Note: this is an updated version of a previous post
Limerence can be well described as an altered state of mind. Once the infatuation for someone new sets in, it changes your perceptions, your priorities, and your ability to regulate your own emotions. This can often be experienced as feeling as though your ordinary life has been struck by a powerful external force.
There are lots of fairy tale representations of this phenomenon – Cupid’s arrow, potions of enchantment, True Love – that help to cement the idea of a magical or spiritual driving force for infatuation with a particular person.
The power of this feeling is captured in some of the hackneyed phrases that people use to try and explain their apparently irrational behaviour:
I don’t know what came over me
I just couldn’t resist
You can’t help who you fall in love with
That sense of a being struck by an irresistible external force can also cause some limerents to feel as though they are powerless – that their limerent object is in charge of their fate, and that they are essentially robbed of their agency. Helpless. Blameless. A victim of love.
For the spouse of someone who has fallen into limerence with someone outside the marriage, the question of blame also seems very important. If your partner has betrayed you, it makes a difference if they were the pursuer or the pursued. Did they actively seek out an affair partner, or were they just too weak to resist the determined seduction of a mate-poaching outsider?
Frankly, in many cases, the behaviour of an LO can reinforce that sense of special connection. Perhaps they encourage emotional intimacy, flirt outrageously, enjoy the attention, or just seem to radiate an aura of attractiveness that seems uncanny. Despite wanting to resist, limerents find themselves baffled by their inability to stay strong when LO turns on the charm. They dance as though bewitched.
So, how much blame must LOs bear for the development of limerence? Should flirts bear some responsibility for misleading hapless limerents? Is there some truth to the idea that limerents are powerless to resist a predatory LO’s powers of enchantment? Just how culpable are LOs in feeding the mania?
Let’s work through some case studies to figure this out.
1. The unknowing LO
One of the most powerful counter-arguments to the idea that an LO bears some blame for the emergence of limerence, is the existence of oblivious LOs. A good example is discussed (at possibly a little too much length, if I’m honest) in Tennov’s book. It involves a young man, Fred, who was studying abroad in France for a short period, and became limerent for Laura, the receptionist of the hostel in which he was staying. It is clear from Fred’s diary entries that the “relationship” between them was superficial, business-like, and (as he knew himself in lucid moments) nothing more than the friendly acquaintance that would be expected for someone in Laura’s position.
This case is a clear cut example of Laura becoming an LO simply because she was there. Fred “needed” a limerence experience for some reason of his own, and it grew from an entirely one-sided fantasy played out in his head. His only explanation for the triggering of limerence was a moment of chance closeness (when helping her deal with an overfed fire), followed by a glance when paying his bill:
It was the way she looked at me that did it
Really, Laura did nothing to encourage him – and a fair amount to discourage him – and yet he succumbed to limerence regardless. In this sort of scenario, it is hard to think of anything that the LO could be blamed for.
2. The narcissist LO
At the other end of the scale, we have the narcissist LO. They see the limerent as a source of narcissistic supply, and delight in keeping them hanging on, validating their own wonderfulness. In these cases there seems plenty of blame for the LO; they may even have initiated the initial glimmer, fanned it into a flame, and then cultivated an attachment on their own terms. Even worse, because these LOs are not emotionally invested themselves, they can run hot and cold with the limerent, depending on what other entertainment they have in their lives.
If they are bored, their pet limerent will be stroked and cajoled and given attention. If they have spied another shiny object they want, then the limerent is an irritation and treated disdainfully or ignored. This feeds the uncertainty engine of limerence.
This is a scenario in which vulnerable limerents can reasonably feel they have been treated unfairly. Once the pattern of behaviour is recognised, however, it is then up to the limerent as to whether they decide to continue the dance.
3. The mutually-limerent LO
This is a tricky one. If both limerents are single, then Happy Days. But if they are not both available, then a mutually destructive spiral of behaviour can unfold where they oscillate between drawing together and then drawing back. It is also likely that the strength of the limerence will vary – both between the two, and over time – and so one can be pulling when the other is pushing, and that unsettles both, and so the unhealthy tug of war continues. In the thick of an episode like this, the idea of apportioning blame is a bit redundant: both participants are both instigator and sufferer, and whoever is most blameworthy can vary day by day.
4. The ambivalent LO
The preceding extreme cases are easy to understand and mentally organise. However, to judge from my inbox, far commoner is a situation where the LO is ambivalent, or hard to “read”, or non-committal in one way or another. Here we are on more middling ground. Sometimes, the limerent feels encouraged by something LO says or does:
he always kisses me goodbye, and holds on tight
she says that I understand her better than any other man she has ever known
But sometimes they are discouraged:
he says that it’s complicated at the moment, and he’s sorry if he led me on
she gave me a hug, but whispered ‘you should stay away from me’ in my ear
It often seems as though the LO values the company of the limerent, and seeks their emotional support. Perhaps they are flattered by the attention, but not interested romantically. Perhaps they are non-limerent, and so operating from a completely different set of assumptions about what friendship and love are like. Perhaps they are embarrassed by the attention, but also very shy or tender-hearted and can’t bear the thought of hurting the limerent’s feelings by rejecting them bluntly. Perhaps they just want to be friends and are irritated by the limerent’s emotional incontinence. Whatever the real situation, it becomes very difficult to disentangle who said what or did what or led whom on.
Ironically, this incredibly common and complicated and confusing situation, clarifies everything.
Yes, LOs may sometimes be “getting something” from the limerent in a way that is selfish and transactional, but here’s the thing: so is the limerent. Without fail – by definition – the limerent is getting an astonishingly powerful emotional high from the company of the LO. And we limerents very often don’t ask nicely, or behave transparently, or admit that our friendship is not really just a friendship to us. We keep going back day after day to get our happy fix. We share intimacies, because it lights up our reward pathways and makes life seem more vital, more colourful and more exhilarating. We hang around waiting for the “I feel safe with you” comments, because of the thrill that gives us.
So, ultimately it comes down to this: we can hardly blame our self-centred or ambivalent LOs for sometimes using us for their own emotional needs, because that’s exactly what we are doing to them. Much healthier than trying to tally blame and convince ourselves that they are more in the wrong than we are, is to focus on what we are doing, what choices we are making, and what we want to do next. We have to decide who’s in control of our lives.
From the perspective of an unhappy limerent, it doesn’t matter how much to blame LO is: you have to decide if you are going to let it continue. They could be the biggest flirt in the world, or give you more mixed signals than a mis-wired telephone exchange, but all you have to decide is: do you want to leave them in charge of your fate? Are you willing to subordinate your life to an asymmetrical relationship? Or do you want to take responsibility for your conduct, and accept that they will behave as they choose?
A key step in managing limerence is accepting that this sense of an “external force” is an illusion. Limerence arises from within you, and you are providing the fertile soil of imagination in which it grows.
Nobody ever got over limerence by proving to themselves that it was all LO’s fault. Taking charge of yourself is the path to freedom.
Another really interesting post. Thank you. This blog is so helpful.
