoic hail
To break LO’s nerve-wracking spell — ding, dong, bell.
🐦🔥 (11:44pm)
This evening, I got back the rosy glasses my father gave me and I lost for 23 hours last Thursday night 😀 😊 See what happens to the 💃 🧠 and 👁️ 👁️🗨️ ‼️
I so needed to finish my delayed work, but couldn’t stop 🦦 of 🏵️✍️ — a consequence of 100% limerence 🆓 ❗️
☺️
Mending Wall
ROBERT FROST
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
*********
👁️ 🖊️ 🗒️ 📝 🗿🧱 📑 👁️🗨️❓🟰 🫣 💥 💯 ✅ ☺️
Misunderstanding
HA JIN
So let misunderstanding spread.
It only shows how different
you are from others.
Many things cannot bear
explaining; you’d better
let silence and labor speak
in your defense.
You don’t need many friends
or to be enamored with beautiful women
or share the wine of happy gatherings,
because you have solitude enough,
content to leave this world without a sound.
Distant thunder can give you pure joy.
Birds in the sky can teach you
another kind of wisdom.
As your soul is growing new wings
such words will disappear from your dictionary:
boundary, complaint, cowardice, collapse…
Not Understood
Thomas Bracken
1843-1898
Not understood, we move along asunder;
Our paths grow wider as the seasons creep
Along the years; we marvel and we wonder
Why life is life, and then we fall asleep
Not understood.
Not understood, we gather false impressions
And hug them closer as the years go by;
Till virtues often seem to us transgressions;
And thus men rise and fall, and live and die
Not understood.
Not understood! Poor souls with stunted vision
Oft measure giants with their narrow gauge;
The poisoned shafts of falsehood and derision
Are oft impelled ‘gainst those who mould the age,
Not understood.
Not understood! The secret springs of action
Which lie beneath the surface and the show,
Are disregarded; with self-satisfaction
We judge our neighbours, and they often go
Not understood.
Not understood! How trifles often change us!
The thoughtless sentence and the fancied slight
Destroy long years of friendship, and estrange us,
And on our souls there falls a freezing blight;
Not understood.
Not understood! How many breasts are aching
For lack of sympathy! Ah! day by day
How many cheerless, lonely hearts are breaking!
How many noble spirits pass away,
Not understood.
O God! that men would see a little clearer,
Or judge less harshly where they cannot see!
O God! that men would draw a little nearer
To one another, — they’d be nearer Thee,
And understood.
Words are Windows or They’re Walls
Ruth Bebermeyer
I felt so sentenced by your words,
I felt so judged and sent away,
Before I go I’ve got to know
Was that what you mean to say?
Before I rise to my defense,
Before I speak in hurt or fear,
Before I build that wall of words,
Tell me, did I really hear?
Words are windows, or they’re walls.
They sentence us, or set us free.
When I speak and when I hear,
Let the love light shine through me.
There are things I needed to say,
Things that meant so much to me,
If my words don’t make me clear,
Would you help me to be free?
If I seemed to put you down,
If you felt I didn’t care,
Try to listen through my words
To the feelings that we shared.
*****French version
Les mots sont des fenêtres
(ou bien ce sont des murs)
Je me sens si condamnée par tes mots
Je me sens tellement jugée et repoussée,
Avant de partir, j’aimerais savoir,
Est-ce cela que tu voulais dire ?
Avant que je ne me lève pour ma défense,
Avant que je ne parle poussée par ma souffrance
ou par la peur
Avant que je ne construise un mur de mots,
Dis-moi, ai-je bien entendu ?
Les mots sont des fenêtres,
ou bien ils sont des murs.
Ils nous condamnent ou nous libèrent.
je parle et lorsque j’écoute,
Puisse la lumière de l’amour rayonner à travers moi.
Il y a des choses que j’ai besoin de dire,
Des choses qui signifient tant pour moi,
Si mes mots ne rendent pas mon message limpide,
M’aideras-tu à me sentir libre ?
Si j’ai paru te rabaisser,
Si tu m’as crue indifférente,
d’écouter par-delà mes mots
Les sentiments que nous partageons.
Among the Multitude
Walt Whitman
1819 –1892
Among the men and women the multitude,
I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs,
Acknowledging none else, not parent, wife, husband, brother, child, any nearer than I am,
Some are baffled, but that one is not—that one knows me.
Ah lover and perfect equal,
I meant that you should discover me so by my faint indirections,
And I when I meet you mean to discover you by the like in you.
A Mystery
James Ephraim McGirt
I do not know the ocean’s song,
Or what the brooklets say;
At eve I sit and listen long,
I cannot learn their lay.
But as I linger by the sea,
And that sweet song comes unto me,
It seems, my love, it sings of thee.
I do not know why poppies grow,
Amid the wheat and rye,
The lilies bloom as white as snow,
I cannot tell you why.
But all the flowers of the spring,
The bees that hum, the birds that sing,
A thought of you they seem to bring.
I cannot tell why silvery Mars,
Moves through the heav’ns at night;
I cannot tell you why the stars,
Adorn the vault with light.
But what sublimity I see,
Upon the mount, the hill, the lea,
It brings, my love, a thought of thee.
I cannot see what in your eyes,
That caused my heart to glow,
And why my spirit longs and cries,
I vow, I do not know.
But when you last came still without my sight,
My slumbering soul awoke in light,
And since the day I’ve known no night.
Stellar Body
Fabio Pusterla
translated from the Italian by Will Schutt
You pursue me with a thought, are a thought
that comes to me without thinking, like a shiver
you slowly scorch my skin and lead my eyes
toward a clear point of light. You’re a memory
retrieved and glowing, you’re my dream
beyond dreams and memories, the door that closes
and opens onto a wild river. You’re something
no word can express, and in every word you resonate
like the echo of a slow exhale, you’re my wind
rustling the spring foliage, the voice that calls
from a place I do not know but recognize as mine.
You’re the howl of a wolf, the voice of the deer
alive and mortally wounded. My stellar body.
*********
Corpo Stellare
Mi segui con un pensiero, sei un pensiero
che non devo nemmeno pensare, come un brivido
mi strini piano la pelle, muove gli occhi
verso un punto chiaro di luce. Sei un ricordo
perduto e luminoso, sei il mio sogno
senza sogno e senza ricordi, la porta che chiude
e apre sulla corrente di un fiume impetuoso. Sei una cosa
che nessuna parola può dire e che in ogni parola
risuona come l’eco di un lento respiro, sei il mio vento
di foglie e primavere, la voce che chiama
da un posto che non so e riconosco e che è mio.
Sei l’ululato di un lupo, la voce del cervo
vivo e ferito a morte. Il mio corpo stellare.
Wait Until It Grows Roots
Tarfia Faizullah
for Alex T.
a golden shovel after a line in ‘Gitanjali 73’ by Tagore
The plant trimming requires no
less than its water to be changed weekly. I
ask my friend who gifted it to me: when will
I be able to transfer it into soil? She has never
told me anything but the truth. I don’t shut
the window blinds now; my Plant-Friend loves the
sun too much. I’ve been leaving the doors
open too; the spirits flit more freely now. Yes, of
course I’m afraid of death, but no less so my
own life. A friend can bring you back to sweeter senses.
The Birds’ Lullaby
Emily Pauline Johnson
1861 –1913
I
Sing to us, cedars; the twilight is creeping 👁️
With shadowy garments, the wilderness through;
All day we have carolled, and now would be sleeping, 💤
So echo the anthems we warbled to you;
While we swing, swing, 🫠
And your branches sing, 🎵
And we drowse to your dreamy whispering. 🎶
II
Sing to us, cedars; the night-wind is sighing, 💨
Is wooing, is pleading, to hear you reply; 👂
And here in your arms we are restfully lying, 🔱 👀
And longing to dream to your soft lullaby; 🔔
While we swing, swing, @
And your branches sinG 🎶
And we drowse to your dreamy whispering 📮
III
Sing to us, cedars; your voice is so lowly ; 🔴
Your breathing so fragrant, your branches so strong; ©️
Our little nest-cradles are swaying so slowly, 🅾️
While zephyrs are breathing their slumberous song. Ⓜ️
And we swing, swing, 🫠
While your branches sing, 🎵
And we drowse to your dreamy whispering. 🎶
Poetry
Amy Lowell
1874 –1925
Over the shop 🔱here silk is sold
Still the dragon kites are flying.
The Unbroken
Rashani Rea
There is a brokenness
out of which comes the unbroken,
a shatteredness
out of which blooms the unshatterable.
There is a sorrow
beyond all grief which leads to joy
and a fragility
out of whose depths emerges strength.
There is a hollow space
too vast for words
through which we pass with each loss,
out of whose darkness
we are sanctioned into being.
There is a cry deeper than all sound
whose serrated edges cut the heart
as we break open to the place inside
which is unbreakable and whole,
while learning to sing.
Wu said to Wei
Rashani Lea
Wu said to Wei,
“There’s a natural
unfolding
a non-way of sorts
in which love
invisibly happens
through
(not to) us
without effort
or action
yet
with impeccable
precision
as finely focused
as a scalpel’s
incision
as purely
mysterious
as a cocoon’s dying
into a butterfly
or moth,
as deifying
and wondrously wild
as an impecunious mystic
remembering
the silk lining
on her clothen
robe
or winning the lottery
without having
bought a ticket.
love moves
ever-bloomingly
from silence into song
through song back
into silence,
sometimes fiercely
other times tenderly.
It has no preferences
IT simply knows
without knowing
the way moonlight
touches,
like a single tear
from shiva’s eye
it sees
the rudraksha beads
that wait
to be touched
by the devotee’s
loving fingers.”
“And,”
Wei reminded Wu,
“Once struck,
the singing bowl
simply sings
effortlessly
and unstoppably.
The vibration
of particles may cease
but since energy
like love
can not be created
or destroyed
it simply changes
into a different form.”
“So too,”
whispered the wind,
“the delicate scent
of ylang ylang
permeates the entire garden
and one small candle
can fill a darkened room,
‘doing nothing’
yet transmuting everything.”
Through love
we “do” without doing
there is nothing to do
and nothing not to do.
Not ‘doing’ something
and not ‘not doing’ anything,
love co-arises.
We can never know it
we can only BE it.
There’s an innocent
spontaneity, ancient
as a song line
in Gonwanaland,
moving inexorably
like ground water
beneath a barren desert.
Indisplaceable
like ether
the rapturous
spirals of love
hold
and permeate
all objects
and all beings.
Love is the greatest
euthanasia
for the conceptual mind.
In its mystery
we are destined to find
more than we ever imagined
and less than we ever feared.
This Trembling Heart
Rashani Lea
i did not wake up one day
and choose to love you
or decide
that my life would now
be focused
in your direction.
this trembling heart
like a magnetized needle
of a compass,
a splayed, obsidian lotus
in a sea of fire
simply returns again
and mysteriously again
to where your soul resides,
to the breathing star dust
and tender flesh
which temporarily hold
the flowering river
of who you are.
The Dance of the Lambs and the Birds
Ameen Animashaun
Green, and green, and suddenly
a light trapped in a soft shell.
Above the city of Jericho,
the chickens are coming home
to roost. I rewrite history
and keep the apple where no hand
can reach it. Sinai because
your breath is fear. Pisgah
because your touch is hurt.
I am scared of all that I am
capable of. To break a body
is to know it
for what it truly is. You say this
is love, so I surrender my wants
at your feet. To know a body
is to break it wide open, and I have grown
to love everything about nothing.
Out in the wilderness,
the guard dog is eating a thunderstorm
and the night’s skin is an eye
sore. Damn the consequences.
I trace the lone graph of my body
and study its careful intricacies. Then,
like you, I lift the nothingness of me
above my head and tip it over
the blade of rocks. I do not want to bury anything
I do not want to bury
Nothing Promised
Avia Tadmor
You drag the boat across the tall grass, shake out
the black snakes that made a provisional home under the bow
through the length of winter. The rope undone
for the first time in months, it slews behind you
through dirt, then shallow water, a thin trail
that follows you deeper into the afternoon, submits to the pull
of you, or perhaps the pull of the other shore. So sure you are
in your solitude, and I am startled to sit here, witness it.
How smooth is your sailing away, this measured
but steady drifting under pink, penumbral light. When we first met
you portioned your stories, or they came brash, a light tower’s
unpredictable beam. Resolving to muteness the year your father
could no longer hear you, then woodwork, then a decade
of travel. Tulum. The Mont Blanc where the five-foot two French guide
hauled you out of a crevasse. The Norwegian girl you met at a bar
in Cambodia who followed you back, wanting
to show you the ring on her labia. Her Janis Joplin tattoo. I follow you now
with my late summer eyes. Why do I love watching you like that,
cruising away from me? As if you are teaching me something
about love and distance. Two red-tailed hawks surrender
their shadows to the thicket of spruces. You stare up,
then past your left shoulder. I think, at me. The wind tugs at every
boat in our world. A hushed push and pull, a measure of faith
travels the distance between us. Buoyant as day, thin as light.
The Consolation
Anne Brontë
1820 –1849
Though bleak these woods, and damp the ground
With fallen leaves so thickly strown,
And cold the wind that wanders round
With wild and melancholy moan;
There is a friendly roof I know,
Might shield me from the wintry blast;
There is a fire, whose ruddy glow
Will cheer me for my wanderings past.
And so, though still, where’er I go,
Cold stranger-glances meet my eye;
Though, when my spirit sinks in woe,
Unheeded swells the unbidden sigh;
Though solitude, endured too long,
Bids youthful joys too soon decay,
Makes mirth a stranger to my tongue,
And overclouds my noon of day;
When kindly thoughts that would have way,
Flow back discouraged to my breast;
I know there is, though far away,
A home where heart and soul may rest.
Warm hands are there, that, clasped in mine,
The warmer heart will not belie;
While mirth, and truth, and friendship shine
In smiling lip and earnest eye.
The ice that gathers round my heart
May there be thawed; and sweetly, then,
The joys of youth, that now depart,
Will come to cheer my soul again.
Though far I roam, that thought shall be
My hope, my comfort, everywhere;
While such a home remains to me,
My heart shall never know despair!
On Beauty
Kahlil Gibran
1883 –1931
And a poet said, Speak to us of Beauty.
And he answered:
Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall your find her unless she herself be your way and your guide?
And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech?
The aggrieved and the injured say, “Beauty is kind and gentle.
Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us.”
And the passionate say, “Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread.
Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us.”
The tired and the weary say, “Beauty is of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit.
Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow.”
But the restless say, “We have heard her shouting among the mountains,
And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions.”
At night the watchmen of the city say, “Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east.”
And at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say, “We have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset.”
In winter say the snow-bound, “She shall come with the spring leaping upon the hills.”
And in the summer heat the reapers say, “We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her hair.”
All these things have you said of beauty,
Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied,
And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy
It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth,
But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.
It is not in the image you would see nor the song you would hear,
But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears.
It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw,
But rather a garden for ever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight.
People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.
But you are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror.
This Much and More
Djuna Barnes
1892 –1982
If my lover were a comet
Hung in air,
I would braid my leaping body
In his hair.
Yea, if they buried him ten leagues
Beneath the loam,
My fingers they would learn to dig
And I’d plunge home!
I’d Have You Think of Me
Djuna Barnes
1892 –1982
As one who, leaning on the wall, once drew
Thick blossoms down, and hearkened to the hum
Of heavy bees slow rounding the wet plum,
And heard across the fields the patient coo
Of restless birds bewildered with the dew.
