Limerence
limerence • /ˈlɪmɪrəns/
“An acute onset, unexpected, obsessive attachment to one person.”
“When I fall in love, it is not because the beloved is the one who best satisfies my needs - the fall into love redefines who I am, it redefines my need and potentials… it cannot be explained by previous secret fantasies to which the beloved fits”
Life is pretty boring without a crush whether it’s a workplace infatuation or that cute desk mate at school, crushes simultaneously color your experience with the hopeful glaze of innocent infatuation and orient you to a specific goal to be with them. Sometimes these feelings extend beyond all rationality, we might develop them within the panicked scurrying of public terminals or within the ethereal eroticism of our very dreams. No matter the actual potential of anything developing, it is within the painful absence and reciprocation. The dramatics of unrequited love that underscore the intensity of the crush we yearn and yearn even to the point of sleepless torment. The exact feeling I felt for years.
I had a massive crush on a girl for years, we were what I would call friends, but most of our friendship consisted of online texting and casual encounters here and there and funny enough I used to daydream about her all the time. Then last year out of nowhere I randomly texted her and we started like actually talking-talking and it felt as if the doors of heaven had opened, it was as if all my illusions and dreams could finally come true. But since I have been idealizing her for so many years I had uncertainty over my feelings, is it truly love or is it just me idealizing her for merely the attention over me? Now this made me feel terribly guilty, as if I was betraying her for not being able to love her fully.
However, we still talk and luckily we hung out a couple of times. “Oh, she’s a real person after all, she’s not a product of my imagination” That’s what I thought every time I saw her. And then, after getting to know her in a real context, I can say that I fell in love with her as she truly is.
But the things were not going well, I think she felt a bit uncomfortable around me due to my stubborn awkward behaviour which was a counter-reaction of nervousness that I felt around her, I used to second-guess everything like what if she did not like it, what if I sounded stupid etc. So, after realizing that I might lose her, I started to feel extremely anxious and disoriented. I was under so much stress that all of my insecurities that I was so desperately trying to hide, shouted in my face. At this point it felt like all my fears were coming true.
I told her how I was feeling and wrote her a few letters but then she simply rejected me and out of the blue ghosted me. I still think I rushed her over this, but she didn’t have the same level of commitment that I had, and I somewhat understand the reasons why. Accepting the fact that all was lost was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever gone through. Would I date that girl again? Yes, I know that I could completely fall in love with her again, but she has probably lost all respect for me so I know I have no chance.
But I would give anything to spend the first half of 2022 again, when I had been talking to her extensively and for long periods of time (and she had openly expressed deep joy with talking to me). I would never ever subject myself to the levels of covet that I had for the remaining half of that year because as much as I am sugarcoating, it fucking hurts to the deepest constraint because at the end of it, all I got was rejection from the person I deeply admire and a broken friendship with a lot of regrets.
Yes, this person tends to reflect what I found valuable or at the very least attractive and it goes beyond the sexual, she complemented my lack at an ontological level, it signaled the sense of adventure, emotional maturity, or shameless authenticity, elements that until now I did not even know I desired and she becomes the missing piece to this sad little puzzle I call my life, as it all indulges in the notion of how I could possibly know that this person is a reflection of my unrealized ideals and values, is she really the manifestation of all my hopes and dreams?
Tellenbach notes:
We encounter the world as a situation or process whether it be going through life stages, aging or daily routines we may at times encounter a striking event that breaks through this situation. This sudden and shocking event is instrumental in some forms of psychopathology, specifically it breaks into one’s personal world leading to a radical metamorphosis and a transformation of the experienced world this in itself is fine we all have unexpected life events that make us reevaluate who we are and the world around us.
I think I will never be fully ready to face this event of my life and that is probably why I found myself disoriented or even obsessed, I just literally fell for her unwittingly and that is how she even got the potential to destroy my life entirely.
Have you heard the parable about a man who searched the world to find the woman of his dreams? In short, he journeyed all over the globe to finally find the woman of his dreams and when he explains this to her, she responds, “but you’re not the man of mine”. “it’s so over” - man who journeyed the globe searching for the woman of his dreams
Limerence
Let’s continue with the post-rejection story, so after all this I felt super obsessed and her giving me validation was my only source of happiness. Soon enough I found myself in the state of limerence, the ruminative thinking, free-floating anxiety and depression. This just turned my life into a living hell of sleepless nights, I experienced seemingly mood swings and obsessive behavior to the point where I called her through a private caller just so I could talk to her.
Limerence was the catalyst for the most destabilising and insecure period of my life
All these events started to make me view her as flawless and godlike, just her voice gave me limerent feelings of seemingly pre-verbal familiarity and started to see the torment over just a thought of her.
Although Limerence seems to be totally about the subject the one facing limerence towards, but it is in fact totally about the person who is limerent. The person experiencing Limerence has unmet relational needs, wants, desires, often from childhood, that somehow crystallise into a laser-focused, intense desire for a single person (i.e, the “subject”)(R5).
The thing that I hate the most is sometimes being a pursuer, we tend to take sugar-coated rejection to the point in which it inadvertently encourages further pursuit, in which the pursuer keeps trying until the uncomfortableness becomes too much and funny enough sometimes the rejected tend to recover somewhat promptly in comparison to the person who was once pursued upon, the pursued at best may have lost a friend or simply feels terrible about rejecting somebody or at worst they may have had to have filed a restraining order.
“Most of us think of ourselves as more desirable than others actually see us, so people we think of as of equal desirability may not see it the same way. Some humility is required”
As per se in my situation I may have gone too far with my infatuation, even the name and domain name of this website somehow reflects the person I was once pursuing for. So I have to profusely apologize for doing this, it was a late-night rash decision and now since I have set it up I don’t want it to go to waste. So I’m sorry if that has made you uncomfortable.
But what about my infatuation? It just feels out of control for the most part well, but I still have agency over her the first thing for me would be to identify that this person is not my solution or salvation and it is highly likely that the fantasy of her that I have developed is inaccurate, that she might never live up to my rose-colored expectations but what are those expectations and where do they come from? That is going to remain a mystery.
But we got two observations from some research:
“I realised that I had a lot of personal baggage that I had locked down. The experience has helped me see this, at least.”
“It’s very much a journey, which feels positive at first (like an amazing soulmate experience), but becomes more difficult over time. It seems joyous at the start, but actually robs you of the joy in the long run(R3).”
For me limerence created a window of opportunity for undertaking some serious emotional growing up. From now on will I be sleeping peacefully? Maybe not, maybe I will even try to call her up a few more times, as it was years of infatuation that led me to go limerent over her. But at the end of it all I want is good for her, she is shifting places so maybe by any miracle she is actually reading this, I wish her the best and maybe one day we will talk again :)
“But if you saw me on the train would you look the other way?
Like strangers do
And if you passed me on the street
Would you look down at your feet
And move on through?
Like strangers do”