I’ve no idea whether my LO was mutual or ambivalent, but for the sake of the last remaining shreds of my sanity, I’m going with him being ambivalent. He was (note use of past tense – over 3 weeks NC now!) always very friendly to all colleagues and customers and going out of his way to help someone was not uncommon, so I had convinced myself that I was not special to him and it was all in my head.
If it’s all in my head then only I’m to blame. If it’s only me to blame, then only I can free myself of it. I’m getting there. Just wish my husband didn’t keep randomly asking questions about LO and what the attraction was. I understand why he feels he needs to know, and I do answer as truthfully yet tactfully as I can, but it then seems to trigger the return of some of the limerent fantasies which I know are unhelpful.
Thank you for your support as well. Made it back from holiday without making any contact with LO or killing anyone so will put that down as a success.
No luck on the souvenir frogs lips, so chocolate donkey droppings anyone? 😂
Welcome back Sophie, and congrats on both the 3 week NC and the successful non-lethal holiday!
Chocolate donkey droppings do sound delightful, but I think I will pass, thanks…
Ok so here’s the thing that I do not understand, why are you, and others, Dr. L, so bent against the idea that there is something significant, and perhaps spiritual or energetic guiding these attractions. That the glimmer and subsequent developments from that couldn’t be a very powerful and important piece for self development? Everyone we meet and connect with is there for a reason, sometimes they are readily apparent and other times not so much. But there is always some way that we can grow and learn from connection. Neuroscience has progressed leaps and bounds in the last twenty years but twenty years from now we will look at this point in history as being akin to the dark ages. Why are you and others so intent on crafting a narrative that frames the experience of limerance as a sort of failure of character and mind instead of a wonder filled and emotionally exciting time of great personal development? I’ve been caught up in a situation of mutual limerance for entirely too long, I explained it some on a different post. They consistently pushed for space in my life and have gone so far as to state that they believe they should have special status, despite the fact that they have a SO. Yet they continue to maintain their relationship with their SO as well as the one they have with me. They have years in with their SO, I am single. I don’t feel guilt, shame, or any sense of obligation to their SO. I enjoy them, they enjoy me and has the nature of our relationship become inappropriate to varying degrees- including physical and emotional- absolutely. I don’t expect them to leave their SO, and told them that I think they are garbage as a SO and that if they were my SO instead of my LO and had an extra me on the side I would be done, I wouldn’t tolerate it. But honestly you only meet so many people in this life who truly light your world up like the Fourth of July, it seems foolish to stick with a SO and not follow the LO to the natural end of that LE. It would seem to me that this obsession with the idea that limerance is something to be controlled is a fear based, kind of puritanical and archaic way of looking at relationships. Living a life without wonder and magic feels sad, hollow and disappointing to me. And really I very sincerely believe that there is some significant reason why that person glimmers.
And for clarification I haven’t had sex with this person, so I feel completely free of any sort of culpability in their choice to maintain an ongoing emotional affair and highly physically affectionate relationship with me. We snuggle and kiss but no intercourse. And I do see the hypocrisy of how I would feel if I were their SO, but I owe it to myself to enjoy them until they are gone. My friends dislike this person and don’t approve of the situation, their SO deals with it and doesn’t know the full extent of the situation. I really do think that there is something that is energetic, spiritual and significant that creates the draw that is limerance. And not everyone you fall for is someone you should actually date, have sex with or get close to but why not just enjoy them and have fun with it. YOLO
That’s a really important question, LifeisTricky. I think it probably warrants its own post, as (apart from the Twin Flames ones) I don’t think I’ve ever tackled it directly.
Briefly, there are a few reasons why I see limerence as a physical thing – it fits the altered mental state you’d predict from the neuroscience, it makes you behave in similar ways to other addicts, it generally sets in most deeply when an “honest” romantic connection is frustrated, and the feeling of specialness goes away once time or circumstances have caused it the limerence to fade.
I’ll ponder the ideas for a bit, and get writing.
Thanks!
Dr L
” Made it back from holiday without making any contact with LO or killing anyone so will put that down as a success.”
I concur! 3 weeks is a great start and I hope that as time passes not only does he fade but you’re able to find more joy in the life you have.
” Just wish my husband didn’t keep randomly asking questions about LO and what the attraction was. I understand why he feels he needs to know, and I do answer as truthfully yet tactfully as I can, but it then seems to trigger the return of some of the limerent fantasies which I know are unhelpful.”
Speaking from the perspective of the spouse of the limerent, his ego may have taken a mighty wallop and he is now reflecting upon your relationship and wondering if it’s worth continuing. It’s to be expected. He may feel duped, used, shortchanged and possibly lesser-than Mr. Sparkles. Witnessing you moping and mulling over someone outside of the marriage isn’t doing wonders for him either. Or maybe it’s something else entirely.
To be honest, it’s when a spouse no longer asks and suddenly you realize they aren’t discussing much of anything with you that you need to be worried, rather than relieved.
“No luck on the souvenir frogs lips, so chocolate donkey droppings anyone?”
I’ll give them a try. Dark chocolate or milk chocolate?
As an adult with agency, the limerent is always responsible for their actions.
What’s common in all the types above is they fit the limerent’s profile and they afford an opportunity to the limerent. Type 1 limerents put the “O” in LO. Someone is an LO by nature of their very existence. I knew a Type 1 limerent in college.
With LO #4, I got the glimmer pretty early in the acquaintance. I tested the boundary early on. I expected she’d shut me down. Not only did she not shut me down, she responded to what I said. I had the picture in my head of us being on the opposite side of a chain link fence. Maybe this is ego on my part, but I think she was aware that what was going between us was more than superficial. Whether it was a conscious decision or not, it seemed like we had at least an implicit understanding of the boundaries and we respected them.
When she sent the email that said she’d been assaulted and was ending the relationship, my first thought was, “F–k, I don’t need this.” I’d seen this twice before and I had this feeling things would get worse before they got better. I was in a therapist’s office with the email 2 weeks later because I thought I was overreacting and this shouldn’t be a problem,. The therapist’s response was, “A woman 2000 miles away, whom you’ve never met, sends you this and you’re in my office. Yeah, there’s a problem.” I asked a married co-worker if she’d be concerned if a casual acquaintance of her husband’s had told him that. She said, “Hell, yes, I’d be concerned. She probably shouldn’t be confiding in any man about this but to do it with a married one is really inappropriate. It’s too easy for that to go sideways.” She’s a smart woman.
A week or two later, she started reaching out to me. I swear I could feel her in the room even though she was 2000 miles away. And, I liked it. There was no fairy tale ending to this. It was only a question of getting out alive while causing the least amount of pain to anybody. I didn’t want to hurt my wife, I didn’t want to hurt LO #4, and, if possible, I didn’t want to hurt myself. If things went south, LO #4 was going under the bus. She’d never know. It wasn’t going to excuse my actions, it might help to mitigate the consequences. I anticipated my wife’s questions and had answers in the can. And, how close it came to going south was my wife picking up my flashing cell phone one morning and putting it down without opening it.