As one whose thoughts were mad in painful May,
With melancholy eyes turned toward her love,
And toward the troubled earth whereunder throve
The chilly rye and coming hawthorn spray—
With one lean, pacing hound, for company.
In my craft or sullen art
Dylan Thomas
1914 –1953
In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.
Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.
******
Perhaps able to do it only after a good nap in the early evening… 😊
Sunflowers
Jenny George
I’m in the world but I still want the world.
I’m full of longing and [can] move,
enthralled in the garden. Having died
all the way back to the root, I grow again
into a version of the thing I love. I’m her
and not her, hermaphrodite with a heart
like a plateful of [red] flames.
The bees inspect me like doctors.
All my hard little tears, future selves
who haven’t grown. Bedclothes swell on the line
while around me giant sunflowers burn
through their masks of radiant desire.
The Poet
Mary Cornelia Hartshorne
Sunlight was something more than that to him.
It was a halo when it formed a rim
Around some far-off mountain peak. He called
It thin-beat leaf of gold, and stood enthralled
When it lay still on some half-sheltered spot
In gilt mosaics where the trees forgot
To hide the grasses carpeting the spot.
The sky to him was not just the blue sky,
But a deep, painted bowl with clouds piled high;
And when these clouds were tinted burning red,
Or gold and bacchic purple, then he said:
“The too-full goblets of the gods had over-run,
Nor give the credit to the disappearing sun
Who flames before he leaves the world in dun.”
Between his eyes and life fate seemed to hold
A magic tissue of transparent gold,
That freed his vision from the dull, drab, hopeless part,
And kept alive a fresh, unsaddened heart.
And all unselfishly he tried to share
His gift with us who see the harsh and bare;
But we refused. We did not know nor care.
Hymn of Nature
Felicia Dorothea Hemans
O! Blest art thou whose steps may rove
Through the green paths of vale and grove
Or, leaving all their charms below,
Climb the wild mountain’s airy brow!
And gaze afar o’er cultur’d plains,
And cities with their stately fanes,
And forests, that beneath thee lie,
And ocean mingling with the sky.
For man can show thee nought so fair,
As Nature’s varied marvels there;
And if thy pure and artless breast
Can feel their grandeur, thou art blest!
For thee the stream in beauty flows,
For thee the gale of summer blows;
And, in deep glen and wood-walk free,
Voices of joy still breathe for thee.
But happier far, if then thy soul
Can soar to Him who made the whole,
If to thine eye the simplest flower
Portray His bounty and His power:
If, in whate’er is bright or grand,
Thy mind can trace His viewless hand,
If Nature’s music bid thee raise
Thy song of gratitude and praise;
If heaven and earth with beauty fraught,
Lead to His throne thy raptured thought;
If there thou lovest His love to read;
Then, wand’rer, thou art blest indeed!
Aperture
Elise Paschen
—while being filmed on the North Pond
Looking through the lens for a close-up,
he frames me, pond in the background.
I glimpse a red-winged blackbird light
above a cattail tuft. The filmmaker
instructs, “Edge left, inside the shot.”
How different to be watched (like last night
across the linen table from you,
to be seen, as if for the first time,
and then to dip into the gleam
of an ocean, your open gaze).
I long, instead, to cup the water
music, rising blackbird notes, mid-air.
“Camera rolling,” he says. Lake-gusts
sweep hair strands across my face.
“Please read your poem, Ho’-e-ga/
Snare, where you walk into the water.”
Behind our shoot, a bus brakes, whooshes.
A loud announcement. Filming’s cut.
I catch, between the reeds, the white-ringed
eye of the wood duck. Fledglings scoot.
Further down the path, on rocks, a man proposes.
While she accepts, a photographer
While she accepts, a photographer snaps.
Always ready to create and polish—
https://imgur.com/a/ySe1Gpz
Dr. L,
I watched your “Love or Limerence?” YT video. It’s good. It’s seriously good. People probably don’t tell you this often enough, but you’re actually a very good writer. (I assume you write the transcripts to your YT videos before saying them).
If I were seventeen years old again, I would probably be jealous of your advanced writing skills. **Oh crumbs. I’ve just met someone who can write better than me. He must be destroyed – figuratively speaking, of course!** 🙄🤣😁 Fortunately, I’ve outgrown most of my adolescent writerly jealousy. You have laboriously built a platform, and you are using your platform to help people, and you are going about helping people in an ethical manner – unlike many other influencers. How can I be jealous of any seemingly effortless talent you should happen to display? 🙂
Thanks to you, I have a new favourite word: “firestorm”. 😜
Most lyrical-sounding botany-inspired Dr. L-ism of the week: “Limerence is a flower that may or may not bear fruit.” 🙂
I think you did a great job of addressing that most vexing of questions: “Is limerence early love or is limerence a toxic habit?”
I also think you did a great job of subtly slipping in some moral guidance at the end of your video, pertaining to the wisdom of acting on certain cases of limerence. You were so subtle I doubt any hardened hedonists would notice, much less take offence. 😁
The following gossip may amuse you: people on Reddit think you talk too slow in your YT videos. They actually listen to you sped up. I think you talk at just the right pace in your videos – except when you’re excited. When you’re excited, you talk very slightly too fast. (Don’t worry. It’s a hugely endearing INFJ trait. I have the same foible). Also, I have a sneaking suspicion that most of the contributors to the Limerence subreddit have ADHD as a comorbidity with limerence, and the ADHD influences the speed at which they listen to YT videos in general. 🤣
Shiverypeaks, the mod of the Limerence subreddit, loved your book “Smitten”, by the way. (I guess it’s out already in the UK?) Your work helped him link together certain difficult concepts and now he’s rewriting his limerence entry on Wikipedia to reflect what he’s learned. He’s also adding a completely new section to the limerence entry. This new section will apparently be called “Ecstatic Union”. 🙂
I agree, he writes really well. Well done Dr L, and thank you for all your work.
“Is limerence early love or is limerence a toxic habit?”
I personally would tend to side with “toxic habit”. But that’s only because my first understanding of limerence was when Dr. L used the phrase “person addiction”. Mostly because I can relate to addiction with alcohol. But not every person has “toxic habits” when it comes to alcohol like me. So limerence can be a “one off” instant for some people from the initial limerent episode. But for others, if they are separated from the initial LO, can easily find themselves chasing that “limerent buzz” with other women.
Some people, like Dr. L can have a first “good” limerent experience but then later on have one that is not appropriate but recognize it for what it is and fight it. I think for me, my first limerent episode was by no means appropriate, but it was an amazing experience.
To further this comparison, when I was young, when I first started drinking, I was a pos, about “drinking responsibly”. I drove while drunk, drank while I drove, endangered myself multiple times because of bad choices while drinking. Thankfully I found my wife and slowly I started to be more responsible. I honestly think I would have never made it out of my 30’s, maybe even 20’s if it weren’t for her. But I still drink habitually even though I am now “responsible” about it.
Will I chase that limerent high again with another woman? If I do have another limerent episode will I be “responsible” with it like I was with LO? Just skirting the line, i.e. NOT drinking and driving? Does that make alcohol any less destructive to me? It may save other’s lives since I am not endangering them by staying at home.
I’m sure the vast majority of humans have gotten drunk at least once. Some say, oh God that was a bad experience, I can’t believe I did some of the thing people told me the next day, and say “never again”. Then there is me, who knew from the first time I got drunk that alcohol will always be by my side, and I am fine with that. I don’t want that to happen with limerence. I felt it creeping into me with LF. And I can easily see it creeping up on me with another woman. Never to the degree as it was with LO because she is an extraordinary woman, more than any other.
i think you said it was Marcus Aurelius that said something along the lines of “it’s not the event that happens but how you react to it that defines you.” i don’t think for humans in general limerence is a “toxic habit” but for me I can see it easily can be if I don’t nip it in the bud when I can tell it is trying to bloom. Will I treat a possible addiction to limerence like I do alcohol? Oh it’s fine, I am responsible about it. But am I?
Oh you Old 🎩 🥃 ❗️
If I chitchat with you again, my benevolent chaperone may jump out and 📣 🗣️ at me “Stop flirting with Adam, he’s got enough troubles in his hands…” 🥶
Maybe later when Mamma is around… 🤫
🎩 🥃,
“Is limerence early love or is limerence a toxic habit?”
For a big chunk of time I am here, I thought limerence is the dark stage of the whole “love” matter/affair, and early love is the “honeymoon” period (quite peaceful and pain free for me, despite its single-sided status. I would hesitate to use “toxic habit” which seems to suggest limerents know and choose to go there; NO habit (but genetic tendency) was born with any of us. If I know something is toxic, even tangible like drugs and hard liquor, I simply never touch it; no one could ever attempt me❗️
But if limerence is a subconscious mental “habit”, then I’d dig hard to get to the root of it. Aside from some generatic factors, any substance or/and behavioral addiction has its cultural/manmade root(s). If one truly wishes to lead a substantially fulfilling, happy life, they have to do very hard work to find and manage/remove limerence root(s).
“I personally would tend to side with “toxic habit”. But that’s only because my first understanding of limerence was when Dr. L used the phrase “person addiction”. Mostly because I can relate to addiction with alcohol. But not every person has “toxic habits” when it comes to alcohol like me. “
You’re right. I never have had any addiction issues, (aside from one-time binge ice-cream for a month), so it’s hard for me to truly understand the pull of an addiction (very few in COO by proportion). I know with first-hand experience that depression is really hard to get rid of… but it’s not a mental “habit”; no one wants it‼️
“So limerence can be a “one off” instant for some people from the initial limerent episode. “
If you accept the fact that we human beings are not biologically built monogamous like swans, then such a “limerence off” instant from the initial LE would not be strange at all. I didn’t know such a biological fact until after the marriage, during which glimmering took place a couple of times. I did not act on them and couldn’t understand why I could emotionally “strayed”. (There were marital problems, of course).
“But for others, if they are separated from the initial LO, can easily find themselves chasing that “limerent buzz” with other women.”
See the above paragraph, we’re not genetically, biologically built monogamous. And some “hard-core”limerents purposefully chase that limerence thrills, even if its pains lasts 100 times longer; I personally cannot comprehend such an “addiction”.
“Some people, like Dr. L can have a first “good” limerent experience but then later on have one that is not appropriate but recognize it for what it is and fight it. “
Now knowing what limerence is and how it “addictively” developes (I had my share, although never lost total control or missed a day of work), I firmly believe that any limerent, in front of (in)appropriate or (un)available LE, could fight limerence off like Dr L — with sufficient LE knowledge, unbending will, and disciplined healthy behaviors‼️
“To further this comparison, when I was young, when I first started drinking, I was a pos, about “drinking responsibly”. I drove while drunk, drank while I drove, endangered myself multiple times because of bad choices while drinking. “
Yes, that was a bad choice and your irresponsibility❗️
“Thankfully I found my wife and slowly I started to be more responsible. I honestly think I would have never made it out of my 30’s, maybe even 20’s if it weren’t for her. “
You’re VERY lucky to have found and married Mamma. I’m sure you’re grateful from your soul.
“But I still drink habitually even though I am now “responsible” about it.”
WHY❓and WHY❓Do you think it’s genetic or some cultural reason(s)? WHY you find physically and mentally you can’t divorce the drinking❓
“Will I chase that limerent high again with another woman? “
I am fairly certain you’ll encounter more chances of glimmering at other women, like many people (male or female) would. You’re still very young! (not as young as the baby 🐤 Grandpa, though….)
“If I do have another limerent episode will I be “responsible” with it like I was with LO? “
YES, you will be RESPONSIBLE with it, particularly after you’ve been in LwL for a while — longer than me.
“Just skirting the line, i.e. NOT drinking and driving? Does that make alcohol any less destructive to me? It may save other’s lives since I am not endangering them by staying at home.”
Alcohol itself is not destructive or constructive, but what you do with it could be deadly destructive to yourself and others. Your staying at home is VERY responsible for yourself and other lives ‼️
“I’m sure the vast majority of humans have gotten drunk at least once. “
I got drank a few times before, but just fell into sleep, never did crazy things or lamented 😭 some repressed pains, or let others take advantage of me. I was trained somewhat Stoic without knowing what it is. Also, my family has a high tolerance for alcohol. My father told me that he began dipping alcohol with a chopstick and let me suck it — to build the tolerance. (I have no memory of it at all.).
“Then there is me, who knew from the first time I got drunk that alcohol will always be by my side, and I am fine with that.”
Why did/do you think it was always fine by your side? What did drinking help release/ease you from? I did not like its woozy effect, although enjoying some cocktails or champagne.
“I don’t want that to happen with limerence. I felt it creeping into me with LF. And I can easily see it creeping up on me with another woman.“
Young man, I’m not surprised to hear about its coming. Now, let’s assume it would creep into you further, what are you going to do with it, after having learned from all LwL nuggets❓
“I think you said it was Marcus Aurelius that said something along the lines of “it’s not the event that happens but how you react to it that defines you.”
Yes absolutely 🆎, 💯‼️ Any type of event happened millions of times throughout the history, one’s passive or active REACTION/behavior to IT DEFINED his/her as an imperfect human being❗️ But we’re never fixed but fluid; changing/evolving is inevitable for all people and all matters.
“I don’t think for humans in general limerence is a “toxic habit” but for me I can see it easily can be if I don’t nip it in the bud when I can tell it is trying to bloom. “
I don’t think limerence is a genetically “toxic habit” but it can slip into a habit whether limerent is unaware or even aware of limerence. They blame on sirens’ existence, instead of bonding themselves to the ship-mast like Odyssey. If they drown in the LE swirling current, it’s their choice.
“Will I treat a possible addiction to limerence like I do alcohol? Oh it’s fine, I am responsible about it. But am I?”
Yes‼️ In your situation, knowingly let yourself slip into another LE is NOT fine, unless Mamma leaves you first. Yes, you’ll be fully responsible for it, I’m sorry to bluntly say so.
Even if both limerents mutually fall into that Glimmer firestorm and mutually reciprocate, based on some realistic, consummated LE stories in LwL, it’s still unstable and UNHEALTHY — the both sides were still highly, neurally /mentally controlled by LE addiction, high anxiety and other pains. They just could not obtain their DNA desired, lasting, steady-gratifaction/joys (perhaps pain free status), comprised of at least 4-5 types of Greek love.
If you believe “Limerence is a flower that may or may not bear fruit”, then the great challenge lies in how to nurture the flower 🔥 💥 🌹 and transform it into 🍯 🍒 🍑 🥭 🍉 🥝 🍇 🥥 🫐 ❓ Is such botanical GMO even possible 😳 🫠 ❓
I hope I chitchatted some of your concerns 🤔❓
** But eventually it does also involve turning inwards to a thought / question like “it’s on her if she now wants to live her life like that; but what is it within me that’s causing me to dwell so much on it?” **
Oh yes, that’s so true, and I’d be fooling myself if I tried to suggest I was currently approaching any permanent peace with the situation.
It’s a coping mechanism right now, not a solution, and the ‘dwelling’ is a sure fire sign that I still have a long way to go.
But at least I can take some solace from knowing I have not caused this deep freeze and I shouldn’t beat myself up about it. There are issues of self worth rooted inside me which I’ve touched on in therapy. If this whole situation had been a very specific and isolated rejection of our ‘friendship’ and bond(?), I’d probably be a far bigger mess.
So, small mercies etc…
Small mercies indeed. I think it is better for you this way. Though I get why it’s still disappointing.
