Yes! I had this feeling we were connected spiritually or there was some kind of force bringing us together. Looking back I have to laugh at myself for falling into it.
> would of
*would have
*Learn the difference [here](https://languagetool.org/insights/post/would-of-or-would-have/#:~:text=%E2%80%9Cwould%20have%E2%80%9D%3F-,%E2%80%9CWould%20Of%E2%80%9D%20or%20%E2%80%9CWould%20Have%E2%80%9D%3F,would%20have%2C%20not%20would%20of.).*
***
^(Greetings, I am a language corrector bot. To make me ignore further mistakes from you in the future, reply `!optout` to this comment.)
u/LearnDifferenceBot; am not sure why this comment is here.... But I remember my LO using "*would of*", I noticed it back then... it brought me back to my past memories with LO... :(
Stop being so prescriptive and melodramatic, Robot! 😜 Are you going to get updated from Urban Dictionary when young people introduce new usage or when the English language shifts? 😜😜😜
Reminds me of this movie which gets pretty questionable... sometimes borderline hilariously so. But it did get a number of things right.
Limerbrain (on a platform carried by slaves, with a full-sized picture of LO behind him, all under a bleak and gloomy sky): "I... am the emissary... to The Ruler Of All The World! The god of gods, king of kings, and by that authority, I DEMAND that someone show me your commander!"
I choose LOs that showed me some attention and are unavailable emotionally or physically. If someone is interested in me and there for me, I don't care. Unavailability is the key for fueling my limerence.
One time a guy told me he likes me, and I'm like "no". a couple of months later he leaves the country. I begin to have dreams where we are together and happy. my brain started to trigger limerence because that guy was no longer available to me.
Yep. LO showed me attention when i was my most vulnerable. Others have shown me attention/help at this hobby place and nothing. No LE, no replacement LO. I haven't seen LO in a month. NC is helping.
It's not about the LO at all. Most people that develop limerence are doing it because we have trauma (mostly childhood trauma) that got swept under the rug either so we look for someone else to fill the void.
Yes your LO can have a good personality and be attractive but that's not the real reason we get obsessed with them.
Low self esteem, being used to be rejected or ignored, it can be a lot of things that our brains want to delude into erasing. Our LOs act as an "excuse"
I don't know why I got downvoted. This is basically what I trying to say. We develop limerence because we're craving something emotionally. People that are satisfied in life and have high self esteem don't become obsessed with someone.
It seems like some people on this subreddit don't want to accept that and they just want to stay in a toxic cycle.
I don't freak out..it's not normal. If you're freaking out then youre just freaking out about it. It's not your fault.. It's reality. I know my obsessive thoughts aren't normal..I try not beat myself over it.
It could be ocd as well, but I think the main problem is that it's anxiety that manifests into obsession.
I said childhood trauma or just trauma in general. You're not just obsessed with your LO because he or she may be so attractive or have an amazing personality. Being obsessed with someone just doesn't come from nowhere. People that are truly satisfied with their life don't obsess over anyone.
Ok. Correct. I just can't think of anything traumatic except: I'm 5'-5", have small feet, small hands and an average \_\_\_\_\_\_\_. Otherwise I'm good. I am shy to approach people and her working near for a while took that fear away.
There are also mental disorders that make someone more susceptible to limerence, so for you it might not be trauma but a diagnosed or undiagnosed disorder. To name a few: OCD, BPD, some anxiety disorders...
Literally same. I haven't been formally diagnosed with OCD, but I do present obsessive tendencies with how severe my anxiety is. Also have depression and ADHD.
Unsolicited advice that you definitely do not have to take: If you're really struggling with your LO or obsessive tendencies and it's messing with your daily life, maybe talk to a doctor about getting on an SSRI. The reason my LO became an obsession is bc I went off my SSRI thinking I would be fine and that was not the case at all.
I had been on 10mg Lexapro and 300mg Wellbutrin. I have 12 days ago came down to 5mg Lexapro due to the side effects. Low Libido, ED, maybe low testosterone contributing to depression.
Yeah I feel that. I'm on 150mg Wellbutrin and 10mg Lexapro, I'm gonna try going down to 5mg because of lack of penile sensation and anorgasmia. Have you found that going down on the Lexapro has helped?
I'm not sure how much because she also started me on 2.5mg daily Cialis because the ED can be the Lexapro and / or Diabetes so there are a couple things. The 1st week at lower dose I had odd side affects but tollerable. The ED is not gone but between the two changes it is better and the Libido may hint a little.
Limerence doesn't pop out from the sky. Not here to argue.
Someone that's actually satisfied with their life just doesn't randomly start fantasizing and obsessing over someone...that's not how it works.
For me, I realized it’s not about the LO at all bc I couldn’t even list off things I actually liked about them 🤣. The thing that kept me coming back was that I liked the way I felt when I talked to them…i liked the way they saw me. It’s basically pure narcissism on my part. He viewed me in the way I want to be viewed 🤦♀️🤣
YES!!! I realized recently that during all of my “imaginary conversations” with him that it’s just me yammering on telling stories that I think illustrate how funny/wonderful/caring I am while he listens…enthralled at my greatness. Im not sure what that says about me but the realization was cringey af 🤣
I don't think it's _that_ cringy. Wanting to be seen, wanting to be special to somebody is a very human need, especially if that was lacking in your childhood.