I thought she’d shut me down after I disclosed. She allowed me the opportunity to return. But the genie was out of the bottle. I pushed her pretty hard on some things. We went back and forth (Type 3). I accused her of having a dismissive style and compared her directly to LO #2. I don’t think she liked that. When she came out of the woodwork after 3 months of NC, I told her I didn’t know what was worse, thinking she ignored me or knowing she didn’t think she could trust me.
I think there was something more than a “friendly online relationship” but I can’t blame her for what happened.
Thank you for another insightful post. And thanks for all the contributors for always providing a lot of interesting discussion.
Heh… emotional incontinence – delightfully apt turn of phrase.
Excellent classifications, thank you! But I think the definition of ambivalence is a little too broad. I would split it into two categories: (1) LOs who flat-out reject the limerent and don’t want their attention, and (2) LOs who give mixed or hard-to-read signals. The first I would call ambivalent; the latter, noncommittal.
Thank you for starting this blog, by the way. It’s been very helpful to me during my umpteenth LE.
In my mid 60s. Never experienced anything like this before.
Knew LO in a professional capacitu 20 years previously. He appeared kind, caring and very professional. I knew he was marriedand had no designs on him but really liked him.
Roll on 20 years I meet him in a non professional context.
After recognising each other and briefly catching up. He becomes very forward in his body. Very seductive and ultimately (without touching)
out of order. I chalkenge him asking what is happening but due to previous trust am slow to walk away.
Over the next week I seem to develop both limerence and confusion about his behaviour. This carries on for nearly a year and I feel like I am just getting through it when I meet hinm again.
He does not speak but goes atraight into the body language. I am more wary this time and feel angry at him.
.. but then the limerance and the confusion starts all over again.
I am just about through it but dread seeing him ever again.
Thanks for letting me share.
Hi She. Thanks for sharing.
That’s a curious story, and interesting. That you were able to recognise the inappropriate behaviour, but also felt it triggering limerence in you. Like real-time “limerence for a bad LO” in action.
Hope you are able to stay strong, and that you don’t have to meet him again…
It took a lot of searching on the internet to be able to recognise the limerance… so thank you for articles like this one.
I have found this so useful in explaining to myself what had seemed inexplicable. In my early 50s I met again, by what seemed like a series of near-incredible coincidences, a girl I had known 25 years before. We had been really good friends, separated by distance, but writing regularly and meeting three or four times a year. It was entirely platonic, but we really enjoyed one another’s company. We lost contact when she got married, and I myself married some 15 months later. There was no ‘grieving’ at that time.
When we made contact again we were living in the same city, and I could see no point in not meeting. My original idea was that all four of us should meet up (marriages remained intact) but this did not happen, mainly because the husband of E (as I shall call her) was not at all happy about the situation (I only found out about this later). So, E and I met, and got on really well, just as before, and she invited us to her 50th birthday party two days later. The only slightly dissonant note was down to the fact that I seemed unduly emotional about the whole thing…
We duly went to the party, and it was all too clear that E’s husband was far from happy (I did ask several times whether he was happy about the situation but was assured that he was!). I was surprisingly, I thought, distressed by the fear that E and I would not meet again.
In fact we did, for she came to work on the same business park as me. And we simply picked up again. But, perhaps I am just too nice a person, I was not happy, as I felt that I was going behind her husband’s back. (In case you hadn’t realised, this was still a platonic friendship.) But, as the end of the year approached, I started to behave towards my SO in ways that have been mentioned elsewhere – and she wrote a letter to E’s sister-in-law, who had been instrumental in enabling E and I to meet again. I don’t know whether the letter was misconstrued or not – but the outcome was that E wanted nothing more to do with me. This was the second rejection, the rejection by her husband being the first, and I was distraught. And to make things worse I felt that my SO was also rejecting me – and I ended up contemplating suicide.
I came back from the brink, and taking my courage in both hands made contact with E again. Our relationship was not quite the same thereafter, but we did have some brief, happy moments. And then she changed her job, and moved into the centre of town. She had indicated, I think, though my memory is no longer clear, that we could not meet again – but stubbornly I did ring her at home (she worked part-time) and she always seemed pleased to hear from me. Until, that is, I crossed the line, probably in criticising her husband, and that brought the threat that if I did not desist she would involve the police. Another rejection! To be honest, I never thought she would do this – but she did, and I had the embarrassment of an Officer calling at my house shortly before Christmas. Luckily, no-one was in…
I had to sign a document at the Station to say I would not contact E again, and I believe that I did do this. I also went into therapy, but we did not get to the bottom of things – though my therapist did seem to think that my problems stemmed from a childhood trauma, which I now believe to be the case. But then in 2013, E and her husband having both retired, they moved away, back to where they had come from, and went to live in the house that his parents had lived in.
This is where what my SO refers to as ‘stalking’ began. Using only search engines, and my knowledge of their interests (I will have nothing to do with social media) I was able to find the postal address, phone number, and E’s e-mail address. These were just insurance, and I hoped not to use them.
But, during lockdown, I cracked under the strain. (I should perhaps mention at this point that I suffer from SAD, and most of the horrible things in my life have happened around the shortest days of the year. I take anti-depressants, easing right off in the summer, but sometimes fail to up the dosage early enough.). I rang E, but she put the phone down on me. In desperation, I contacted her Vicar (she is very involved with the Church, whilst I am an atheist) and steeled myself to ask him to intervene, saying that I did not know what else to do. He did speak to E and her husband, but their response was that they wanted nothing to do with me (another rejection!). I then sent him a much longer account of all that had happened, though omitting ‘limerence’ as I had never heard of it – and asking for their forgiveness for the things I had done which were not within my power to stop. This time, I got that forgiveness – but was told there could be no contact.
I imagine you will say that this is for the best, but I do wonder whether here there might be some exceptional circumstances:
A. I did not have any designs on E – she and I are both happily married. She is more tactile than my SO or myself, but only in a very innocent way;
B. Although E is a lot of fun, and we spark off one another, I cannot ever envisage being with her. The thought of every Sunday morning at Church is anathema!
C. We are now more than 200 miles apart (which is a lot more than when we were young) so there is no reason why we should meet by chance.
I feel I have been battered by rejection, and would like to be able to take back some measure of control. I would like to do this via FaceTime or Zoom, having a long heart to heart, and to then be able to say: “OK. I understand your feelings, but in the circumstances I think we could perhaps meet like this, say, four times a year, gradually reducing. No harm would come from this.”
You will probably think this is completely crazy, and that it is the last thing I should do. Your thoughts?
By the way, the childhood trauma, I am pretty sure, occurred when I was about 5. I contracted a form of meningitis and was sent to an isolation hospital about 50 miles away. I don’t know how long I was there, but it seemed an eternity! I cried a lot, and was apparently told by a Matron that if I didn’t stop crying I would be sent to the Baby Ward -and never go home! My father, I understand, visited me after work, but I was usually asleep by the time he arrived (I have one vague recollection of him being there).