It was her birthday yesterday. For the first time in nearly two decades I didn’t wish her her a happy day. I said nothing. It’s the right thing to do and as my therapist said: “Would she deserve it?” Probably not from me… but it’s still painful that it has come to this.
I like to think that throughout this deep freeze I’ve behaved respectfully. I’ve not changed my behaviour, I’ve not challenged her or got cross. I’ve just tried to be the same person, albeit away from her directly.
So, this is really the first time that I’ve done something which could be seen as a deliberate act (decision not to act?) which recognises/acknowledges that we are clearly no longer friends. It won’t have made a single difference to her day… I know that.
But I’m angry and upset that I have *had* to do this, given that she left me no choice. Sigh…
Hi Phil,
That seems a brave move to create a clear point of difference. It sounds unlikely from the tone of what you’re saying, but what would you say to her if she challenged you that you ‘forgot’ her birthday?
Random question (one that the longer term posters here have been round a few times) – have you and her ever ‘gifted’ on birthdays etc.? When I was at max limerence stage, I made a bit of a rod for my own back with that!
To be honest, I’m not sure I had any choice other than to make that point of difference, as it were.
That’s why I’m p*ssed off. Because I’ve had to be a dick. But the possibility of her thinking “doesn’t he get the message?” was too present to ignore, even if it was unlikely.
Apathy is probably her primary position now, but either way I just couldn’t expose myself to the yearning for a meaningful response to any greeting I offered. Just too risky.
She had a big birthday last year. Me and another colleague/friend shared the cost of something – a day out, which she loved.
I never imagined, a year later, that it would go from that to this. Perhaps I should have been ready for it and that’s why I’m here, spilling it out all again, today.
Good days and bad days… this one’s not great.
Sorry! To answer your question about what I’d say…
A) it would absolutely *never* happen. She doesn’t operate like that… but
B) if it did, I’d happily tell her why and she probably knows that.
To Phil:
I am sorry you’re having a bad day. Maybe I am reading too much into your comments, but it seems like you are doing better than you realize.
Forgive me if I am off-base.
That’s genuinely heartening Norma, thank you. I know I’m doing the right things to reduce or avoid the triggers, but I do need to try harder with purposefulness.
I don’t have the same chronic anxiety and sleeplessness of a few months back, but the mooning/ruminating begs to hang around.
I also haven’t properly shaken off a really acute physical yearning for her. The feelings of lust are shaming but they don’t care much for my dignity!
So ups and downs.
I hope your day is going ok x
I too have those tremendous feelings of lust.
The song “I Will Always Love You” by Dolly Parton came on, and I actually teared up. The Whitney Houston version does NOTHING for me, by the way, even though it was more popular.
So I know I have more work to do.
But the upside is that nobody needs to know how we feel, and hopefully we won’t say or do anything foolish that we’ll regret later.
Sending you good thoughts.
Phil,
Sorry you are having a difficult couple of days.
Birthdays and other holiday events are the worst, especially with the monumental shift you have had in your relationship.
You haven’t had a gentle comedown. More like you have been pushed off a wall without notice.
You are reeling.
Probably what has happened with your LO change is for the best in the long run. Sorry if that sounds like something annoying your mother would say to you as a child. But this is basically it, and for me too, or else where was it going to go.
But of course you have lost connection with a real person, regardless of the limerence, and you may now even doubt the trust and moments you shared before.
It’s tough for you right now Im sure. You gotta just get through the phases that will come, anger, acceptance, etc. you know the ones. 💪🏻
Spot on Imho 😊
I do know all this deep down, but I also genuinely appreciate the thought and time that goes into responding in the way you have. It really means a lot.
Phil,
“But the possibility of her thinking “doesn’t he get the message?” was too present to ignore, even if it was unlikely.”
You might be overthinking what she is thinking, I reckon. She may not be thinking at all of any message she is sending you. It sounds like she is so wrapped up in her bubble that she isn’t thinking of a single thing outside it.
Either way – you have put a bit of a line in the sand here *for yourself* and I think that alone is good.
Improvement will always be incremental and non linear. Take the good days and note hopefully the decline in the bad ones. I get today has been one of those.
Thanks LaR. Yes, it’s almost certainly true that she doesn’t spend even close to one percent of the time I think about her thinking about me.
But if she ever does, I want to be in a way that reflects my consistent behaviour towards her. I’m not going to allow her to ever think any of this is on anyone other than her and her conduct.
(Yes I know… not that she cares!)
Phil,
“I want to be in a way that reflects my consistent behaviour towards her.”
Being consistent has always really, really mattered to me (re my LO) too. So this resonates. But by gawd it is hard enough to keep consistent while pulling out of limerent behaviours – let alone when faced with the inconsistency from the other side that you now are.
Like imho said to you, birthdays, public celebrations etc are the devil. Hopefully some normality will return now.
“Yes, it’s almost certainly true that she doesn’t spend even close to one percent of the time I think about her thinking about me.”
Phil
You and I are almost in the same boat, with Co-workers who gave us the boot. It’s somewhat disheartening to know we cared as much as we did and are basically yesterdays news now because they made a choice that doesn’t include us.
I went way out of my way for my Lady Friends Birthday last year and she couldn’t have cared less what that entailed.
We think we’re always doing the right thing and do we ever end up looking like a horses a$$ when it all backfires. I try not to let it get to me. She made her choice.
I’ve mentioned in the forum before, I know she doesn’t hate me, but she really doesn’t like me too much either. At least not enough to even catch up and ask me how things are going. Working with her is just awkward. I still catch her looking at me all the time and I don’t know why. Is it regret? Or just still needing my pathetic validation? Doesn’t matter I guess. I kinda think she’s nuts..
Just don’t lose too much sleep over her Friend. You know you meant well. Maybe her new fascinating life will all blow up in her face one day.
I want to make some comments about LO and narcissism.
Obviously I will never know if he would be diagnosed as such by a mental health professional. It’s also impossible to get that diagnosis, so I am proceeding on the assumption that he IS, which calls for extreme caution and self-protectiveness on my part.
I have mentioned elsewhere that LO was counting on closing a real estate deal on the other side of the country, and then moving himself and his elderly mother when his current home sells. The purchase of the new home fell through due to incompetence and carelessness by his brother and a couple of people he was counting on.
He is furious. He sees himself as a victim, although he will never use that word. I was reminded of this watching comments from President Trump who, to listen to him, is the world’s biggest victim ever.
LO believes that he “deserves” certain things in life, and then is enraged if they don’t work out. To listen to him, nothing has ever worked out in his favor, ever.
Yet look at him–well off with a beautiful home, a successful career, and good health. Not to mention fabulous good looks.
I’d be thrilled to have those things.
Yet he is bitter and unhappy. Since the house deal fell through, he is more sullen and withdrawn than usual. Which helps me with NC/LC.
It has been instructive to see how someone who has everything, is miserable.
I’m not to going get into this too much with you because I doubt I’d ever leave this place! However I’m really not a fan of you accusing other posters of “rambling on” about their LO.
While this was probably not your intention – and you acknowledged your own issue with tone – there is an element of shaming in your post to Norma, which I personally think goes too far.
I’m a relative newcomer here, but I see it as a safe space for sharing whatever we feel we need to say. Posters’ IRL behaviour can and will be challenged, but surely not to the extent that they may feel less willing and able to say what’s on their mind as part of this community?
Phil,
Thank you for your post, I’ll be extra careful with English words. Your point is taken, please don’t feel unsafe to speak here, I won’t say a word to whatever you post, you can count my words!
I clearly stated my intention with Norma, with whom we many limerents had many dialogues in past 6-8(?) months. Sometimes, imp (credit to L.E.), foggy-headed limerent need “tough love” in order to get over their uncontrollable LE sufferings, hopefully once for all….
I’ve got many “tough love” from well-intended limrents here, only if you know…. The result is: I’m now not only 100% limerent free, but also got rid of the limerence root — the lifetime “mysterious” longing….I appreciate their efforts more than I can verbally express here…
My best wished for your recovery journey!
Thanks ❄️ and I understand.
Wishing you well and sorry if I’m the one with the poor tone now!
Phil,
I’m so fine that you, the universe, can yell at me❗️ I know you, along with many, are still raw in the ❤️🩹 LE’s pains.
As I rambled before to few singletons, I am unable to put myself in a partnered Limerent’s shoes (Norma is in our camp), so nowadays, I stop reading their posts… I don’t quite know what’s going on with their individual cases, so really can’t comment on anything….
Again, a speedy recovery! 🍀 🤝
To Miss Snow:
You make good points, but “tough love” does not really help me.
All it does it make me reconsider whether this board is a safe place to post.
I know I am foolish, you don’t have to tell me that.
Telling me to “walk away” is excellent and completely unworkable advice.
You should know that better than anyone.
Looking at LO on paper, he is a total reject. As a lover, as a friend, even as a neighbor. He sucks.
However, the siren song persists.
And I need to ramble about him. I just do.
🤷🏻♀️
♾️🤐 ♾️
To Miss Snow:
I am not smart enough to interpret your emojis.
No idea what you’re saying. I hope it’s something kindly, but I can’t tell.
Norma,
In the last CoffeeHouse post, ❄️ seemed to explode on me over an exchange about poetry of all things🤷. It was strange and felt over the top from my point of view but I recognize that we’re all limerent here and we all have bad days, etc. I just decided that I was steering clear of directly commenting to her. If she comments to me, and I assume that she won’t, I’m ignoring her. It was more than the explosion, I told her that I recognized that she was 1. Someone who always had to get in the last word… which I think you’re seeing that in spades here and 2. Someone who twists things around…Again, I think she was shaming you for your LO yelling at you in a twist of logic. For me, life is too short to spend on such people. I kept my response to ❄️ to that although yeah the emojis and other things too.
I really don’t care that others like her style or like to message with her. I’m not trying to cancel her. She’s limerent like me and we can all fit here. It’s just that for me, whatever she’s selling, I’m all stocked up here.
To Hamlet:
Thank you for your comments.
I frankly don’t understand most of what Miss Snow says, so I am unable to respond.
I don’t understand the poetry, particularly the bits in foreign languages. I am not an academic or an intellectual, and the vast majority of what she says goes over my head.
I also don’t understand the emojis. My eyes are not great, and I don’t even know what most of them are.
I am well past 70, and I did not grow up with emojis. The first one I remember was the smiley face which I think became popular in the 1970s. I have not progressed much past that one, and I rarely use them.
Miss Snow once suggested that it was useful for people to spend some time deciphering emoji puzzles. I would say okay, but–and there is a BUT–some of us simply don’t have the capability or inclination to do so. I myself have some brain damage, and trying to decipher those little suckers is excruciating.
Norma D,
“You make good points, but “tough love” does not really help me.”
It doesn’t work on me, either. In fact, it brings out the rebel in me and makes me want to prove the person giving out the tough love wrong.
Now … I’m ok with constructive criticism. Just don’t sledgehammer me.
What are you wearing on our date with Adam? He’s a … um … flashy dresser. We’ll have to pull out all the stops to outdo him. 🙂
To Marcia:
I am a sloppy dresser, but I have some interesting clothes.
I just ordered an oversized sweater with a life-size skeleton rib-cage on it. Will that do, or is it too casual?
I also have my Salvador Dali shoes but again they are casual slip-ons, so not sure if they will be okay.
I don’t know where we’re going.
I haven’t been on a date since the 1980s.
I get a lot of compliments on my clothes, simply because I look so odd, and I stand out.
LO, the master of good taste, calls me “Weird in the best possible way.” And of course he calls me Dali Madison because of the shoes.
Today I am wearing a shirt with the big wave at Kanagawa (sp?), socks with “The Scream” on them, and Alfonse Mucha-themed shoes, specifically, “Monacan Girl.” Also casual slip-ons. All my shoes come from UIN.
If I have to dress up, I am going to have to scramble.
Oh, dear. I have nothing to wear!
To ND:
“I am a sloppy dresser, but I have some interesting clothes.”
I’m a boring dresser, so your flair will help us compete with him. He’s going to try to outdo us. That’s how he rolls. 🙂
To Marcia:
There is no way that Adam can out-do me.
I have a shirt somewhere that glows in the dark.
Adam is toast.
To ND:
“There is no way that Adam can out-do me. I have a shirt somewhere that glows in the dark. Adam is toast.”
Good! I’ll get a matching shirt. We don’t even really need Adam. We’ll meet other dudes. 🙂
“And of course he calls me Dali Madison because of the shoes.”
ND
Your LO does seem like kind of a Cad most of the time, but I have to admit, I do like that reference.
Thank you for the laugh..
🤣🤣
„ Today I am wearing a shirt with the big wave at Kanagawa (sp?), socks with “The Scream” on them, and Alfonse Mucha-themed shoes, specifically, “Monacan Girl.” Also casual slip-ons. All my shoes come from UIN.“
Gosh Norma. You are my fashion role model now.
I‘m still too tied up in blending into my environment, but by seventy, I want to dress like you!
To MJ:
You see the hook. He can be very charming.
I carried the joke a bit further and started taking him and his mother muffins and croissants occasionally.
“Dali Madison Delivers.”
To Mila:
I am honored to be your fashion role model and I will try not to disappoint you.
One of the great things about being older is not being as self-conscious as you were when you were younger. So if I want to wear my shoes that look like “American Gothic,” except with cats, and then add St. Patrick’s Day mustache socks, I don’t bat an eye.
I get a lot of surprisingly positive reactions from people.
Actually, I have been dressing this way for years. You don’t have to wait until 70.
“Dali Madison Delivers.”
ND
Even better!! That is freaking hilarious. At least you can be lighthearted about it now and then.
😆😆
To Marcia:
Please keep me updated on the plans!
Norma D:
“Please keep me updated on the plans!”
How about you and I dress alike and Adam wears one of his flashy get-ups … and we look like his backup singers. 🙂
To MJ:
What I should have said is
“Dali Madison Bakery Delivers.”
To Marcia:
That sounds absolutely delightful!
To Phil:
Thank you for your support. It means more to me than you know.
Agree.
Here’s the thing ….I’ll say this and butt out. I have nothing really positive to say about Miss Norma’s LO. But I also have no idea what Miss Norma’s is going through in her limerence, other than what she share here. The kind of man she describes her LO to me, are my natural sworn enemies within my gender. Miss Norma, deserves better than him because of the kind and caring woman that she is.
English is not Miss Snow’s primary language, and I believe that we need to understand that to understand her. I think she speaks better English than most English speaking Americans. She has great insights and while I may not always respond, I always enjoy her posts.
Now I will bow out before I get in trouble with the law. I’ve already been sent to the corner twice by Dr L.
To Adam:
Really? You got sent to the corner TWICE?
I only got detention once, for posting photos of LO’s house (which is a public real estate listing, so I thought it was okay).
I have found over time here, instead of reacting instantly over somebody else’s opinions of what I may or may not be doing right, is not always in the best interest of the forum.
Many times I have had to take days away from this place in order to gather my thoughts because people had reacted to my issues in a way I didn’t expect. Had I taken the easy way out then, walked away and never came back, I feel I would be in a worse position than I was. However, coming back and sharing again has always been the better choice.
We all come from varied backgrounds and experiences and yet nobody can know exactly what we’re doing and how we’re going about in getting through our experiences. We just do and we come here to vent our issues. Hopefully without meeting to much ire along the way.
Others will always have their opinions. Let them speak. We do not have to respond to them or react harshly in return. If you cannot correlate a thoughtful response to somebody else’s harsh opinion, leave it alone.
