You can make red-hot love connections with all sorts of people. You’ve got it like that, and they could do worse and already have. But if love isn’t volcanic enough for your tastes, try limerence: an exhilarating and agonizing hot shot of pure infatuation.
Throw your soul into the lava of romantic madness when you acquire an ill-advised, all-consuming obsession with someone who may be flattered or freaked out but, realistically, will never come close to reciprocating.
You’ll be swimming in serious drugs such as oxytocin, norepinephrine, and dopamine as you gorge yourself on searing, unrequired devotion and compulsive maladaptive daydreaming
It’s a doomed whirlwind fantasy fling that can bring you back to life in the morning and make you want to kill yourself by lunchtime. Not everyone makes it to the other side, and limerence can last for years. So get ready to break your heart, lose your mind, and defenestrate your dignity as you put the “hope” in “hopeless romantic” with limerence.
Because if love isn’t killing you, what’s the point of living?
Whether you’re trying to get over a crush, trying to get into one, or just curious what all this limerence business is about, here are some common questions and answers. See if you can see yourself in here, and if you do, weep.
Break me off a piece of that amour fou
Why does love make me feel like I’m going insane?
Good news and bad news. Bad news first. You are very much going insane. What you’re experiencing hijacks your body’s circuitry in much the same way a severe mental illness would. I’m not a doctor, and I typically don’t know what I’m talking about with this stuff, but this topic is close to my heart, as I have indeed experienced the frothing madness I describe. The good news is that “love” won’t do this to you. What you’re experiencing isn’t love. It’s something called limerence.
What is this “limerence?”
Limerence is a term popularized by psychologist Dorothy Tennov, referring to an unrequited infatuation that goes beyond all the agreed-upon parameters of love. It’s a toxic form of romantic attachment. You can’t stop thinking about the object of your affection. It’s not “love” per se, although it’s understandable that you’d be confused. Limerence is presented in popular culture as the first and last word on what love is. And you’re stuck in it for now. I guess that’s not “good news,” per se.
Do they love me back?
Probably not. Does it matter? Sort of. It’s worse for you if they don’t because you’re more likely to write in pain for months and humiliate yourself privately and publicly. But it’s better for the limerence, as limerence doesn’t typically survive reciprocation. The barriers and challenges are its lifeblood.
Why can’t I stop thinking about them?
Because you’ve lost track of yourself. Critical to limerence is the loss of your sense of identity. Your obsessive thoughts of the other person distract you from the discontinuous mess you’re becoming.
Why does this hurt so much?
Limerence is a biochemical bloodbath. All this gnarliness happens in your nervous system. You’re wearing yourself out. Limerence gives you the dangerous illusion that your life has meaning. It makes you feel okay about skidding around on black ice in Chicago at 2:00, making an emergency booty call like a volunteer firefighter, on all kinds of drugs, and wrecking your physical and emotional health. It also makes you feel okay with being neglected and treated like garbage, which isn’t great for your already shaky health or well-being.
Should I tell them?
Maybe. You’ll probably get rejected, as it’s unlikely their feelings for you are as strong as yours for them, and if they are, as I said before, the crush won’t survive that. You’ll likely go into a tailspin, but the worst may be over. If you persist to the point of stalking, I can’t help you, and you deserve what you get.
How can I make this stop?
There are three ways limerence dies.
- Consummation: You get together with your limerent object and have a real relationship, which will disabuse you of your romantic notions, hard.
- Starvation: Time goes on, you feel your feelings, nothing happens, and you get over it.
- Transference: You move on to the next one. You can’t be limerent for more than one person at a time, so I suppose it could be worse.
Getting through limerence is known to take up to two years or more in some cases. You can’t make it stop if it’s not ready.
How can I stop this from happening?
You probably can’t. You can’t control when and where limerence will set in. It feels bigger than you because it is bigger than you.
Does everyone go through this?
No. Some people never experience limerence. Lucky bastards. You’ll probably fall in love with one of them.
Is there a better way to love than this?
Yes. There’s the adult form of love, which involves being a secure base and a place of peace for another human, accepting them in all of their flawed glory. And you can get there, although you’ll probably have to do a lot of boring and frustrating work on yourself.
Limerence isn’t real love. Limerence is a lot of things. It’s a chemical meltdown, a romantic delusion, and psychological projection. It’s alienating certain aspects of yourself and projecting them onto another person, creating the delusion that you can reclaim those aspects by uniting with that other. It never works, though.
Often, this can be a man wanting to unite with his alienated and repressed feminine side or vice-versa. You can see that society makes this hard to do, and maybe there are reasons, but you can do it.
All you have to do is accept yourself in your fullness. That’s hard, but it’s the only way to love like a grown-ass grown-up. And, even then, you’ll probably get these terrible crushes, still.
Yes, it’s stupid, it’s humiliating, and it hurts a lot. Don’t forget to breathe.
What can I do in the meantime?
You can use your limerence to fuel your achievements. A lot of my favorite things I’ve ever done, including my weirdest and edgiest creative work, had their origins in my mad desire to impress or get over a girl. It’s a great excuse to explore hitherto uncharted areas of your psyche. It’s dangerous, and it’s strong medicine, but it can be used.
“Sex transmutation” is one way. You see, limerence makes you horny. And you can use that for nonsexual purposes. In his breakthrough tome, 1937’s Think and Grow Rich, the wildly controversial self-help maverick Napoleon Hill describes a mysterious process through which one can turbocharge one’s pursuit of one’s aims by channeling the peculiar passions that constitute the galvanizing force behind life itself.
More simply: We work harder, have more fun, and take more risks when we’re horny. And we can use that juju for more than just getting laid. It’s weird, yes, but you desperately need a hobby.
How to Be Horny On Purpose
Two self-help mavericks consider the raw power of the human sex drive
medium.com
Mainly, you want to take care of yourself. You’re sick. You deserve support, especially your own. So try to love yourself the way that person will never love you back.
For further reading, this piece by Ava Bookbear is thoughtful, compassionate, well-informed, top-shelf stuff, as usual.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Laura Ockel on Unsplash