And then, when I got home, I had a baby sister! And my mother, who always doted on babies, would have given her attention to my sister rather than to me, even though I was most probably even more in need of it than she was. That, I think, was the childhood trauma of rejection…
“Despite wanting to resist, limerents find themselves baffled by their own helplessness when LO turns on the charm and makes them dance as though bewitched.”
“Is there some truth to the idea that limerents are powerless to resist a predatory LO’s powers of enchantment?”
“Powers of enchantment” is such an apt phrase when discussing limerence. It really does seem like LOs possess intrinsic powers of enchantment, although they must seem dreary and uninspiring to the bulk of people they encounter…
I think we dance like puppets because we so desperately want MORE … just MORE of whatever LO represents or is supposedly bringing to the table.
I think I struggled to move past my worst LE because, honestly, all four of the above scenarios could have fit the bill. It was “choose your own adventure”. He could have ambivalent. He could have been narcissistic. He could have been oblivious. He could have been an innocent goodie and just as easily he could have been a manipulative baddie. How can I judge someone I can’t comprehend?
I had no ability to read the man or his actions whatsoever. And yet, because I’m presumably the only person in his life getting enchanted by him as far as I know, the problem (and the solution) clearly still lie within me.
“The fact was that despite himself, without knowing why or how it had happened and very much against his better judgement, he had fallen hopelessly in love. He had fallen as if into some deep and muddy hole. By nature he was a delicate and sensitive soul. He had had ideals and dreamed of an exquisite and passionate affair. And now he had fallen for this little cricket of a creature. She was as stupid as every other woman and not even pretty to make up for it. Skinny and foul-tempered, she had taken possession of him entirely from tip to toe, body and soul. He had fallen under the omnipotent and mysterious spell of the female. He was overwhelmed by this colossal force of unknown origin, the demon in the flesh capable of hurling the most rational man in the world at the feet of a worthless harlot. There was no way he could explain its fatal and total power.”
– Guy de Maupassant, Femme Fatale
Ok, so you may have to tweak the genders a little.
I like Guy de Maupassant.
@Limerent Emeritus.
M. de Maupassant certainly can write, judging from that quote. But his description of the hopefully fictional lady in question … ouch! Just a tad on the cruel side, no? I would struggle to read this book unless the twist in the tale is femme fatale has some amazing redeeming qualities, too.
It sounds like good looks had no bearing on this infatuation, only personality. And it seems the personality wasn’t really admirable. Maybe the speaker repressed some unpalatable aspects of his own shadow until he found them again embodied by his lady love … and voila! … instant attraction? That’s my best attempt at playing armchair psychologist.
I’m really starting to think limerence, for some people, might be about striving to integrate repressed or little-developed aspects of one’s own personality. Freedom comes maybe when we admit we share most or all of our LO’s dodgy traits? So we can’t really be annoyed by LO’s dodgy traits because we’re only annoyed at something already buried in our own psyches? Is my LO arrogant, for example? Yeah, maybe I’m arrogant, too.
Maybe the speaker, who’s described as a “sensitive and delicate soul” has gone a little too far in the sensitive and delicate direction and needs to come back to aspects of living he’s neglected e.g. the practical, the sensual, the commonplace, the less-than-sublime. And his LO is just the bolt of lightning he needs to bring him back to reality? But he needs to integrate the exquisite and the deplorable in himself to be a whole human being?
Literary analysis is fun. 😛
Misogynists are the most likely to be outraged by their own infatuation. How dare a mere woman have such control over their emotions?
They also tend to be the nastiest when rejected.
Vonnegut, Twain, and de Maupassant are my three favorite authors. They all have insight into different facets of human nature and a good portion of their works are short stories, my favorite genre. Of the three, only de Maupassant touches on affairs of the heart.
I read “Boule de Suif” in college and it stuck with me. The prof of that class turned me on to all three authors.
tl/dr
De Maupassant grew up well-off and well-connected. His mother legally separated from his father for alleged physical abuse. He could be the poster child for a Parisian libertine of the mid-1800s. He attempted suicide and at age 42, died in an asylum of syphilis.
Considering his age, the guy had to be a sponge as a child and young adult. His prose can be plain and harsh, but he’s on another level. He probably saw through people like they were glass.
In Ch 18 of “Bel Ami,” the description of du Roy beating Clotilde is so graphic, my bet is he saw his father beat his mother. If you Google it, what you get is the watered down version. My 1915 copy is far more graphic.
When LO #4 told me of her alleged assault it reminded me of “Bel Ami.” She was light on the details of the actual assault but her description of what her BF did after could have been taken from the book.
I sent LO #4 a link to another of his works and told her I thought if anyone could appreciate it, she could. She never responded to that.
True story:
I was on a business trip. I stopped at a gastropub and sat at the bar. The bartender was an attractive young woman probably mid-30s. I was the only customer in the place at the time. There was a book on the back of the bar. I asked what she was reading. It was an anthology of something. She said she was a single mom, taking classes at the community college.
We began discussing literature. I was well into the 10 volume set of de Maupassant’s works and started telling her about it. She said, “Oh, my God! You’re giving me goosebumps!” She showed me her arms and there were goosebumps. I think that she was the only woman to actually ever say those words to me.
I only knew her first name but when I got back to the hotel, I bought her a collection of his work and sent it to her at the bar. I don’t know if she ever received it.
“Literary analysis is fun. 😛”
Definitely. Sometimes, it hits so close to home that you almost can’t stand it. The last pages of James Joyces, “The Dead” are like that.
“Gabriel felt humiliated by the failure of his irony and by the evocation of this figure from the dead, a boy in the gasworks. While he had been full of memories of their secret life together, full of tenderness and joy and desire, she had been comparing him in her mind with another. A shameful consciousness of his own person assailed him…
Gabriel, leaning on his elbow, looked for a few moments unresentfully on her tangled hair and half-open mouth, listening to her deep-drawn breath. So she had had that romance in her life: a man had died for her sake. It hardly pained him now to think how poor a part he, her husband, had played in her life. He watched her while she slept, as though he and she had never lived together as man and wife. His curious eyes rested long upon her face and on her hair: and, as he thought of what she must have been then, in that time of her first girlish beauty, a strange, friendly pity for her entered his soul. ” – http://www.online-literature.com/james_joyce/958/
It’s going to sound totally weird but I never want my wife to ever come close to having that thought about me. She knows there was someone before her and has said she felt like she was second choice. If things had worked out between LO #2 and I two years earlier, my wife wouldn’t have the opportunity to feel that way.
That went sideways…
I have questions so I hope that someone is still monitoring this site.
I just discovered limerence yesterday. It has made so much fall into place but I’m not entirely sure what’s going on with me.