For what its worth, Norma D. has been a thoughtful poster and reacted accordingly. I feel, like all of us, should be respected in return..
To MJ:
Thank you for your comments.
My major goal is to at least not to make things worse.
I obviously don’t know much about what is going on with each individual person, and try to take that into consideration when I ask questions or make suggestions.
I try not to be presumptuous. Also, as a person with a truly absurd limerence story, I am mindful of the fact that perhaps I am not in a great position to make judgments about others.
I do try to approach everyone with humility and respect. I hope I am accomplishing that, or at least coming close.
Miss Norma,
This IS a safe place to tell your story – repeatedly so, if need be.
Others’ reactions tonight can show you that far better than I can.
Phil, MJ and whoever else thinks it applies – the same goes for you. I don’t really care if I have to hear it 100 times over if it helps. Everyone who was here a year ago knows I rambled the same s**t 100 times over.
You’re / we’re all here out of a want to end this thing. Whatever helps each person do that is fine.
To LaR:
I do feel very heartened by the kind words of others.
I am overwhelmed with gratitude, almost to the point of tears.
Thank you to everyone who has helped.
Don’t worry Norma – be patient and the rewards will come.
Like when DrL and L.E. *finally* organise these Limmy awards.
You’re safe bet in so many categories.
I just don’t think you can quite dislodge Brother MJ from the ‘most revered LO’ trophy.
To LaR:
I would never try to take MJ’s trophy away from him.
It’s an honor just to be nominated in any category.
Oh there are so many categories you can win in.
Only your presence here stops my retaining my “most likely to bring posts back to LO” gong from last year.
Sir MJ and that LO of his are in a league of their own. Champion of champions.
I don’t want anyone to leave because they feel unsupported. I don’t care if people talk about the same things over and over; I have often processed emotional issues the same way throughout my life. People can also just read whatever they want or have time to read. Sometimes just the venting is enough.
To Serial Limerent:
Thank you for understanding.
It means a lot to me.
“I just don’t think you can quite dislodge Brother MJ from the ‘most revered LO’ trophy.”
LaR, ND
I’ll take it. I admit to next level reverie. And if that isn’t reason enough to also award me for absolute, most absurd LE ever, then I don’t know what could top it.
I’ll be there at the awards as long as I get a chance to dance with Miss Norma. This song seems appropriate….
https://youtu.be/yfSny4MkS3c?si=AHeREzFuFtWw51BC
To Adam:
Ha! I had almost forgotten about that song.
I was 15 years old when “The Graduate” came out.
I don’t see myself as much of a Mrs. Robinson. Anne Bancroft was glamorous. I have very weird clothes, many of them over-sized because I have fibromyalgia and it’s more comfortable.
I would be honored to dance with you.
Fair enough Miss Norma. Maybe this would be a better song. It’s my favorite dancing song.
And you wear whatever is comfortable for you. I wouldn’t ask anything else of you. I’m just happy to have the chance. I love dancing to this song.
https://youtu.be/tmiNLVTDFDI?si=e0FS-qlL6K3FrDCm
Then I’m gonna play this on the jukebox and “threaten” my Brother “if you don’t ask Miss Marcia to dance with you to this, I will.” 😁
https://youtu.be/b_n_NgGWpR4?si=pqQqHwNP6skvlvt_
To Adam:
That is a great song.
I haven’t heard that one in years.
Adam,
Stop worrying about your Brother. I’m not. 🙂
Miss Marcia are you just afraid I’ll bring a little electricity? Might we swing to David Bowie’s Let’s Dance?
I like “Let’s Dance.” I will totally dance with you to that one, in my baggy clothes.
Adam,
“Miss Marcia are you just afraid I’ll bring a little electricity? ”
Bring it. 🙂 You’re the one who keeps bringing Brother into it. Forget him. He wants to stay home and watch celebrities on TV. Whereas the three of us are going out into the REAL WORLD and having some fun. 🙂
“Stop worrying about your Brother. I’m not. 🙂”
Why you gotta hate? Shut me out of your good time? I can always go back and watch Sabrina later.
Sounds to me like M’Lady Marcia is afraid she might enjoy a night out on the town with me.
https://youtu.be/qchPLaiKocI?si=cpDukPXwgKF3PecV
As Brother Adam said, let’s go “cut the rug” .. 😂😇
MJ,
“Why you gotta hate? Shut me out of your good time?”
You said you wanted to stay home and watch SNL.
“Sounds to me like M’Lady Marcia is afraid she might enjoy a night out on the town with me.”
I’m not too worried. You can’t seem to post a song that was released in the last century. 🙂
“I’m not too worried. You can’t seem to post a song that was released in the last century. 🙂”
Marcia,
It was either that or the Macarena.
What’s wrong with Kool and the Gang?
Or would you rather I put up Double Dutch Bus?
You don’t make fun of my Brothers older taste in music? Why you giving me crap? You should be glad I’m here and not at a No Kings rally.. 😆
Miss Norma
Another one I would sway to you with. Only an old man could be so lucky to hold hands to such a beautiful young lady. You dressin like Billie Ellis is a okay. Slow to go. I’m dancing with the prettiest lady in LwL.
https://youtu.be/SP9IrCCMUUw?si=cA9MqVIPqiz4h9y9
MJ,
“You don’t make fun of my Brothers older taste in music? Why you giving me crap?”
Because your Brother is an old soul. He’s um … proven that … with the words and phrases he uses. 🙂
You, on the other hand, are trying to pick up young woman. Can’t do that by referencing ancient music.
“You should be glad I’m here and not at a No Kings rally.. 😆”
I’d go with you to that.
To Adam:
Did you mean to post a YouTube video of music from the movie “Hannibal?”
Seems like an odd choice for dancing.
One of my chinchillas is named Hannibal Lecter.
“Did you mean to post a YouTube video of music from the movie “Hannibal?””
ND
Brother Adam might have had one too many Guiness’s earlier. Either that or White Russians.. 😆
“Because your Brother is an old soul. He’s um … proven that … with the words and phrases he uses. 🙂”
Marcia
But I’m a older soul and I use older vocabulary too. You never know. Maybe there’s a young gal out there that likes the classic songs. My Daughter kind of happens to be one of them.. 😁
“I’d go with you to that.”
Yeah I’m gonna hard pass on that. Especially since probably half of them don’t even know why they’re out there.. 😇
Brother it was Twisted Teas tyvm. I couldn’t stand a White Russian. I despise milk. But I do have some Guinness in the fridge.
Dear Norma, yes, that was intentional. I’m not a big opera fan but I think that is a beautiful piece of music. If not that we can always go with a classic … pun intended.
https://youtu.be/nT7_IZPHHb0?si=Zvai4nyg4H09Riye
To Adam:
I like Moonlight Sonata very much.
For some reason, I thought you were going to post “Goodbye Horses” from “Silence of the Lambs.”
Then my Dear Norma we can cut the rug to Fame. One of my other favorites of his.
I like that one, too. You’re easy to dance with.
Hi all,
Don’t know for sure what’s going on, but
this resonates :
„You make good points, but “tough love” does not really help me.
All it does it make me reconsider whether this board is a safe place to post.“
This „I don’t care if people talk about the same things over and over; I have often processed emotional issues the same way throughout my life.“(SL) is exactly the same for me.
I seemed to need to express the same revelations about LO behavior again and again, list minutiae that show his real nature again and again. At some point, I turned enough circles in the snail house to see the exit. It’s just what I needed to move forward, even if it looked as if I would chase my own tail.
The question is, of course, if that should be done in a public forum, if it would be better to journal for only one’s own eyes. If we post where others read it, they will have their instantaneous reactions and feel encouraged to react or give their opinion.
But somehow it’s more helpful to know that there are understanding eyes and ears somewhere out there, reading my ramblings, even if one doesn’t need a reaction per se. For me, it was for some reason helpful to ramble in English which isn’t my mother tongue (you’d NEVER have guessed, I suppose 😂)
I felt this forum was special in that most posters recognized the situation and were incredibly understanding, letting me ramble on, sometimes nudging a bit, but always with respect.
I think that’s what‘s crucial:respect, a respectful approach, always maintaining that the writer knows himself and LO best. There’s a fine line to toe here. If it’s toed, it’s so extremely helpful. If the line is crossed with so-called „tough love“, one is inclined to put the feelers back into the snailhouse and go away.
We are sharing stuff here that’s very intimate and makes us vulnerable, and we are dependent on people handling that with care.
I think „tough love“ is something very difficult to bring across, in most cases you need to know the person well you are trying to help, and it also has to convey respect and understanding.
It’s very difficult to know when it might help and when not.
Now I’m not limerent, I’m more distanced and I can understand some wonderment about the dances and circles we limerents make. Of course we see from the outside some not quite healthy behavior etc. But we shouldn’t forget that we are not the people with rights to judge or really professionally advise other limerents, we are not their assigned psychotherapists, and we are all in the same boat or have been.
I too have instant reactions to some posts, and, like MJ said, learned that it’s not the best to just air them.
What counts is if it will help the other person, the effect on them, not my intention.
Mila,
I think an awful lot of us are turning in that snailhouse, or have been. The snailhouse is such a good analogy because limerence recovery is always 1. very slow, 2. non linear.
“I think „tough love“ is something very difficult to bring across, in most cases you need to know the person well you are trying to help, and it also has to convey respect and understanding.”
Even in real life where the person knows us on a massively different level to on LwL, there is a big chance people will reject love that is too tough. I tried to give semi-tough love to a close friend yesterday but I don’t think they took it. The only time most people will take tough love instantly is if they’re in an almost life or death situation or some other serious danger.
“I think that’s what‘s crucial:respect, a respectful approach, always maintaining that the writer knows himself and LO best.”
It’s absolutely crucial. Even though limerence addles our rational brains, we are still the only person in the forum with lived experience of ourselves, the LE and the LO. That is important to respect.
Yes, it is a fine line to toe in this place – not to ‘enable’ or to validate (objectively) bad decisions, yet not to push too hard that the person goes away or stops talking and/or listening. You mentioned the word ‘nudge’ and I think that’s a good one for what we can reasonably do for others here (especially good in your non mother-tongue!).
I see it like there is a narrow window of how someone might change their behaviour. There is, in theory, a massively wider spectrum of possible changes the person could make. But what they would actually do is much narrower. If someone here said me kindly “don’t text LO for the next couple of days” and gave a good rationale, I might listen. If someone told me never to speak to LO again, I wouldn’t listen. The second one is something I could only ever get around to myself, in my own sweet time.
Generally, people can be nudged, but will not be shoved.
To LaR:
I appreciate your remarks. I appreciate the support I get here more than I know how to say.
I have been here eight months and even though my progress is slow, I am satisfied that I am moving forward. I can look back at where I was in February and see much improvement.
Of course I wish it was faster, but it IS moving in the right direction, and I am most grateful to the people here who keep me going.
The snail analogy is an apt one.
Anyone can say whatever they want, repeatedly express or journal whatever they want in this public place, Many of us have done so. Others have choice to respond or not.
Anyone can also choose and has chosen whatever they want to click on and read. Many have done so, including myself, which is working for everyone, I believe.
But if one addresses to ME personally, shoveling his/her dark lord to my ear, (after having repeated it millions of times to all), what am I supposed to do?
If I (dis)like someone, for reasons or no reasons, and very indirectly tell so, but they don’t get it and keep “bothering” me, what am I supposed to do? Are supposed to like maximum 120,000 readers passing this place?
Some of you, diplomatic ones, simply choose to ignore posts, if your answer is “NO”, and only speak up when it’s “Yes”, (un)knowingly echoing that cliche “If one has nothing nice to say, say nothing.” Which works well in reality since coworkers have to work together in a tight community.
If one can’t even take a NO or just want to hear endless validations, then they should consider twice whether to speak in a public forum. If one cannot take a frank “NO” in a ghost land, how is s/he supposed to survive in reality?
About (in)validation and validation, I just talked with MJ a couple of days ago, and I meant every word I said.
Mila:
“What counts is if it will help the other person, the effect on them, not my intention.“
If a surgeon/doctor tries his best but his patient’s illness is simply incurable and s/he dies, are we to charge this surgeon/doctor in a criminal court? If the same doctor ignores his duties or does not try his best efforts, the patient dies, then what happens?
If people want to help others and try the best of they know how (like some of our parents who had given touch loves), but lack necessary skills (like some of our parents) to achieve their wished goals, what are you going to do with them? Tell them that they should not even attempt to begin with?
“the writer knows himself and LO best.”
I disagree with this statement, especially if the said writer is in the throe/thick of limerence. Do your thoughts about your own LO/LE remain the same before and after you come out your LE?
Why did we come here to present our cases, wishing to get others’ different perspectives on it (them) or just want to hear validations without any possible, tough solutions to reduce/dissolve huge LE pains? If that’s the goal, ChatGPT could do a much better job — only and always validate whatever one wants to say or has said, even if you want to commit a suicide.
If this place is an echo chamber, then each LE might/may just get enabled and even reinforced. Is that DrL’s aim and our own goals?
I never TRIED to be disagreeable, but if I speak I would speak my true opinions. Some of you may stomach it, some definite not.
Please do NOT address your post(s) to me, if you don’t want to hear my true mind, which I’ve been learning how to more tactfully express. If you want to hear only validations, please speak to LwL validators peacemakers.
If you try to give me your tough love, regardless able or not, go ahead, I’ll hug 🫂 you here and may send you a fat check.
If my post(s) have crossed the boundaries and attacked someone personally, I trust DrL would delete them and tell me so here.
I would feel perfect to remain silence. 😀
If I ignore anyone’s “personal” post to me, then it would be disrespect or rudeness of me. However, I 🆎 absolutely do NOT ask for or even EXPECT such an attitude or treatment from anyone else — that’s Stoicism.
And if a post is addressed to “All” or has no specific recipient, I may respond and will try my best to stick to points I want to make.
To Miss Snow:
I don’t think I have addressed you personally too many times, other than to express concern over your health issues.
I don’t understand most of what you write. You are obviously a brilliant academic and I have brain damage. I can’t keep up with you.
You seem to have taken a dislike to me? I hope I’m mistaken.
Norma,
These are the two posts you addressed to me:
https://livingwithlimerence.com/unmasking-narcissism/#comment-117244
https://livingwithlimerence.com/unmasking-narcissism/#comment-117262
If I did not care for you and your suffering, and did not want to make an effort to help bring you out of your habitual thinking, feeling and reacting (toward your LO/LE’s behaviors), I would not spend hours writing and editing long posts, while delaying my own work again (for others as well). I would just keep my eyes closed to your posts, which I have done many times — it hurts to see someone else is suffering so much yet others are unable to help.
My opinion of your LO/LE is all based on your description, based on your expressed pains/wounds of being humiliated, yelled at and thus emotionally/mentally abused — that’s my personal opinion. I didn’t make up any facts of your case.
Yes, you’re mistaken to think that I dislike you as a person, I don’t know you as a person in reality. I dislike your pains/sufferings and absolutely detest your LO’s behavior/treatment towards you. I would punch himself with my bare hands if I were in your shoes, or I’d ask my friends/neighbors to physically tie me to my bedpost, like what Odyssey asked his crew members to tie him on the ship-mask while passing the water of sirens. But you choose to deal with him, that’s your right.
You have mental ability to resist this siren LO (although very hard with your health conditions). But your posts sounded like you did not want to try hard, or even gloat over his “attractiveness” or his pretentious house.