I always start out as the LO. For example, right now, I’m pretty sure I’m an LO for someone. I’m a client of his and see him about 4 times a week. He’s married with kids. Initially I was confused by his flirtiness. I’m a decade older and a single mum. His wife and kids come to his work sometimes. He constantly notices changes in my hairstyle and comments about it in front of others (not his wife). He has arranged for us to be alone for a while each time I go in. Nothing intimate has happened. Just a lot of flirty looks and sometimes he looks at me with absolute adoration. Initially I was resistant because I felt he was emotionally immature but I’m the kind of person who laughs and jokes a lot. With everyone. And he wasn’t making clear declarations so I had no idea how to address them (and knew nothing about limerence) and being a client put me in an even more awkward situation. I really love going to this place and I like him. I’ve been in this situation before. Many times. There’s never any actual romance. Just a lot of tension that can last a long time, especially in the case where I forged a friendship with him. It exploded after 18 years.
I suppose my response comes across as ambivalent but I also end up obsessing. I obsess more over what on earth I should do and how they’re expecting me to respond because I never feel completely sure they really want anything from me. In the case where they’ve told me how they feel, the intensity of their feelings overwhelms me and I reject them out of fear and convince myself they were just messing with me. I do also develop a kind of limerence of my own but my brain is always still in control so I’m never overt or flirtatious because I know it’s a bad idea. It all takes place in my head.
In the case of what I’m dealing with now, I don’t 100% know he’s limerent. Leaving this place would be awful for me and my child so it’s a big call to go no contact but I would if I thought I’d be the cause of his marriage ending.
How can I know that though? I just wish he’d been professional in the first place because I never had thoughts about him until he persisted for months with me. Now I know about limerence my own thoughts about him have stopped.
Welcome!
Start here: https://livingwithlimerence.com/help-someone-is-limerent-for-me/
It’s an early blog and doesn’t really help all that much. But, it may help you focus.
“I’ve been in this situation before. Many times. There’s never any actual romance. Just a lot of tension that can last a long time, especially in the case where I forged a friendship with him. It exploded after 18 years.”
IMO, there’s where you need to focus.
https://livingwithlimerence.com/cant-we-just-be-friends/
Keep posting!
OK so the 18-year friendship happened with someone that I met in a country we were both living in at the time. It was love at first site for me but I could never admit it to myself because he was a total player. I was completely drawn to him, though. And he was to me. He was incredibly flirty with me and I hated it. It felt like he only knew how to connect with chemistry rather than properly figure out if we were compatible in any way. So I kept trying to drive us toward friendship. We’ve both traveled to see each other in our home countries. We live half a world apart so for more than ten years our communication was via messenger/video chat and emails. For pretty much all of that time at least one of us was in a relationship. It exploded a couple of years ago when neither of us was in a relationship and I couldn’t handle his suggestive comments.
I feel this one relationship was different from all the other cases of limerence, though, because it forced me to grow. Our emails and chats were raw and genuinely caring. I’d say I wasn’t limerent for him during those years but maybe it came back when we were both single. I never knew that the night terrors I had for about 10 years were caused by him (or my confusion and insecurity around the whole thing) until I figured it out when they came back when we were both single again. I realised from obsessive research into our emails and chats over the 18 years that when he stopped flirting with me and/or I was confident in myself, the terrors went away which sparked enormous self growth. I had to love him without any expectation of love in return to be able to love myself and put an end to the terrors. He hasn’t spoken to me for three years nor has he taken any responsibility for his role in what happened. He was furious with me for hiding how I had felt at the start of our friendship even though I knew there was no point because it wouldn’t have worked romantically. To me, this relationship is precisely what a twin flame is. I had no control over my love for him (and it was obsessive) but my brain (and morals) kept winning the fight. No other limerence has felt like this one nor sparked this kind of growth.
*sight (smh)
Cordelia,
If you want to pull the Twin Flame string:
https://livingwithlimerence.com/can-limerence-explain-twin-flames/
https://livingwithlimerence.com/why-limerence-is-a-better-explanation-than-twin-flames/
Limerence can be a pathway to enlightenment. It’s probably not one that someone would willingly choose. But, you can come out of a limerent experience (LE) better than you entered it.
However, you can also come out of one significantly worse.
Focus on facts and remember that you only control what you control. Why an LO says or does anything is presumption and speculation.
It’s not facts that kill you, it’s presumption and speculation.
Not sure why I can’t reply directly to you Limerent Emeritus. I have always been a very scientific, sceptical-type and had never heard of twin flames until I began to research to understand what happened between me and my friend. I agree that limerence could possibly explain what happened between us but I’m not prone to ‘love at first sight’. That’s why it threw me so much.
Because I’m new to all of this limerence business I haven’t really had a chance to figure out if I’ve been limerent with anyone else. I don’t think I have. I think I’ve been an LO and I’ve sensed that and it’s made me nervous. What I obsessed about was how to address it. The flirtation annoys me no end. Nothing says “I’m incredibly insecure, please validate me” more than covert flirtation. I’m a bleeding heart so I don’t want to be rude, but then the flirtation just intensifies. I crave to go out into the world and have people be real with me, you know? Like proper connection.
Cordelia,
“I crave to go out into the world and have people be real with me, you know? Like proper connection.”
I think that’s what most people really want. You’re not asking for the moon here.
In https://livingwithlimerence.com/integrity/, DrL says, “Third, it draws other decent people to you. If you role model integrity (simply by exhibiting it) then people that value the trait will be attracted to you. It is one of the most reliable ways of excluding spivs and players from your life: make it clear from your actions and opinions that you do not cut corners, blur ethics, push boundaries, or lie to get what you want. This also plays out in romantic relationships – avoid the game playing and you will make players uncomfortable, and so cleverly select out the decent people that are worth bonding with.”
Nothing in your post implies that you don’t have integrity. I think what DrL says can be expanded to authenticity and genuineness. For many people, our programming attracts us to unsuitable candidates reinforcing a negative cycle.
I have a few questions:
How old are you?
What do you do for a living?
Are you familiar with Attachment Theory?
Thankfully knowing this helps me act with more integrity. I couldn’t call out a covert flirt before because I didn’t have the confidence to do it. Their flirting made no sense to me and I struggled to understand their attraction to me. Now it does, I know I have to leave the gym. Because he’s unlikely to admit what’s going on for him but I know from experience exactly what is going on. Next comes the constant vilification of his wife and the breakdown of their relationship. I deliberately stood up for his wife the one time he tried to complain to me about her and then steered
conversation away from her after that. I was locked into a contract at that point in time. I’m not now.
He won’t choose no contact so I have to. The no contact part isn’t hard for me. Leaving the gym is. Now I have to figure out how to nip the limerence in the bud before ever reaching this point where I have to move on. It’s happened so many times in my life.
I attract so many different types. If you read my long posts below, you’ll see how I have had declarations of love from all demographics. I think the more ludicrous it is, the more likely they are to confess (students, gay friends etc). When it might not seem so ludicrous or unobtainable, they do the covert flirtation. That’s the sticky area that I had trouble addressing. But I think with some science in my back pocket I can take the emotion out of it and just be very factual when I sense it happening again.
So we met yesterday and he lost his shit. I get it. He had to. But he left me with very few other options. I could’ve just quit without the confrontation but I wanted him to know why I couldn’t stay. I suspect he will just stay in self-preservation mode and not be able to admit to himself what he was doing to me.
But lesson learnt for me. I now understand that it’s almost a power I could hold over someone (and maybe manipulative LOs do intentionally do this) so I need to be very careful who I work and socialize with. I knew right from the very first minute with my trainer that he found me attractive but I thought I could put in boundaries. I was also advised by my psychoanalyst (not psychologist) to just keep going and enjoy the flirtation. So I tried to do that but it just kept getting worse and I knew that if I put the shoe on the other foot I wouldn’t want my husband behaving that way with another woman.
To answer your questions I’m in my 40s, I’ve read a lot about attachment theory and I work in a field with creative and intellectual requirements. You could say I created my own job.
Cordelia,
“To answer your questions I’m in my 40s, I’ve read a lot about attachment theory and I work in a field with creative and intellectual requirements. You could say I created my own job.”
I got nuthin’.
It sounds like you’re a naturally charismatic person. People respond to you. Some people would kill to have that kind of power. And, it is power.
Sometimes, it seems to get away from you. My last LE was something that hit me in the right spot and got away from me.
Keep reading. There’s a lot of good info here. See what relates to you.
Thanks for your responses Emeritus. All of these posts have really helped me put the pieces together. I think I can manage things better now that I’ll be able to read the signs much earlier and know the only response is to remove myself as much as possible.
Cordelia,
“I’ll be able to read the signs much earlier and know the only response is to remove myself as much as possible.”
Is removal the only option?
It sounds like personal interaction is a large part of your career. Maybe you can learn to leverage it to your advantage. Not in the malicious sense, in the growth sense. Learn to wield what you seem to have maliciously and you’d be pretty dangerous.
Now, what I’m going to say is coming from someone with absolutely no credentials. So, take it for what it’s worth.
What I’m getting from your posts is that people are attracted to you. That’s cool! The problem as I read it from your posts, is that you have trouble in gauging their level of interest and what they want from you. Again, just what I get from your posts.
So, bad analogy time. Think of yourself like a castle. You’re self-respect, self-esteem, happiness, etc., are inside the castle. Some castled aren’t stone forts, they’re palaces and people want to see them with no malicious intent. Some people you’re willing to let in, some you’re not.
How do you control access? You set boundaries! In a stereotypical castle, that boundary is a moat. How did they control access? They had a portcullis and a drawbridge that they could raise. A portcullis and keep someone out but it doesn’t allow for the access you want to provide. It’s not easy to walk or ride over a portcullis. Both can be raised and lowered as needed.
Now, IF you’re ADHD and on the spectrum, it might be possible that you don’t see people that approach as threat and can’t decide which or both boundaries to use. Keeping the drawbridge down but lowering the portcullis allows you to interact with someone without letting them in. Raising the drawbridge totally isolates you.
Or, if you’re a Star Trek fan, maybe it’s more of a matter of knowing when to raise the shields.
In this clip, Khan is malicious and uses deception, i.e., he’s in another Federation Starship. By the time Kirk figures it out and responds, it’s almost too late.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4srq5hi0XA – “Star Trek – The Wrath of Khan”
Make any sense?
Limerent Emeritus
Thanks for your response. I totally missed it! I agree I need to figure out how to set boundaries more. I was reading these posts to my analyst this morning when I saw your response. We’ve come up with a plan and I think I’ll definitely be putting in firmer boundaries. There’s definitely a demographic that’s more prone to being limerent with me so I’ll be even more cautious with them. The mistake was definitely trying to put the boundaries in after he’d already breached the castle walls. Lesson learnt!
Thanks for your time and advice 🙂
I’m not sure what you are describing from him equates to limerence. He sounds just like a flirty type person. I say this because having an LO is typically distressing if there are barriers and he does not seem distressed based on what you are describing. What makes you think you are actually an LO and not just a run of the mill crush or attraction?
If you are concerned about his flirting then just call him out on it and tell him you are not comfortable with it?
Nope. I’ve watched him with loads of other women who are all closer in age and very attractive. He jokes around but never in the same way he is with me. If I talk to another man, he inserts himself into the conversation somehow. He gets distant (briefly) if I don’t make an effort to talk to him when I’m there. It is really difficult to call him out on it. What do I say? Stop looking at me like that? Stop making comments on my hairstyle? He has plausible deniability. That’s what’s so frustrating. Recently he said something that was far more overt so I have written to him about that and how uncomfortable I am around his wife (who I have chatted to a few times) because I worry about how she would feel. I only sent it yesterday (after finding out about limerence) because I realised if I am an LO in this situation, I need to put a stop to it. If I’m not, at least he knows I don’t like the way he’s treating me or his wife.
I like that you wrote to him. If he is limerent uncertainty is fuel for him to possibly remain in pursuit of you so removing uncertainty is a nice step on your part to his potential healing. If he is just a flirty guy but not limerent, then at least you put him on notice that his behavior is not OK.
My LO was so oblivious to my flirting that when I disclosed she was shocked. I was shocked that she was shocked. I had not been subtle on more than a few occasions, but my LO is pretty naive. Either that or she is playing 3D chess and I’m playing checkers.
I wish we lived in a world where more open communication was normal in these types of situations without being all weird or taboo.
Hi Call me Cordilia. I think you’re probably more attractive than you realize. That man’s behavior isn’t your fault and his marriage is not your responsibility. Just be a decent person and let him work through his struggles.
I want to share a story with you. I volunteered at an event last weekend where I met a very attractive man. He was competing and I was assisting the judge. Before his turn, he wanted to talk to me. I think he was burning off nervous energy. His eyes were captivating. He has a pleasant personality. I enjoyed talking to him. We met up a few more times and talked about the event, our other hobbies and our families. The last time we spoke, I noticed that my heart rate quickened and my respirations changed. I was giddy. Yikes. I don’t think he picked up on it. I’ve been thinking about that experience. I don’t think that man did anything wrong to cause giddiness in me. I also don’t think he should adjust his behavior. The giddiness is my problem, not his. Does that make sense?
Good luck!
“I think you’re probably more attractive than you realize. ”
haha my psychologist says this to me a lot.
” That man’s behavior isn’t your fault and his marriage is not your responsibility. Just be a decent person and let him work through his struggles.”
Thank you for this.
Miss Lovisa
It’s not a surprise to me a man would get giddy in your presence. I might myself if I ever met you in person.
Reminds me of when we first met in person. We stayed at a friend’s of her’s place before I went to meet her parents the next day. We were going to sleep in the same bed, I asked if it was ok I took my shirt off and she asked if if was ok if she took her pants off. We both just slept in the same bed but I was nervous. I didn’t know what to do. I’d never been in a bed with a woman before. I didn’t know if I should touch or not. I just looked at her while she slept. Can I touch her? Can I not? Such a wonder contemplating touching a woman for the first time. And momma was my first time.
Adam,
“And momma was my first time.”
I had a boyfriend I called “Big Poppa.” It was playful. It was sexual. It was a takeoff on the Notorious B.I.G. song “Big Poppa.” “I love it when you call me Big Poppa.” It was fun.