If you can’t understand my posts, PLEASE, please do NOT click on them.
And I give you my WORDS — I will not say another word to your case or even open your posts again, is that okay?
My best wishes! 🍀 🫂
L.E. 👩🦰 🏃,
I remember once you gave me a tough love with one-line punch, and I hated it back then, and snapped you right back… Sorry! I’m a person, who always wants to hear truths, no matter how bitter they could be❗️
I now want to belatedly Thank you for your benevolent intention and efforts‼️ 🫂
How is your new residence? All settled in?
Snow,
We’re mostly settled in. My wife is in the “making it her house” phase. That takes money. She’s really happy to be able to see her parents at will now.
We were blessed to sell our old house quickly. Unfortunately, the market has softened and we didn’t make as much as we’d hoped but we made enough to pay off the new place but will delay “making this place her place.”
Thanks for asking.
L.E. 👩🦰 🏃,
Very glad to hear your new settlement, and that the old house was sold and paid for the new house! Your wife is happier, which would make you more joyful, right❓
To gradually and creatively “making this place her place” with you might bring more steady satisfaction and joy, since it’s a process, not just suddenly given/landed to you.
I myself enjoy making and creating something new, even just a personalized card with my handwriting. The creative labor and process always brought me “HIGH” 💥
I guess you’re in the East coast now, right? still far away from me? (anyone here knows where I live… 😊 ). If not, one of those days down the road, I will pay you a visit in person…
Snow,
We went from the East Coast back to my wife’s hometown west of the Rockies. It’s about 300 miles east of the Pacific.
To Mila:
Thank you for those thoughtful remarks.
I really have no one else to talk to.
Even my dear friend, after listening to me whine, says, “Just forget about him!”
If it were that easy, none of us would be here.
I think it’s important to remember that people are in different phases of recovery. (When I use word “you,” I’m speaking of the general “you.”) If you’re mired in your LE, your responses to other posters will be somewhat enabling. And if the poster is still mired in their LE — let’s be honest — they will like that response.
If you’re pretty much out of the LE, you’ll be able to see more clearly what you did and what other people are doing. Your responses to other posters will be less enabling and more … challenging, for lack of a better word.
Now, that being said (because more than one thing can be true at once) … for me, personally, tough love does not work. I don’t want someone to lie to me. Or give me vague responses like, “I’m not going to judge.” But I also don’t want someone to run me over with their car. Somewhere in the middle is good.
Mila,
There are more points in your pose I disagree, but I really don’t have time at this moment. I may (may not) come back to debate with you.
I know we are both ESL speakers, and your English is much better than mine…. To my ESL ear, your posts sound authoritative, while I know to native speakers’ ears, my ESL sound harsh, lacking “smooth fleshes except rugged bones”…
One huge point I have to stress NOW —
An INTENTION of doing anything COUNTs, even in realistic criminal courts. It’s the MAIN element that truly COUNTs! If not, many “innocent” people might have wrongfully jailed in prisons; and I might have “verbally murdered” some posters here…
I’ve just realized a mistake here, and have to correct it: the following passage is addressed to ALL, not just to Mila alone; I’m sorry, Mila❗️
***********
@All,
Why did/do we come here to present our cases? wishing to get others’ different perspectives on it (them) or just want to hear validations without any possible, tough solution suggestions to reduce/dissolve huge/excruciating LE pains? If that’s the goal, ChatGPT could do a much better and faster job — only and always validate whatever one wants to say and hear, even if you wish to commit a suicide.
If this place is an echo chamber, then each LE would just get enabled and even reinforced. Is that DrL’s aim and our shared goals? (I’m now 💯 % Limerence 🆓 and 💯 % Longing 🆓 , entirely credited to LwL❗️)
I’ve never TRIED to be disagreeable, but to make some meaningful points. If I speak, I would speak my true mind from my limited perspectives, which would never wholly validate (resonate with) and invalidate you — your thoughts, sentiments, and painful experiences especially during LE(s) (as I discussed this with MJ). I’m NOT and can never be YOU inside out❗️ Still, some of you may be able to stomach a portion of my mind, some definitely not.
Please do NOT address your post(s) to me, if you don’t want to hear my true mind, which I’ve been learning how to more tactfully express. If you want to hear only validations, please chat with LwL validators/peacemakers — there are plenty of them.
If you try to give me your tough love, regardless able or not, go ahead❗️I’ll hug 🫂 you here in the “👻” land and send you a fat check 💰, if I have your realistic address — I mean it!
If my post(s) have crossed lines/boundaries and attacked anyone personally, I trust DrL would delete them and frankly tell me so here.
I would feel perfect to remain silence. 😀
To Miss Snow:
Nobody wants to interact with ChatGPT.
Feedback is good. But, like Marcia said, “Don’t run over me with your car.”
Maybe some people like harsh criticism. I personally cannot handle it.
I am an elderly person with PTSD, as well as multiple health problems.
I appreciate gentle encouragement, and like the snail, I will eventually reach my destination.
👁️ 🏃🏻♀️ 📴 👣 👩🦯 👀 🥴 😶 glasses
🏃🏻♀️… 🏃🏻♀️… 🏃🏻♀️ 📴 …👣 👩🦯 … 👀 🤫
Hi Snow,
all good, I got that it was written with a general „you“!
I‘m hard pressed with time again, so just want to say I disagree with your disagreement 😂but that’s ok, isn’t it. We are all different!
I wish you and everyone a relaxed Sunday!
Hi Mila,
“We are all different!”
Exactly❗️So we think, feel and (re)act in different ways, and we deal with LO/LE differently — maybe vastly.. . Whatever you and I have felt, thought, and interpreted could NOT represent anyone else.
You got lucky to have had a good xLO that still is a friend as loyal and best as he can be. I meant to say your “ramblings” of your xLO/xLE did not bother me that much (not addressed to me personally). I know nothing realistic about your LO except the facts you gave out, and based on them, I felt MORE compassionate for your latest LO than you; I only speak my truth…
One complaint to you directly: you sometimes interpreted my words here incorrectly (because you were not me, in or out of our LE, respectively) and jumped in instantaneously to “meddle” with a “authoritative gun/tone” (to my ears)— shoveled your interpretation into my mouth (I would NOT give examples of two years here, they’re in the past so let them stay in past)…
I know you meant well and helpful, but actually your good-hearted “meddling” inadvertently sometimes messed up things further… If not considering your good intentions, I would have tried, with my infamous LE “temper tantrum”, to “verbally murder” your posts 🔫 several times….
Back then, we were all still in LE agonies, so neither of us could clear-headed deal with the foggy situations…. Now, I’m 💯 LE and LE root 🆓, and I can handle my direct interactions with other 👻 👻 .
You’re welcome to offer opinions/criticism/debates, but please check with me FIRST for my intended meanings of words…. Again YOU are not ME, and I AM not YOU, and we are both ESL speakers who are forced deal with illogical, bloody English irregular verbs 🔫 ❗️🙄
If I don’t get back to my postponed work, I’d be fired soon by my students…
Enjoy your Sunday!
Well, Snow,
Since we seem to misunderstand each other so much, maybe it’s best to keep communication to a minimum. That’s also not said with a bad intention, but I’m a bit at a loss here.
Maybe we‘ll gain more by communicating with more kindred spirits and just keep each other in good memory. Since I’m not here as often as I was, I‘ll anyway communicate much less with anyone, it‘ll come naturally and I’ll surely not meddle with any of your posts any more. I do apologize if I came across patronizing in the past.
All the best for you Snow!❤️
Hi Mila,
“Since we seem to misunderstand each other so much, maybe it’s best to keep communication to a minimum. “
I think it has already reduced to minimum for months, since you were not here often and I sometimes skipped your posts, and many others, especially ones from partnered limerents…
“That’s also not said with a bad intention, but I’m a bit at a loss here.”
In my foggy or clear eyes, you never had a bad intention for any poster here; however, good intentions don’t always lead to intended results, as you argued. I could not stomach some of your socializing “habits and style”… Speaking only for myself, I sometimes felt to be patronized/mothered or to be mediated, as if you were holding some kind of measuring stick for others’ comments… This strong impression is from my personal lens, but my subjective “truths” count, just the same as yours to you.
However, my “silence” about this issue is also due to my insecurity and shyness that prevented me from speaking up earlier when I first came and when I was still in the dark LE and its ember stage. Old LwLers and my present self could clearly see/“taste” my irritation and LE pains, similar to yours but in different manifestations… You were more courageous to repeatedly voice your LE pains out, but I tended to hold them within — it’s my first and only public forum (in English)I have ever participated, in addition that I was/am a lone wolf.
“Maybe we‘ll gain more by communicating with more kindred spirits and just keep each other in good memory. “
You’re over thinking too much here, I did not bid a farewell to you, but just want to speak up. If I keep holding my complaints silent, my repressed resentment might babble/blow up (un)expectedly when you keep your old habit.
It’s better and fair (to both) for me to voice it out now directly to you, so we could put the past in the past. (I’d rather do it privately but we don’t have any means.).
“I’ll surely not meddle with any of your posts any more. “
I would NOT mind at all if you jump in to disagree, discuss/debate with me about some points I make in my posts to others, like Marcia often did/does. But before jumping in with “guns” (not even speaking directly to me, but sideline insinuating), wouldn’t it be fair and wise that you clarify with me first about intentions or meanings of words/concepts I use in my posts to others?
Could you (universal) just assume your definition or understanding of words /idioms /concepts is the same as mine (or anyone else)? Are you a person to set up all sorts of crossing lines /boundaries in this space. Again, DrL would warn any of us if we post inappropriate posts.
Even Norma and I had to first clarify what “grumpy” means to each of us…. You immediately got offended by the same word, when I used it under teasing mood and my fondness for you, which then told to me that I could not joke with you at any given time even after you claimed you are LE free. And would I humor anyone if I am not fond of them as a 👻 pal?
“I do apologize if I came across patronizing in the past.”
Thank you for your apology❗️ I won’t mention the past again. The past will/should be kept in the past without any (un)clear resentment. And if new misunderstandings come up with you or anyone else, I’ll speak up immediately in a good faith. That would be fair and healthy to all parties.
“All the best for you Snow!❤️”
The same to you with 🧡 💚 💛 ❗️
„ I could not stomach some of your socializing “habits and style”
„ I sometimes felt to be patronized/mothered or to be mediated, as if you were holding some kind of measuring stick for others’ comments…“
„ shoveled your interpretation into my mouth“
„ I could not joke with you at any given time“
Ir seems to have been such a bad experience with me for you,
„ You’re over thinking too much here, I did not bid a farewell to you,“
that I didn’t overthink,it was me biding farewell to you.
I repeat myself, let’s just not communicate, since it seems to do you harm.
I wish you all the best again!❤️
Mila,
Thank you for writing back, I didn’t expect it.
“It seems to have been such a bad experience with me for you,”
No, it was NOT, except some incidents. I did not say it “has been such a bad experience”, you just demonstrated what I complained in my previous posts — put your reactive words/thoughts into my mouth.
You know I had genuinely considered and treated you (and some others) as a LwL pal (even when repressing the complains). But if I couldn’t even speak my true mind directly forever (better than gossip), then that is not a healthy “friendship” to both you and myself. Good intention and truthful communication is the KEY in any relationships, online or offline.
In my opinion, if limerents were/are able to communicate and convey one’s true or illusional feelings to LO, be it a stranger, co-workers, neighbor, or existing friend, and get a clear answer (most of LE cases were/are unavailable, answer is clear), then repressed LE pains could be released and LE could possibly be “killed” in its yellow light stage — tipping over into seemingly helpless addictive state.
But for fear of that astronomic rejection from LO, how many of us dared to speak up our true or delusional feeling, even to close friends? Then we were/are stuck in LE for years or decades… suffering in silence and damaging our mental and physical health.
By the way, speaking up truth, but not asking for or expecting to know LO’s truth, was the main reason for me to disclose to LO directly on our last meeting. I’ve reported here about the undesirable, tremendous psychological release of such a disclosure; it literally felt 5 pounds was unloaded in my mind and in my whole systems. 💃 😄
Every matter/person have many shades of colors. You, as well as many others, in your own individualistic ways, have (in)directly helped me in my LE recovering journey. I hope I thanked you and others enough in the past, and let you know once more that I truly appreciated all your colorful helps beyond those limited words.
“I didn’t over think, it was me biding farewell to you.”
As a 95% Stoic, I expected this reaction and far worse ones 🙂, but I still needed to clarify in my last post that biding farewell was not my intention. Running in black-n-while mode is no longer a part of my life. I intended a frank communication for my own mental health and a possible better penpal-ship, but I respect your choice.
“I repeat myself, let’s just not communicate, since it seems to do you harm.”
Not HARM all! 😊 Such a communication has no power to harm me but substantially to further strengthen my Stoicism practices. It helps me examine where I authentically stand (in mind) after my total recovery from LE… Truthfully thank you for giving me such a chance to communicate 🙏
“I wish you all the best again!❤️”
Thanks. My best wish to you, too! 🧡💚 (I reserve ❤️ usage for Eros only)
Typo: “indescribable, tremendous psychological release”
Hi Snow,
haha, we both seem to be people who want to have the last word? Actually I’m not, and you would probably insist on me putting things in your mouth again, but me, I can‘t
resist now to quote Rhett Butler to you as my final last word😂, as you seem to insist on being honest :
„Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.“
💚🩵🩵
Mila,
Finally, you’ve scored in Stoicism, better than those who shine away from speaking with me… You have stronger inner security.
That’s a great quote of Butler to apply here, my sincere congratulations!!🎈
Please keep going ‼️
Snow
😉 (I get the last Emoji?)
🫂 Mila 🌺
Getting last 😉? not yet… 🤗
Seriously, I want you NOT to care about my words (I’m not your LO, or your Lim pet, or your enemy), but think about its merits or flaws. On my side, I had/have to speak my truth, for my own mental health.
@All,
As I discussed with MJ a few days ago, NO one can truly and wholly validate or invalidate you as a whole person, except YOURSELF. Do not worry/fear (easy said than done) about others’ possible judgment/assessment, including LO — another imperfect/flawed human being❗️Only YOU truly know your SELVES inside out and You Alone is your ultimate master/authority to define/act out YOUR SELF!
In my classroom, if a student can argue and “shout” back at me, whether right or wrong, s/he gets instant B — I mean it❗️From B (B+) to (A-) A, s/he needs to own a large dose of Stoicism in her/his reality; otherwise, s/he alone “suffers”….
Mila, again thank you for your response. I’m sincerely happy for our honest communication 👍 ‼️
💛💚🧡
Marcia..
Tonight is the night. I can’t wait..
https://youtube.com/shorts/BCQDb1TZQUw?si=ltk0L0KrUKjS5uNS
She’s almost channeling LO sitting at a desk, typing on a computer..
I love it.. 🥰😍😆
I saw she was going to be pulling double duty on SNL as host and musical guest. SNL needs to get some young hunks on there for female viewers. 🙂
There’s some recent paparazzi shot of her out in public with no pants. Just a long-ish sweater. I thought of you.
“There’s some recent paparazzi shot of her out in public with no pants. Just a long-ish sweater.”
Nice. That sounds hot.
I’ll have to look for it.. 😍
“I thought of you.”
Of course you did.. 😆
Who are the young hunky men these days?🤔 😀
Hamlet,
“Who are the young hunky men these days?🤔 😀”
Idk. Good question. There’s a sexiness void! It’s not Timothee Shalamar.