Is that how you mean “Momma”? Or is it parental?
Lol, that is so sweet, Adam. I don’t know if he felt attracted to me. He was nervous, but he said that he is just a nervous person. I didn’t pick up on any other signs of attraction except that he sought me out multiple times. But I think he was seeking me out because of the job I was doing and not because he was attracted to me. Also, he was nervous to compete and I think talking to me soothed his nerves a little.
Thanks for the compliment!
What a cute story, Adam! My SO and I waited until our wedding night, too. Actually, we waited until the ceremony was over and then we found the first discrete place we could sneak away to. We were like rabbits that day, just sneaking away from the festivities for some long -anticipated fun. I was my SO’s first. I had been with other boys until I committed myself to my God. About a year before I married my SO, I changed my life completely. I quit many vices, including sex. I was celibate for 363 days before my wedding day. I admire young adults who can control that urge because it is intense.
“Is that how you mean “Momma”? Or is it parental?”
Marcia
The more you post the more I like you. Big Poppa is one of the greatest rap songs and Biggie one of the greatest rappers of all time. It still makes me laugh then that half the 90’s kids didn’t even know that was sampled from Isley Brothers’ “Between The Sheets”. Uncultured kids smh.
It’s only momma cause she forbids me to call her “mommy”. If I do that she comes at me swinging. I commented in another blog post here that I married my mother. My wife is a lot like my mother. The “momma” thing comes from being raised with female authority. My father worked and our mother raised us. My mother, by proxy had absolute authority and my father never questioned it. And so I did/do my wife with our boys.
Now the “mommy” part is very much …. well if momma sees this comment I’d better keep it to myself. No need to have an angry woman on your hands right?
Adam,
“The more you post the more I like you.”
🙂
“It still makes me laugh then that half the 90’s kids didn’t even know that was sampled from Isley Brothers’ “Between The Sheets”. Uncultured kids smh.”
Young people have no frame of reference. When Usher first came out, all I could think was: We don’t need him. We have Michael.
“I commented in another blog post here that I married my mother. My wife is a lot like my mother.”
We grew up in much different environments. I never, ever, ever wanted to marry a man like my father. And there is a HUGE chasm between the parental and the sexual. And in my mind … never the twain shall meet. 🙂
” The “momma” thing comes from being raised with female authority. My father worked and our mother raised us. My mother, by proxy had absolute authority and my father never questioned it. And so I did/do my wife with our boys.”
Did you ever watch the sitcom”The Office”? When Stanley brings his daughter to work for the bring-your-daughter-to-work day and thinks the twenty-something Ryan is paying too much attention to his 14-year-old daughter. And goes off on him. “Boy, have you lost your mind, ’cause I’ll help you FIND it?!!” It’s played for laughs because Ryan is really not giving her attention and because Stanley is so otherwise checked out. It’s strange to see him so animated. But that’s the kind of father I wanted.
Adam,
“It’s only momma cause she forbids me to call her “mommy”. If I do that she comes at me swinging. ” And, she’s aiming for your head.
No surprise there. “Mama/Momma” carries an entirely different connotation than mommy.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Momma
“Mama/mommas” are also seen as authority figures; competent, caring, protective and commanding respect. You don’t mess with momma!
“Mommy” carries an entirely different connotation. You call on mommy when you’re sick or skin your knee. You may love mommy but you don’t always respect her.
It’s no wonder your wife takes a swing at you. You dissed her!
“It’s no wonder your wife takes a swing at you. You dissed her!”
I wouldn’t be offended if she called me daddy. Not my thing per say but I am pretty open minded.
On a lighter note:
“Dinosaurs” ran from 1919 – 1994. I loved it! My wife wasn’t as much of a fan. The music on this show is as good as “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.”
Clips of the Day: ” Not the Momma!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNR4hKbSH7I
“I’m the Baby” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MX31NTNrho
Mommy bakes cookies.
Momma whups ass. Maybe yours.
Hi Call me Cordelia, welcome to the site!
Would you feel comfortable sharing a bit more about the situation? I’m curious about what type of professional he is and what service he’s providing. Only if yuo feel comfortable sharing that, but I feel like it might make a difference in terms of what your response could be – for example, I feel like it’s a bit different if he’s some sort of therapist or medical professional where that kind of behavior would be clear violation of professional standards, vs if he’s something like a personal trainer or tutor or something where there might not be quite the same professional code of conduct in play.
Also, have you had much opportunity to observe his interactions with other clients and staff? Is he a flirty guy who acts that way with everyone? Or is it pretty clear he acts differently around you than with anyone else?
Finally, I’m curious about your feelings for him – that wasn’t clear to me from your post. Are you also attracted to him? Do you fantasize about him or anything like that? Are you having to fight with your own feelings in order to stay appropriate? Or are you not really attracted to him and it’s more about how to manage his feelings and enforce boundaries while trying to maintain what’s otherwise a beneficial professional relationship?
Again, welcome to LwL!
Hi Lost in Space
Thanks for responding. He is my personal trainer. It is a specialised gym and a very family-friendly place so my young child comes with me sometimes. It’s incredibly difficult to find somewhere that accommodates us both because trying to get to a gym when I can’t get childcare has thwarted my previous efforts. This is why I’m so frustrated and don’t want to leave. I have planned my life around this place. I do feel that he is still being unprofessional. I’ve taught adults before and I would never behave this way no matter how attracted I was.
He has been with his wife for about 15 years all up and going on his facebook posts from the past they were very loved up until fairly recently. I’d say something has happened in recent history (possibly just the pressure of having young kids) because the posts have changed. This seemed to happen before I joined the gym a few months ago.
I hung back and observed him with other women in the gym and while he may be flirty with some when I’m not around, he definitely isn’t when I’m there (and there are plenty of attractive women closer to his age). I’m pretty sure he doesn’t say things like ‘I never noticed how colourful your eyes are’ to other women.
He’s a good looking guy who is ten years younger than me and I did start to feel slight limerence recently myself but only in response to what I sensed from him. I struggle to focus and definitely feel giddy but more because I’m sensitive to what he’s putting out. I have never liked this kind of attention and it makes me nervous. To illustrate my point – a few years back I bought two pairs of shoes from a cute, young sales guy because he didn’t flirt with me once. We chatted and laughed, but I felt like I was treated like a human, not an ego-validation machine.
I have fantasized but more so to determine how I felt about him and if there was compatibility. He is generally a very well-respected and well-liked guy and I do really like him but I would not be feeling attracted to him or fantasizing if he behaved professionally.
Whose to blame? Outside the manipulative LO it’s always the limerent. LO didn’t ask for my needy and desperate behavior. I did that to her on my own. She didn’t deserve what I did to her. Blaming limerence is like blaming the existence of alcohol, nicotine or gambling for your own addiction. You did this to yourself. She didn’t do anything!