I dunno. Coming from a strait laced ummm straight guy; Shawn Mendes? Afterword; not sober.
Adam,
“Shawn Mendes?”
No. Boy scout energy.
So Idris Elba? Why must you be so difficult woman? I’m 48 and still don’t know what makes you women happy.
Adam,
“So Idris Elba? ”
Too old. We’re looking for young. 🙂
God dammit woman pick a lane for Christ’s sakes. My LO was younger; crucified. In my younger years, interested in older women; crucified. I’ll let my brother have a go at it. You young lady I can’t figure. 😩
What’s wrong with Timothee Chalamet?
I think he’s very attractive, in a cute-rodent way.
And I know cute rodents.
I have chinchillas. I mentioned one of them, Hannibal Lecter, yesterday.
Adam,
“God dammit woman pick a lane for Christ’s sakes”
I’m playing the game the way you play it. You made the rules. 🙂
Norma,
“I think he’s very attractive, in a cute-rodent way.”
Ummm … that’s an oxymoron. 🙂
He has no sexual energy. No juice.
To Marcia:
Cute-rodenty can be sexy.
I’d go out with Timothee Chalamet if I weren’t old enough to be his grandmother.
ND,
“I’d go out with Timothee Chalamet if I weren’t old enough to be his grandmother.”
Go for it. Age is seen as just a number on this site. 🙂
Oh don’t you even young lady blame this on me. I at least have a bit of consistency in my taste in women. Dunno why you gotta be so damn stubborn. Cut my throat for a younger LO. Confused 20 something me liked women your age.
Miss Norma i dunno the Timothy in question but I get ? by a lot of people who
I think are attractive. Outside LO cause she’s an angel.
Adam,
“Confused 20 something me liked women your age.”
And why would I … um … need to hear about women you liked almost THREE decades ago?
I can play by your rules. The ladies on here will post stuff about hot young guys. We can do that. I’m ok with that. 🙂
I was going to mention Harry Styles, but he’s 31. A little long in the tooth. 🙂
I think Timothee Chalamet is dating one of the Kardashians.
Doubt he’d be interested in me and my Dali Madison shoes.
ND,
“I think Timothee Chalamet is dating one of the Kardashians. Doubt he’d be interested in me and my Dali Madison shoes.”
We don’t concern ourselves about whether it wants us; only if we want it. 🙂
So you know who you don’t want, but not who you do want? 😀 There’s always AI.🤔😄
Hamlet,
“So you know who you don’t want, but not who you do want? 😀 There’s always AI.🤔😄”
What does AI do? Built a perfect man? 🙂
So … I’m at a loss here. Just Googled hot male actors under 30. Then did the same with musicians. Are we allowed to put on the list a man when he was younger?
I don’t see anything wrong with this.
https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=659ad61333e1fb65728035a1aedbb51a4e1d7a48224001a33c2e39f44bf3dfb3JmltdHM9MTc2MDgzMjAwMA&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=4&fclid=2998f0b9-8414-6b2f-195f-e633857e6ab0&u=a1L2ltYWdlcy9zZWFyY2g_cT10aW1vdGhlZStjaGFsYW1ldCtnb29kK3BpY3R1cmUmaWQ9NTJGMjMxNkM0Q0U3MEQxMkI5NkE1NDUzNEQzQTZFOTg4MUIzMzYwQSZGT1JNPUlBQ0ZJUg&ntb=1
Sorry that clearly did not come out right.
I know a straight Dude, that has a guy crush on Timothy Chalemet. I don’t get it and I don’t care to get it. I can’t swing both ways.
I also don’t get Dudes with messy hair either. When did this get the ok? In my time guys were supposed to comb their $#!+ so they didn’t go out looking like a busted mattress. I guess those rules don’t apply now..
MJ,
“I know a straight Dude, that has a guy crush on Timothy Chalemet. I don’t get it and I don’t care to get it. I can’t swing both ways.”
I don’t get his appeal, either. I mean, he’s a good actor but, to me, not sexy. I think the younger generations are so afraid of being offensive, they’ve drained themselves of all sexual juice.
Marcia,
Oh… I can’t answer that. I’m afraid to tell an innocent about the capabilities of AI. 😊 I don’t want that guilt.
You said you wanted to see some young hunks on SNL, so if they’re not currently young, then officially no as that would be of no use to SNL. But, who did you have in mind? 🧐 Chris Hemsworth? Henry Cavill? Matthew McConaughey?
„I’d go out with Timothee Chalamet if I weren’t old enough to be his grandmother.“
Me too, just put „mother“ instead of „grandmother“;)
“Who are the young hunky men these days?🤔 😀”
“Idk. Good question. There’s a sexiness void!”
Marcia
No there isn’t..
I’m right here and too sexy.. 😆😂
Hamlet,
I know almost nothing about AI. 🙂
“Chris Hemsworth? Henry Cavill? Matthew McConaughey?”
NO! Those dudes are old. I think I made myself clear: Men under 30!
“I know almost nothing about AI. 🙂”
Marcia,
Here is an interesting article to help educate you.
All about a totally fake AI actress.. If she were real, I might have ended up going limerent for her. She’s gorgeous.. 🥰
https://fortune.com/2025/10/03/tilly-norwood-ai-warning-lesson/
MJ,
I’m obviously kidding about men under 30. If you’ll notice, all of the “seasoned” ladies on here have mentioned being old enough to be Shalamar’s mother or grandmother. I feel the same way about a man so much younger. What is he? 30? (If we’re using him as a metaphor for young men in general.) Not only is he way too young … but why would I want to go there? Different life experience, different level of emotional intelligence (because he’s so young). And why would he want to go there with me? Let’s just say that the physical side of things changes in middle-age, and his expectations, if he’s been with young women, will not be ones I can meet.
Marcia
Overall it probably just depends on the guy. Some guys are really into older Women. Often I hear its because of their experience and maybe because of their maturity.
It might also have to do with them liking some of that life experience those Women talk about. Or emotional maturity they could be drawn to. You never know.
It’s probably true that those type of Men are less than the type of Men who go for younger. I think most of my draw there is denial I’m getting older and I guess I feel like a younger Woman is going to help keep me younger at heart. Or maybe I just want to try to stay relevant. To them and even to my Daughter.
The maturity level difference between New Girl and LF is significant. I have to admit its nice talking to someone who isn’t selfish and all into herself. Along with creating drama. Even though my limerent mind would probably still put up with it if I had to.
As always my brother knows me too well. Why women 20-30 years older than me when I was 20? Just that; women, not girls. At 20 I had no patience for the games, fickleness and emotional instability of girls my age. I wanted a woman that had her $hit together and didn’t want to date for “fun”. But a woman that was actually looking for a partner in life. And in the 90’s it didn’t seem like there was too many girls my age like that. They had their 90210 and MTV for role models, and not the kind of mature ladies that I think a majority of men are looking for. Sure we all want to “play the field” (except me) to some extent, but eventually (as it seems the modern women hitting their 30’s in this day and age) a man wants a woman for life not just a fling.
MJ,
I mean … aren’t you worried about mechanical issues? I’m not sure how else to put it. Both men and women have those when they get to be a certain age. It’s the change in hormones. If I’m a younger woman who’s been with younger men … those won’t be anything I’ve probably had to deal with much and may not want to. Let’s be real … I haven’t yet had to make concessions for aging. Because I’m personally not going through physical changes myself and the guys I’ve been with aren’t either.
When I see men our age going after significantly younger women (and by that I mean much more than 10 or so years) … I think one of many things … he’s got an ego issue and has something to prove to the outside world; he’s very immature emotionally; he’s in denial about his own appeal or he’s dismissing women his age.
Marcia, Marcia, Marcia…😂
What you say is true, but … it’s still from your individual experience and assumptions. The average American 56 yr old male (me) (according to AI) is 202lbs at 5’9″. No wonder they’ll have mechanical issues. I’m not going to search this but they likely also have too much stress, little to no exercise, poor diet, drink too much alcohol, maybe smoke, etc… So my pushback is that this isn’t an older male issue. The male mechanical issue is instead an older modern male issue as it is just the physics of blood flow, i.e. good cardio, good veins/arteries, good blood pressure. Of course I’m not directing you to seek out the in shape older men because they too have psychological issues, but… I guess you know this more first hand then I, a good man is hard to find. 😂🧐😂. I did see some headline or post in the last year that stated that 50% of American men over 40 have the mechanical issue and that truly shocked me. 😧😧😧
Going back a few years.
Reeve Carney playing Dorian Gray in “Penny Dreadful.”
He’s 42 now (too old for Marcia), but it was filmed about 13 years ago which puts him tantalizingly close to the 30-yo cutoff.
Google it. Seriously hot. Hotter than LO.
Hamlet,
“The average American 56 yr old male (me) (according to AI) is 202lbs at 5’9″”
Again, it’s not just being unhealthy. It’s the hormonal changes. Older women can have sexual mechanical issues as well. Vaginal dryness, atrophy, taking longer for the bell to be rung. Not every woman does, but it’s not uncommon. You’d be asking a younger partner to … idk … deal with these issues … issues they’ve probably never really even thought about before.
Not to mention having to undress in front of a much younger person, who is used to younger bodies.
Norma D,
“Google it. Seriously hot. Hotter than LO.”
He’s not really my type. But I’d have to see the show. Sometimes an actor can be hot in a particular role. OMG the actor in Lucifer. He was 37 when the show started. I’m going to let that slide. 😀
To Marcia:
“Penny Dreadful” is on Showtime. I enjoyed it very much.
And speaking of Dorian Gray, another young actor who played the role in a scarier version of the story, is Ben Barnes.
The last I saw him, he was doing T-Mobile commercials. Still hot, but probably too old for you.
Marcia,
I just thought it was interesting that you eventually seemed to hinge not being in a relationship with a younger person on the sexual differences between young-old. It’s not terribly important. It’s the kind of question I’d only ask in a blog. I’m into older women. When I say that, I don’t add a caveat of only those older women with high libido. So I was curious why you went there with the young-old dynamic. I’m married. My SO is older. Yeah I’m familiar with sexual related changes that come to older women. You left out loss of libido… I’m a man so of course I wouldn’t forget to leave that off the list. 😂 When I say I’m into older women, I say that as just a sexual preference fact.
Norma,
“Penny Dreadful” was so good. And the sex scenes were super hot. But I seem to remember it fizzled or something at the end. It’s been a long time since I watched it.
I watched Penny Dreadful a couple of years ago, when the latest LE really took hold. The first episode was so gross and violent that I wondered where I heard that I should watch it. But then the Frankenstein story started up and I was hooked. 🙂
Norma D,
“And speaking of Dorian Gray, another young actor who played the role in a scarier version of the story, is Ben Barnes.
The last I saw him, he was doing T-Mobile commercials. Still hot, but probably too old for you.”
You could see past Colin Firth in that movie? When he suggests they raise a little hell, are you not shouting, “I’m in!” 🙂
Hamlet,
“It’s not terribly important. It’s the kind of question I’d only ask in a blog. ”
Most men say that. 🙂
“I’m into older women.”
How much older? How much older is your SO? Is your LO older?
“When I say that, I don’t add a caveat of only those older women with high libido. ”
If you want an older woman to have a high libido … do something to rev her up. 🙂
“So I was curious why you went there with the young-old dynamic.”
Because almost every middle-aged male poster on here has an LO who is 20 or so years younger. Maybe even more.
“… he’s got an ego issue and has something to prove to the outside world; he’s very immature emotionally; he’s in denial about his own appeal or he’s dismissing women his age.”
Marcia
To me the mechanical issue is last on my list of things to consider. At this point, I’m just trying to secure down the coffee date and see what gels from there. I’ve said before I don’t dismiss Women closer in age to me, but it doesn’t seem to end up in my lap as often as it does with a younger Lady.
The way I see it, it’s my time no matter when things break down.
-Am I out of shape? Yes but not terribly.
-Am I emotionally mature? Probably not.
-Do I think I’m a 10? Absolutely not. Thinking I’m probably a 5, maybe a 6 on a good day. A 3 or 4 most other days.
-Do I have a poor diet? Most likely.
-Do I exercise? Nope, but my job can be a workout in itself, more often than not.
I think in another situation, its who I can actually connect with. Just because a Woman might be a few years younger than me doesn’t mean I’ll get along well with her. Last week I met a fabulous younger lady who probably isn’t much over 25. She might even be early 20s. Just to look at her, I know she has to be fresh out of college, but her and I connected and it was amazing. It was a total breath of fresh air talking with her. Did her seemingly younger age help? Possibly but the whole time I wasn’t even thinking about her age, it was the connection that moved me. We just got along. So in an instance like this, I pat myself on the back.
MJ,
“To me the mechanical issue is last on my list of things to consider. At this point, I’m just trying to secure down the coffee date and see what gels from there. ”
I don’t understand why it’s not at least be in the back of your mind. Won’t things get sexual eventually?
“I’ve said before I don’t dismiss Women closer in age to me, but it doesn’t seem to end up in my lap as often as it does with a younger Lady.”
But … not to be rude … it’s not in your lap. Nothing is really happening with these women.
I want to stress that I’m talking about the initial phase of dating. When you’re trying to attract someone new. The women you’re going for have a lot of options. What are you (general “you”) bringing to the table? You’re going to say maturity. Ok, but why wouldn’t the woman you just mentioned meeting, in her early 20s, just go a little older and go out with a guy in his early 30s? More mature than the guys her age, more established in his career (if money is an attractant for her) but still relatively close in age and … probably looking pretty good.
I don’t think I’m writing anything here that’s all that radical. And, yes, I ask myself these same questions.
MJ,
Sorry. I wasn’t clear. In general, I ask myself: What am I bringing to the table? If it’s a much younger guy … I’d ask: What extra am I bringing to the table?
You know what song I’m listening to? “One Night in Bangkok.” You remember that one. 🙂 “You’re talking to a tourist whose every move’s among the purist. I get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine.”
Hi Marcia,
1. Most men aren’t on blogs so I question your sample size. 🧐😂 Since you didn’t answer my question (not an answer about other posters but you) and I’m not going to ask again… Yeah it’s not important.
2. I don’t set a limit. Bedridden may be too old. 🧐😂 Aside: this is a weakness of the subject-object model used in the addiction theory. It’s not how we actually are in the world. I am either attracted or not. I don’t ask to see their license first to make sure they fall into an age range of 0-10 years older than me. That’s really what I’m trying to explore in why it’s interesting you brought up the mechanics of sex into falling in love. Aside over, sorry. My wife is 7 years older, 63. My LE lasted 35 years and my LO is my age. So yeah my age or older.
3. But before you were so adamant that it was all hormones, now it’s something lacking in my approach. 🧐😂 I get it. But the more you respond… the more questions I might have.
Hamlet,
“Since you didn’t answer my question (not an answer about other posters but you) and I’m not going to ask again… Yeah it’s not important.”
I’m not sure what you asked me. Did I miss the question?
“I am either attracted or not.”
Me, too, but I usually don’t feel attracted to someone significantly older. Or really younger, for that matter. I mean, I notice hot, young men but I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m attracted. Meaning … drawn to, will get off my butt and cross the room to talk to them. No real glimmer.
“That’s really what I’m trying to explore in why it’s interesting you brought up the mechanics of sex into falling in love.”
Being able to lay it down well helps, does it not? Or lay it down the way the other person likes it? Have you never hooked up with a woman and the sex was disappointing?
“My wife is 7 years older, 63. My LE lasted 35 years and my LO is my age. So yeah my age or older.”
I don’t think 7 years is a big age gap. The age gaps I was referring to on here involve twenty years or more. Middle aged man. Younger female LO.
“3. But before you were so adamant that it was all hormones, now it’s something lacking in my approach. 🧐😂 ”
Not sure what you mean.
“But the more you respond… the more questions I might have.”
Ask away. 🙂
Hi Marcia,
My questions weren’t important. I’m ok with moving on and not circling back.
Sounds like you’ve had experience before/after being so upfront with your sexual expectations in your partners and I assume it’s been successful. The proof is in the pudding so to speak. I haven’t had disappointing sexual experiences, but so what? If you’ve had, then you’ve had and it’s good that you’ve come up with a solution.
Hamlet,
“Sounds like you’ve had experience before/after being so upfront with your sexual expectations in your partners and I assume it’s been successful. ”
Not necessarily. Sometimes you get in a room with someone and things don’t click.
“I haven’t had disappointing sexual experiences, but so what?”
Never? To me, sex is like any experience in life. It ranges from really awful to really great. Although I’d say “really awful” is not common.
” If you’ve had, then you’ve had and it’s good that you’ve come up with a solution.”
You just don’t do it again with that person if it’s bad. 🙂 Sometimes it’s not what someone does so much as you see a different side of their personality.
Hi Marcia,
To me, sex has been an experience unlike any other, truly unique.
My experience has ranged from OK to truly mind-blowing ecstasy. Don’t hate me. 🤔😂
Hamlet,
“My experience has ranged from OK to truly mind-blowing ecstasy.”
On a physical level or emotional?
Are the “ok” experiences a first time with someone? Is it hard to want to do it again if it was blah?
As I wrote, “really awful” is rare. But it’s happened.
“You know what song I’m listening to? “One Night in Bangkok.” You remember that one. 🙂”
Marcia
Yes I remember that one. Thank you for reminding me again I’m not getting any younger.. I love how you always factor in age somewhere.
Murray Head.. Wtf is wrong with you? 😆😂 That’s a song that gets in my head and won’t ever leave. The only line I like is, “Can’t be too careful with your company,
I can feel the devil walking next to me”
Thanks. Now its stuck in my head again.. 😆
Hi Marcia,
Mind-blowing ecstasy as emotional or physical? 😂 I see I need to be more direct in defining “mind-blowing ecstasy” while trying not to be too gross. One time I thought I was going to black out. Another, I literally could not move afterwards. In your list of sexual preferences and requirements for a partner, I hope “I want to have mind-blowing ecstatic sex” is on the list.
MJ,
“I love how you always factor in age somewhere.”
And I don’t understand how you don’t factor age in. It’s a thing. It’s huge. I have a male friend who showed interest somewhat recently. He’s at least 15 years older than I am. He talks about retirement and saving money. And while I realize that’s a topic that is important … I don’t really want to talk about it. Blech. We’re in two totally different life phases. And I’m in no rush to get where he is. Would you date someone 15 years older? Something tells me you wouldn’t.
“That’s a song that gets in my head and won’t ever leave. ”
You’re welcome. 🙂
“The only line I like is, “Can’t be too careful with your company,
I can feel the devil walking next to me””
I like … “One night in Bangkok makes the hard man humble. Not much between despair and ecstasy.” I sometimes think that’s true. I’m such a bad speller that I literally thought the spelling was Bangco*k. 🙂
Hamlet,
” I see I need to be more direct in defining “mind-blowing ecstasy” while trying not to be too gross. ”
I don’t mind gross. 🙂 But, yes, you do need to be specific. I don’t know what it means to you.
“In your list of sexual preferences and requirements for a partner, I hope “I want to have mind-blowing ecstatic sex” is on the list.”
It is, but it would have to involve intense emotion, on both sides. It wouldn’t be mind-blowing without it. And that’s why I was asking. Because some of the members of your side can separate the physical and emotional.
Marcia,
I have a running theory that every lesson in life is found within the TV show, Rick and Morty. I think you’re looking for the mystical soul bond. You’ll need to date a dragon though. 😄 Sorry the show may be a bit vulgar for your tastes. https://youtu.be/RlVlY6QAKpc?si=UblD5aBPXlVKu7q7
I hope I don’t open an old wound, but is this theoretical or have you experienced mind-blowing ecstatic sex?
I’m a Heideggerian. I don’t live in the analytical world of subject-object dualism… Yet I’m on a blog where that is the philosophical backdrop behind the addiction model. I live in the world without a separate mind-body, limerent-LO, physical sex-emotional connection, etc. I can analyze things in a dualistic way and get insights but that isn’t how I actually live. So when I say I couldn’t move after sex, of course I’m not telling you the lifetime of things in my mind that culminated in the very powerful physical release with my SO including my emotional and love bond with her. But that doesn’t mean I think it was just a physical event.
I’m not on a male side. 😂 If I was on a side then I guess I’m a traitor for marrying a woman.
Marcia,
“I have a running theory that every lesson in life is found within the TV show, Rick and Morty. ”
I’m not quite following you here. The characters in this clip just seem like horny toads. 🙂
“I hope I don’t open an old wound, but is this theoretical or have you experienced mind-blowing ecstatic sex?”
I don’t know how you’re defining it. You wrote about a big release. Is that code for the big O? 🙂
“I’m a Heideggerian. I don’t live in the analytical world of subject-object dualism… ”
Can you break this down into “Philosophy for Dummies?” I don’t understand what this means. 🙂
“So when I say I couldn’t move after sex, of course I’m not telling you the lifetime of things in my mind”
Like fantasies? Wants? Desires?
“I’m not on a male side. 😂 If I was on a side then I guess I’m a traitor for marrying a woman.”
C’mon, now … it’s Hos before Bros for men. You’ve been around long enough to know that. 🙂 Just like it’s D*cks before Chicks for women. 🙂
The above message was for Hamlet.
Hi Marcia,
Yeah I can’t explain Rick and Morty. Bro’s before Ho’s?: Maybe you’ve misunderstood my situation. I’ve been married for 35 years… I’m not a juvenile college frat boy.😂 In the context of sex, you’re unclear what “very powerful physical release” means? 😂 That’s why I’m not sure if this is all theoretical to you. Heidegger?… yeah,no. Subject-object dualism… yeah, no. Forget I mentioned them. If you knew their meaning then it would make communication so much easier. Exactly like we write LE and we basically know what we mean, but ask me to explain LE and I have to write a book, create a website, create YouTube videos, etc. A shot in the dark, but we’re not connecting there. That’s ok.
My last stab at this…What I’m asking is have you actually had this deep emotional bond with another person and as you said, just as importantly, they with you and have you also had simultaneously beyond great sex with them and again they with you? That’s a mouthful. Is this something you’ve already achieved or have yet to achieve?
Hamlet,
“Bro’s before Ho’s?: Maybe you’ve misunderstood my situation. I’ve been married for 35 years… I’m not a juvenile college frat boy.😂”
I wrote Hos before Bros. Not Bros before Hos. And I think there’s a part of me that is still very college-esque when it comes to your side. Maybe that’s why MJ and I get along. 🙂 The only difference: The guys I like have aged with me in terms of chronological age. But I never claimed I was super mature.
” In the context of sex, you’re unclear what “very powerful physical release” means? 😂”
I don’t really value that part of it very much. I’m a woman. Chances are I can do it better myself. 🙂 There’s a whole other list of stuff I’m hoping for. 🙂
“That’s why I’m not sure if this is all theoretical to you. Heidegger?… yeah,no. Subject-object dualism… yeah, no. Forget I mentioned them. If you knew their meaning then it would make communication so much easier. ”
You brought it up. 🙂
“And I don’t understand how you don’t factor age in. It’s a thing. It’s huge.”
Marcia
Well to you I think its huge. Guess you could say I factor it out for the most part, but not entirely. Call it selfish on my part or denial I’m getting up in age. I simply don’t want to believe it.
I do stop to think now and then, that the type of Women I’m most interested in have probably never used a phone booth. Let alone be near or in one, so I don’t think it doesn’t have a place in my mindset. I probably just don’t want to think about it like that.
“I have a male friend who showed interest somewhat recently. He’s at least 15 years older than I am. He talks about retirement and saving money. And while I realize that’s a topic that is important … I don’t really want to talk about it. Blech.”
I never talked like this to LF. Primarily because like you, thats a topic I don’t want to discuss.. Nor does any 30 year old girl want to get with me about my savings portfolio to discuss percentages. Its just not relevant to her. I get this.
“We’re in two totally different life phases. And I’m in no rush to get where he is.”
Maybe he figured you wouldn’t mind the topic. Being more emotionally mature. That isn’t a bad thing is it? Perhaps he views you as really smart and will provide him good advice.
I get I was probably more like a parent, considering LFs Mom was only a year older than me. But her and I talked a lot about a lot of subjects.
She would tell me stories about her family, the Nephew she adores and the Sister she loves most in this world. A Grandfather who has Cancer and her Mother who is trying not to lose her mind over it. I talked to her about Dad and the struggles I’m having going through his issues. What it’s like worrying about my 19 year old Daughter on Spring Break with her Friends in Florida. My Sons handicap and how he manages life at work wearing a prosthetic. We would talk about foods we like, concerts we’ve been to, and most of all, work related stuff. I mean it was all intelligent conversation. It was never that hard to stay relevant to her. Despite being old enough to be her Father. We just clicked and that attracted me.
“Would you date someone 15 years older? Something tells me you wouldn’t.”
Hmmm 🤔
I’ll never tell.. 😆
MJ,
” I simply don’t want to believe it.”
I don’t see how you couldn’t.
“Nor does any 30 year old girl want to get with me about my savings portfolio to discuss percentages. Its just not relevant to her. I get this.”
If she’s 30 and you’re much older, your saving portfolio will be of definite interest to her. 🙂 Don’t take what I’m writing as reflective of younger women (as I am younger in relation to my friend). I’m strange. Money is not an attractant for me.
” Perhaps he views you as really smart and will provide him good advice.”
Huh? No, he’s giving me advice. I mean, it’s a topic I should think about, but it does nothing for … my lower half. 🙂 It’s not a sexy topic. I don’t think he ever thought about our age difference before disclosing to me, which kind of baffles me.
[“Would you date someone 15 years older? Something tells me you wouldn’t.”]
“Hmmm 🤔
I’ll never tell.. 😆”
However you’re looking at an older person in terms of dating … could be how a younger person is looking at you. Haven’t you ever thought of that?
That being said, I did have to interact with two younger guys at my side hustle the other day. One in particular was making an effort to chat me up. Now, exactly what that mean I don’t know. Could have been just basic friendliness but I did think both of them were cute. The second one said something ever so slightly provocative and you know I countered right back. 🙂 But I look at these types of situations (and nothing happened so I have to be careful to think they were even possibilities) as Short-Term Sammies.
“I don’t see how you couldn’t.”
Marcia
Probably just far far off in the background is where I put the age factor. I focus more on relating to a person first and see what gels. If I’m not feeling it, I’ll move on.
LO is probably the only person I never wanted to move on from though, because of her hotness factor.
“If she’s 30 and you’re much older, your saving portfolio will be of definite interest to her.”
Only is she’s going into it thinking long-term about me. As of now, absolutely nobody is pushing that button and perhaps never wil again. My Ex was an extremely loving and tolerable human being to put up with my bs. Now that I see she was really one in like 20 million+, my regret for losing her is beyond immense.
As for my savings and worth, its kinda secondary to me too. I need to find a Woman like you, who really really couldn’t care less about it.
“I don’t think he ever thought about our age difference before disclosing to me, which kind of baffles me.”
Maybe he’s on the lonely side and just wants someone to talk to. The fact he can relate to you enough to disclose speaks of his comfort to discuss that subject with you, and maybe any subject really. I’m sure you probably already know this, but I said it anyway.
“However you’re looking at an older person in terms of dating … could be how a younger person is looking at you. Haven’t you ever thought of that?”
I suppose if thats what LF really thought, she would have told me but she never seemed cringed out enough over me being older. However can’t rule it out either considering we never did anything, so maybe that’s how it was. I’ll probably never know and I’m trying not to care about it either. It was her call and I’ll stay out her way.
If age-gap is going to be an issue, I would think any Woman is probably going to make that an easy sticking point for rejection.
“I did have to interact with two younger guys at my side hustle the other day.”
Hmmm, I wonder what your side hustle is. 🤔
LO does Lashes, Brows and Hair Extensions.. I want her to wax my brows and give me hair extensions. I’d give her a very generous tip. Along with my phone number. 😆
MJ,
“As for my savings and worth, its kinda secondary to me too. I need to find a Woman like you, who really really couldn’t care less about it.”
My point was … if you are much older, there will be women who will see money as a … well, exchange of commodities, to put it bluntly.
“Maybe he’s on the lonely side and just wants someone to talk to. The fact he can relate to you enough to disclose speaks of his comfort to discuss that subject with you, and maybe any subject really. I’m sure you probably already know this, but I said it anyway.”
We have a good rapport. I think very highly of him as a person. I have gone to him for advice about how to deal with situations, people, as I respect his opinion. And I don’t find him unappealing, I just don’t want to have sex with him. He’s not my type. I don’t mean so much physically. I mean personality-wise in terms of how he is as a man. And, yes, it’s also his age. It’s by no means the biggest part of it, but it’s a part of it.
“I suppose if that’s what LF really thought, she would have told me but she never seemed cringed out enough over me being older.”
I didn’t tell my friend that. I thought we were friends.
” However can’t rule it out either considering we never did anything, so maybe that’s how it was. I’ll probably never know and I’m trying not to care about it either.”
I would lean toward thinking that’s how it was as she didn’t want to hang out with you. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh but if she wanted to, she would have.
Just like these two guys I mentioned. They didn’t ask for my number or ask me out. Maybe they weren’t attracted. It’s certainly a possibility. Was my age part of it? Maybe. I don’t know. But I wouldn’t rule it out.
“If age-gap is going to be an issue, I would think any Woman is probably going to make that an easy sticking point for rejection.”
Again, if a woman 20 years older than you was coming on to you, you wouldn’t notice her age?
To MJ:
I am so old, I barely know who this lady is.
God, I’m old.
ND
She’s a popular pop singer right now. Whose overall look and size resembles my LO to a degree. Not entirely though. LO is not as shapely but still could pass almost as a Sister to her. Eyebrows, blue eyes, hair, sass and attitude, all that. It’s so hot.
She was on Saturday Night Live tonight in the States.
Just google Sabrina Carpenter SNL and a lot of YouTube clips should come up. She was excellent as I knew she would be.
To MJ:
I know who she is but I don’t know her music.
I watched the trailer for SNL and she looks delightful.
Her latest hit is called “Manchild.”
I’m just going to let that sit. Don’t think I need to say any more. 🙂
I saw the SNL clip of the female empowerment seminar 😂😂 and I was like, “is that Ariana Grande?” They look so similar to me.
“Her latest hit is called “Manchild.”
I’m just going to let that sit. Don’t think I need to say any more. 🙂”
Marcia, ND
She dedicated that to me you know. Singing about stupid, slow, incompetent Men. Describes me to a tee. 😁
Gotta admit too her prancing around on stage like she did in that number was incredible. Like I’ll give it a 11 or 12 on a scale of 1 to 10. I’ll watch that again anytime.. 🥰
You don’t have to be “old”: I don’t know anything about her, either. Or this Bad Bunny person who’s been in the news lately. Or any of the rapper names I keep hearing. Anything pop just blows over my head. All my music these days comes from the underground, Goth, industrial, etc. 🙂
To Serial Limerent:
I prefer music from my youth through my early forties.