Sorry this ended up being very long and probably rambling but I really value your opinions/advice because I’ve been trying to stop this happening for years…
I’ll fill you all in a little more about me. When I was trying to figure out what caused my night terrors a few years ago (see above posts for what happened), I went through all of the cards, letters, emails etc that I’d received over the years looking for patterns or clues. What I noticed was I had received an awful lot of confessions of love or feelings for me that I had just brushed off (or was in denial about). Many were from students (I taught adults but also a couple from young boys and there’s no way I was ever flirty or inappropriate with them!) but also from female friends and gay friends. I had never discussed any of this with anyone because I felt very uncomfortable and generally just avoided anyone who declared their feelings for me. I remember feeling very uncomfortable that my boss wouldn’t remove one student from my class. I finally talked about all of this to a female friend one night over a few drinks and she told me that she was bisexual (we’d been friends for ten years, she knows I’m open minded, but she’d never disclosed this) and if she wasn’t married, I’d be her ideal partner. I avoid my local coffee shop and my local pharmacy because of two guys that work there. I go out of my way to look for female staff everywhere I go. I have tried to talk to a couple of friends recently and they all tell me I’m lucky to get so much attention. I don’t want attention. I want connection. Attention is fake and empty and incredibly unfulfilling. I feel alone and misunderstood.
After learning about limerence I think I’ve put together a few things. I think the attraction is partially due to my being very mildly on the spectrum and having no time for flirtation but also being confused by it so my response is probably ambivalent. I was shy to the point of being mute as a child. I think I overcame it because I kept getting attention even when I didn’t want it. Being funny helps me control the narrative to an extent. I’m getting attention in a way that feels more like genuine connection if we’re laughing together. It also helps me manage my anxiety. I struggle to address covert flirtation so I drop hints that I’m not interested but continue to be kind. If they tell me straight up how they feel it makes things easier because I can straight up tell them ‘no’. In the meantime, I can get drawn into it and start to fantasize if I can’t just remove myself from the situation. It’s like I know it’s a drug I could take, but I don’t want it. I suspect this might be due to me having ADHD while also being slightly on the spectrum. There’s two very strong pulls in opposite directions within me, but the quiet and shy person wins in the end.
So the problem really exists when it’s someone I wouldn’t consider to be my demographic flirting with me (because in my head it makes no sense) and because from my avoidance they think I’m unobtainable they keep going. I can’t deny it’s flattering in a sense that a good-looking guy who’s much younger than me might want to flirt with me, but ultimately I know it’s meaningless, so if I can’t avoid him I just crack a lot of jokes or start having more meaningful conversations. I did try putting in better boundaries with my trainer and avoided conversations that were meaningful by talking about action movies and power tools but that was also a mistake (apparently I’m fairly equally masculine and feminine and that seems to appeal to some). I suppose now I just have to wait and see how he responds to the email I sent him yesterday. At least I have finally found the courage to address it head on even if it means I have to try and find a new gym.
Any other advice other than hide under a rock for the rest of my life? I did think by my late 40s this would all stop. Isn’t this teenager drama?
Your personality sounds like it is perfect for causing uncertainty. One of the prerequisites for limerence to develop. Which makes you perfect LO material.
I was told fairly recently that I should precede every interaction with ‘you may think you have feelings for me, but you don’t. If I have feelings for you I’ll communicate that clearly’ but I can’t imagine coming out with that with everyone I meet! The person who told me to do that uses it in her professional context because so many patients think they’re in love with her. For me the issue is a day-to-day one. I can’t say that to everyone!
I’m sorry Call me Cordilia, but I think you will have to learn how to manage this problem. Your story makes sense to me. People think that attractive people are so lucky, but they don’t realize there is a dark side to being attractive. I think you might be naturally alluring without even trying.
I think the best way to maintain some distance is for you to be boring.
Ahh Lovisa funny you say that. I’ve been told I need to be more boring. Maybe they should read my ramble above (-_-)zzz
A potential LO is not at fault for being attractive. The limerent needs to own up with some responsibility. LO id a very beautiful and attractive woman. That’s not what tweaked my interest though. If anything I felt bad for LO that I am sure a lot of men just saw her outer beauty. I mean her ex cheated on her ffs!
When it comes to limerence I think the limerent should bear more responsibility than the LO. LO being nice, sweet and attractive isn’t an excuse. The whole “she was wearing a short skirt” excuse for men’s bad behavior isn’t acceptable. So neither should a lady being attractive be an excuse for a limerent.
I want to share a short story if I could (this just came to mind, I apologize for my rambling)…. Bettie Page, a pinup model in the 50’s and 60’s … beautiful woman, and so photogenic. No woman in my mind could take a better pictures than Bettie. She did pinups and nudes. At some point she dropped out of the spotlight. She became reclusive despite her pop culture resurgence in popularity in the 90’s.
She recalled one night where she left the house in conflict with the man she was with at the time. She came across a church that had a sermon going on. She went into the church “as if a hand guided me” (she said in the interview). She felt ashamed for the things that she had done in her past. She didn’t think that she was worthy of God’s love. She told the pastor that she didn’t think she could be forgiven. The pastor told her “Did you do anything as bad as the apostle Paul?” Bettie didn’t know the answer as she didn’t know the Bible than. So when she asked what he did the pastor said “he had the Christians killed and God forgave him and made him an apostle. I think he can forgive you the nudes.”
Don’t know why that came time mind reading the posts here but yeah …
You cause me to re-evaluate some issues I have pondered about over my LO. She also is extremely on the attractive side, but seems to shun the attention. Preferring the company of Women over Men. The part about your avoidance when Men keep going, because they think you are unobtainable would be much like the pursuit I make toward LO, because mainly I do believe she is and will always be unobtainable. Her signs have always kind of shown it. But its that thrill of forbidden fruit, that keeps me coming back. Not to mention how she looks at me sometimes. Just by the issues you mention, I can see how draining that must feel, because I could see that reaction in LO when I would come around. Or just in the simple eye contact upon a pass-by.
I can almost see how LO despises attention and would rather have connection. Like she can tell I want to pour my feelings out so bad, but would rather drop the hint she isn’t interested, to keep me at bay. Yet she is very kind about it. I respect the hell out of that, but at the same time can’t deny I’m drawn toward it.
I’m glad I could provide some insight for you.
Cordelia,
You mention ADHD and possibly being on the spectrum.
What is you opinion of this article? https://sharischreiber.com/inside-attention-deficit-disorder/
I love Schreiber’s work but I don’t relate to this one.
Yes I can relate to all of that. Do you also have ADHD?
No, but both my kids might have it. They got conflicting opinions on it. My son’s a Type I diabetic and his chemical plant is totally whacked.
Yes ADHD with diabetes sounds tough. Hope it gets easier for you/them to manage. Are your kids still quite young?
Thanks for all the kind and understanding comments. I am not entirely sure how things will pan out for me at the gym but I’ll probably look for an all-female gym or boot camp if I have to leave. Maybe I’ll have to work on my resting bitch face although I worry it’ll make me a sad person on the inside as well.
Daughter is 27. Son is 22.
It’s been challenging.