When I was pregnant with my oldest daughter, I was age 36 and it was 1989. I was extremely ill most of the time, and I watched MTV music videos non-stop. A lot of those songs still appeal to me.
Although there is one, “Red Red Wine,” that makes me nauseated, because it reminds me of a particularly bad bout of morning sickness, which I experienced during seven of the nine months.
I connected albums with nausea, too, because of morning sickness. Clothes, too, and other things. Isn’t it weird how that works?
There was a famous philosopher, Plato. Most people have heard of him. He was a student of Socrates. Again most people have heard of him too. 3,000 years ago they worked out a truth that is just as valid today: You cannot teach someone the truth simply by telling them the truth. They have to see the truth for themselves before they will believe. Plato wrote about this in, “The Allegory of the Cave” within The Republic. More recently, there is a movie called The Matrix. Again, most people have heard of it if not seen it. There is a scene in the movie in which Morpheus tells Nemo, “Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.” See? Straight out of Plato’s cave. What I’m trying to say is that before you allow yourself to run with the argument of tough, hard truth vs weak?, soft? encouragement… one should first question whether telling someone the “truth” can by itself change the limerent’s perception of the truth (LE-LO) anyway. Having a wife, kids, parents, siblings and being in the world, I see everywhere I look that simply telling people the truth, even quite vociferously and harshly, almost never changes beliefs.
The obvious irony is that you can read this and counter, “Wait! Aren’t you trying to tell me the truth?” No, because a takeaway that you should then get out of Plato’s Cave allegory is that to learn, the student has to actively participate in the learning. A student cannot learn by simply sitting back and listening to the teacher lecture. They have to take notes, participate in the lecture, ask questions, do their homework etc.
Related, in psychology there is something called The White Bear effect. You tell someone not to think about a white bear and initially they don’t, followed by… yep, the more they think about the white bear. I learned about this in fathering a son with autism. It seems so simple to tell a limerent to simply not think about a LO. But, the brain is not so simple.
Or, in other words, people often have to learn the hard way. 🙂
Yep 😊
Thank you Hamlet. This ancient wisdom is so true! And especially pertinent to those of us who are parents and teachers. Good to be reminded of it.
Tell me about it. Two of my three kids were ADHD.
I sat and ate dinner with a young couple from church a couple weeks back. (We are planning to met again this week, but my wife has agreed to come with me this time.) I conveyed the story of why I started to come to church again, with my story (minus the use of the term “limerence” more playing it off as an EA). After sharing what I wanted to and how it is still effecting my marriage, the young husband asked me; “where are you with Jesus in your heart?” And I flat out told him, that I am not sure. I am not even sure I believe that Jesus and God exists. He asked why am I coming to church if you are not sure. I said because I cannot be told that God and Jesus exist, and believe it as truth no more than I convince my wife an affair didn’t happen if she doesn’t believe it’s the truth.
I told him that the religion I was raised in I was suppose to accept as the truth at face value. There was no, if’s or buts, it was the truth. There was no acceptance of “going out into the world” to find if it is indeed the truth. That was all fine and good when I was young and trusted that my mother and father were doing what was best for me. But as an adult I could see through it. The protection of the “truth” in that religion was without contestation. I said this time around I am much more cautious in my beliefs but I enjoy coming to church to learn and try to be a better husband, but I can’t do that through blind faith anymore. I have to truly believe in God and Jesus or the same thing is going to happen to me again. I am not wanting to be assimilated. I want to honestly believe or not.
Hi Adam,
Do you forgive yourself? Jesus can forgive you and according to my understanding of the gospel story, that is a given and he’s already done so, and yet, you alone can forgive yourself.
One thing that I have done differently in the last year is when it comes to my marriage, the more that I work on myself, the better our relationship is. It isn’t fair, doesn’t make sense, but it is what it is. When I get to be perfect then I’ll put my for down and give her the ultimatum. Until then I’m living in Plato’s Cave and I can’t change my wife, only myself.
It is a good sign that she’s joining you.
Please listen to this Adam. It really home yesterday for me.
https://www.youtube.com/live/SV0iyGFie1U?si=u9JJIbiQjk7BZ24x
Hamlet
“Do you forgive yourself?”
Asking the hard questions, huh? I think I find guilt to be the punishment I deserve. Our pastor once told me, that you can’t earn forgiveness from your wife. But you can show her that you want to reconcile through your actions and words. And you can’t earn forgiveness from God because he has already given it to you. That later one is a hard thing for me to understand.
The sermon at our church was from Galatians where Paul writes to them and tells him his story of finding Jesus. And Jesus forgave him despite the fact that he use to hunt and kill Christians. If Jesus can forgive Paul of that then what can you do that’s bad enough that he can’t forgive you? What you can do is tell your story of finding Jesus to others, no matter how hard it is to do so. Because you never know who might benefit from hearing your story, like the Galatians did with Paul’s story and all those that have read it in the Bible.
Anonymous
Thank you for the link. I watched and listened. He’s a bit more fiery than our pastor, but I get his point. It’s good to hear other pastors as they all their own way of preaching and their own kind of passion.
I’ve been struggling with the concept of being prayed over, as we do that at our church too. I’ve been going to this church for two years now and have yet to let it happen. I think it because I don’t like being front and center. Or I don’t feel I deserve it, I guess maybe. Thanks again for the link.
Hi Adam,
Sorry. My setup to such a direct question was poor. I find that in solving problems, people fixate on step 1 of the process forgetting that step 2 is next. When you’re stuck on step 1, then move on to work on step 2. The steps to solving a problem don’t always have to be completed in any specific order. That’s really the nuts and bolts of what I was saying about working on my relationship with my wife. Getting her to change is very difficult, sometimes impossible. What do I do? Nothing or work on myself. I work on myself.
Step 1 Jesus forgives you. Step 2 You forgive yourself Step 3 work at and become the husband/man that your wife would want to be married to. Step 4 I don’t know but it will work out. I think this is what your pastor was saying. You’re getting ahead of the problem by going for forgiveness from your wife. Maybe you have and are this type of person, but really listen to her at this meeting. Don’t talk. Didn’t explain. Listen. Let her talk. Assuming Jesus has forgiven you… then what? That’s the follow-up up that most Christians never get to. The then what is that then you still have to work to forgive yourself. You live in this world and it’s your life and only you can forgive yourself. Work on that. In essence, and of course I’m over simplifying, you’re asking your wife to forgive you when you haven’t even forgiven yourself. Maybe I have it wrong.
Guilt … “Hamlet”‘s secret to a good life and a good death is to live and die free of guilt. You make amends for what you can, ask forgiveness for what you cannot make amends for (truly without any “yes, but….”), or let go of what you cannot make amends for and cannot get forgiveness for. Guilt will eat your soul/psyche.
“Maybe you have and are this type of person, but really listen to her at this meeting. Don’t talk. Didn’t explain. Listen. Let her talk.”
This is one of the reasons that I am glad that she has decided to come with me. I want her to say her side of the story. Why, before either of us knew what limerence is, she thought that I would have an affair with another woman. Obviously, even if she had no concrete evidence, her female intuition told her that something was off with her husband.
“In essence, and of course I’m over simplifying, you’re asking your wife to forgive you when you haven’t even forgiven yourself. Maybe I have it wrong.”
Not necessarily to forgive me, but to understand, that it wasn’t something intentional I did to hurt her. But I understand that I did hurt her. Even if there was no affair, the damage was still done. That’s why THE DAY I found this place and what limerence was I told my wife. I didn’t hide this, and I hope I didn’t sound like I was making limerence an excuse for my behavior. I just wanted her to try and understand what I was going through. And I know that is no more easier than for her to explain what it is like to live day to day with bi-polar to someone that’s never experienced it.
I don’t expect her to forgive, much less forget. I’ll carry the weight of what I did to my grave if I have to. I’m not entirely sure what I expect of her in regards to the limerence. But she did make me corn dogs last night, with just the perfect amount of mustard. 👌 So maybe there is hope still.
Good stuff up there Hamlet.. 👆🏻😁
The guilt stuff especially.
Good to read you have a grip on your situation it seems like. Perhaps if I would have worked more on myself, I wouldn’t be divorced today..
To Hamlet:
If the LO problem was simple, none of us would be here.
I mentioned above that I felt exasperated when a friend of mine, age 78, said “Just forget about LO!” You’d think by 78, she would know that such things are not so easy to do. Then she said, “Well, I drove past his house, and I saw him standing outside. He doesn’t look like anything special to me!” Again, very odd for someone with that many years of wisdom.
I have heard that same story about the White Bear, except I heard it told as a Pink Elephant.
Yeah, I read the original published paper (I always wondered why they didn’t just say Polar Bear?) who knows when and later saw the Pink Elephant being used in some general articles or FB posts. When I grew up “seeing pink elephants” was a common euphemism for being drunk on TV comedies, movies, etc. So I didn’t understand how the animals got switched and if the person doing it knew the original association with pink elephants. Who knows? Pick your animal of choice. 😊
I too am old enough to remember the relationship between pink elephants and being under the influence.
There used to be a bar near my house called the Pink Elephant.
Regardless, the more someone tells you not to think of something, the more it persists.
Thank you for telling me about the White Bear. I was not aware that was the original story.
Also my son with autism has PTSD, so does my war veteran brother. When it was first mentioned that my son had PTSD, I was still of the mindset that PTSD came to those who experienced war. Aside: there is an interpretation of The Odyssey that Ulysses has PTSD and that’s why he can’t reintegrate back into society, i.e. go home until he rediscovers himself. Also, there is a good book about The Iliad and Vietnam veterans, called Achilles in Vietnam. Also The Body Keeps the Score is another excellent book (longer though). And papers done on how early train wrecks caused what we now know as PTSD in the survivors but had no clue about them. Sorry for the aside …
That’s when I would tell my son to, “Just stop thinking about xxx”. Of course I never self reflected on how that didn’t work on myself. HA! and eventually when that doesn’t work you go on a journey so to speak of discovery.
To be fair to your friend, and not saying you don’t know this, but I still catch myself doing the simple, why can’t you just… All this stuff that we talk about here, everyday it’s still something I’m working on.
To Hamlet:
I am working on it too. I have had enough therapy that I can usually catch myself.
But I need to constantly monitor my words. My goal with people is to at least not make things worse, if I am not able to help.
Not sure if I am reaching that goal, but I do try.
I just want to express my gratitude to the people here who have helped me.
Sometimes I feel I wouldn’t make it without this board.
Technically, I know that isn’t true. But it FEELS true.
I feel especially shaky in the mornings, I guess due to low serotonin?
I often dream about LO and it can be very disturbing.
When I wake up scared, I know I can come here and pull myself back together.
This thread topic of narcissism is an especially good one for me. I seem to be attracted to narcissistic men who treat me horribly. This is why I resolved not to date after my divorce in 2002.
Of course I didn’t know about limerence then.
As Gilda Radner used to say, “It’s always something.”
Hi Norma,
„I feel especially shaky in the mornings, I guess due to low serotonin?“
This could have several reasons, blood sugar coming to my mind first, second, maybe side effects of some medication you take? How about mention this to your doctor next time and let them check your blood for Vitalun D, B , iron, thyroid etc. ?
It sounds also a bit as if the sleep before the morning is the issue. Digestion issues can cause nightmares, and who’s better suited to star in them than your LO;)
I just think you don’t have to just take this bad morning feeling as something you have to endure. Maybe there’s an issue behind it that‘s easily to change, for example having a glass of juice on your bedside table if it’s low sugar etc.
All the best, Norma, hope you sleep and wake better tomorrow.
To Mila:
Thank you for your response. I have just been tested six ways from Sunday by my internist. All they found was a slightly inflamed valve in my liver which requires no treatment.
So of course that is a relief. But it still doesn’t answer many questions, does it? I love getting good test results, but it’s a mixed blessing, because it rules something out, but still does not offer a solution.
Hi Norma,
But something that is inflamed can very well cause some disturbance in the routine of the body, even if it’s not something serious, can’t it?
How about trying some basic stuff like no screens before sleeping, not eating too heavy too late, getting enough exercise and sunlight during day etc? Or preparing something nice for the morning at the evening before, so you can immediately think of that upon waking- overnight oats for example, or buying nice bakery stuff for breakfast, or a tea you really like..
I also just had a phase where I instantly felt bad upon waking up, a dread to get out of bed, a fatigue etc. At some point I realized it got immediately better when I just got up and moved a bit. Lying around and trying to avoid getting up didn’t help, only getting up helped. I don’t know at all if that helps you, probably not, and also I wasn’t shaky, just feeling anxious and unmotivated.
All the best Norma!
To Mila:
I also feel better once I get up and move around.
I don’t have a problem with getting out of bed. I am pretty motivated to get moving.
When I said “shaky,” I meant emotionally shaky, not literally physically shaky.
Once I get up, eat breakfast, and go about my day, it gets better.
But that initial feeling upon waking reminds me of something F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about “the dark night of the soul.”
He was an alcoholic and tragically died very young. But I imagine he was very troubled.
ND,
Has anyone mentioned sleep apnea? It’s more common among men but women can experience it.
Sleep apnea can cause a whole bunch of things they can’t explain.
To L.E.:
Good thought. I am looking into it.
LO texted me last night. He’s at a furniture show on the other side of the country.
I have been mulling over how different he is from the person I invented in my head.
I have also been comparing him to my ex-husband, and as bad as he was, I think LO is worse. LO has a much more irritable temperament than my ex did. He’s also a lot flakier.
Oddly, they both really like The Grinch.
My decision not to date after my divorce was a good one, because I obviously have terrible taste in men. I am really drawn to narcissistic people, who are charming in the beginning, and then become horrible.
…or they were horrible all along, just disguised by a mask of superficial charm.
There are good men out there though.
My broad rule is to not be taken in by those who come across as very confident.
Anyway, it seems you have had a productive mulling over session. Don’t spend too much time mulling over him though! 😀
To Imho:
Yes, I try to follow the Goldilocks Rule in all things. Not too much, not too little.
I tend to be drawn to people who are overly confident, because I am unsure of myself.
LO was very confident when he put a downpayment on a house on the other side of the country, despite not having the money to close escrow.
And I at least have SOME awareness, because I was looking at him while he was gushing over this project, thinking, “How on earth is he going to pull this off?” I didn’t say that, but I did ask him, gently, about the time frame.
It’s always my goal to not be overly blunt or unnecessarily cruel.
So I asked him what about his current house selling? And he bizarrely replied, “Oh, there’s plenty of time.” And I am thinking, no, there is not, Dude. You’re a brilliant man, but you are being reckless and maybe even stupid.
So I stood on the sidelines and watched the trainwreck. Oddly, he COULD have pulled it off, except for a couple of careless mistakes on the part of his brother and his loan broker.
Maybe he had a right to be confident, but I wouldn’t be caught dead trying to pull off such a risky plan. And even though I think he was an idiot to try it, there is still something appealing about someone who has that much confidence.
So I guess I can’t change my nature, but at least I am more mindful.
“I tend to be drawn to people who are overly confident, because I am unsure of myself.”
For me, aside from the highs, limerence actually erodes surety of oneself.
So for me, it was important to recognise that and consider ways to stem it from deteriorating further and look at things that can better my self identity, and work on my strengths and virtues.
its not easy but that is where the effort needs to be directed to