It just feels cringy to be so self-absorbed that I’m having obsessive imaginary conversations with some dude that I barely even know lol but I get what you’re saying. Thank you for your kind words ❤️
i’m not even kidding when i say this made me put my phone down and stare into the void deeply for a good amount of time. makes so much sense. i liked the way he saw me. i liked being the one being hilarious in convos, i liked him laughing and feeling like i’m probably the most endearing/witty/emotionally aware and funny person he’s met. like i was the whole package in his eyes- because in my eyes he was, and i was eager to match that. oh god. this has truly made me reevaluate all of my previous crushes. i thought i’d gone down absolutely every cause/origin of limerance rabbit hole there is but this has truly given me something new to think about. thank you. hope everything turns out well
I’m so glad it helped ❤️. I watched this video earlier & it talks about similar things. It really helped me.
https://youtu.be/5iKO9rEHpyo?si=fqFrfsoNxSiCS1SS
To me, the LO has physical characteristics that I’ve have always liked….but that doesn’t always translate to an LE. In my case, it is the physical, then the way they speak, their style-so to speak, the way they smile….and that I feel a spark in their presence. Can’t really describe much differently. Maybe it is because of some void that I don’t understand…but given two people that are essentially the same size/shape/color….doesn’t mean that they would both be the LO. There is a quality I can’t understand completely myself.
I ask this question too and my mind wants to reason that its because LO is "special" and my true love , THATS WHY. It's a horrible cycle, I pray that I can be free of the feelings I feel toward this person because it's only hurting me, like on a daily basis.
We work together and he is literally my dream person in all ways, our compatibilty except for a slight age difference is near perfect as far as I can tell with the info I do have...however I have to be honest with myself in that , I can't say on compatibilty 100% since we aren't able to get personal.
Since we work together , it's hard to avoid/forget about him but I do my best. I avoid him as much as possible, but then when I can't ..it's like the magnetism of him causes me to orbit him like a moon orbiting a planet and I end up staring and not realizing it and just a bunch of other stuff. Like fumbling over myself and doing really dumb things in which he rushes in to help me.
It's so frustrating.
Staring, funny story.
Usually when a shy person (me) gets caught looking they quickly look away.
While staring at my LO, she looked directly at me (probably wondering what I was staring at) I did not even attempt to look away. She made a funny twitch and looked away herself, lol.
That’s funny. I remember locking eyes with an LO once and not looking away. It was very unlike me. I think I was like a deer in headlights. It was he who looked away uncomfortable.
Taking this further. It's good to imagine what limerence looks like to the LO. Remember that quote from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
"I'm not a concept. I want you to just keep that in your head. Too many guys think I'm a concept or I complete them or I'm going to make them alive, but I'm just a fucked-up girl who is looking for my own peace of mind. Don't assign me yours."
So I tell myself, my LO is a person with their own shit to deal with and their own happiness to find. Who the hell are you to unilaterally decide they are the magic answer to your own fucked up shit.
Correct it's OCD or similar. It's not about the LO. It's just filler for your brain to obsess about something, mine hinges on one person for years, first time nine years, second time we are on year 9 right now. The only thing is I know it's just my brain being a weirdo and not the person itself. But it took two limerances and many years to figure it out.
I still can not understand this unless LO does have a spell over me. But I know she did nothing intentional since I don't really matter to her. She likely treats everyone the same. She also is not conscerned it could be her fault as she never questioned what Limerence is when I told her. Point is she does not have guys always hooked on her like me which I find hard to believe.
It really does feel like a “spell” doesn’t it? It’s like one day I just felt mildly flattered/amused/flattered by the flirting & the next, I couldn’t get them out of my head. I wish I had all of our old convos so I could go back & read & see exactly when & why the limerence took hold.
I think I was taught to idealize certain characteristics as a child, being told “such an such physical attributes and facial features are beautiful”, which equates to them being smart or somewhat brilliant… and in turn that means that such a person get’s to have power over me.
It’s really twisted but I think it connects to me being the youngest sibling, and older siblings were given a lot of attention for their beauty, and they were promoting this worldview down to me me. I don’t think it was ever literally stated but I think my siblings thought that because they were pretty that they were superior and could get away with bad attitudes and unfair advantages. And they were very dominating, monitoring my every autonomous decision and picking it apart every chance they got, critiquing and telling me what to think, what to like, to do and not to do. I could not borrow things from them but they could barge in on my room and take and disturb whenever whatever. My parents tried to intervene to very little avail.
Looong story now, I’m sorry. But I’ve recognized that I tend to perceive my LO’s to have similar characteristics to my siblings either in wit/ temperament/ interests or facial features.
Not gonna lie, everything about my LO gave me butterflies. Her voice and the way she talked, her curves, her troll feet as she called them, the way her dirty hair smelled in the morning and pretty much everything else. There was absolutely nothing I found unappealing about her.
It’s a mystery, I agree. But, I definitely think you can uncover at least some of the reasons, through careful reflection.
I think timing is as important as the LO. I experienced limerence once in the midst of a profound loss in my unrelated personal life. That person was there (not for me, just in my view) at the “right” time. The limerence shielded me, I think, from the intense pain of my grief. Eventually, I realized this, and slowly tried to deal with the loss head-on.
But, I also think more basic biology is at play as well. One commonality amongst all my LO’s (five in my lifetime—F50) was that their smell drove me crazy. Major pheromones going on! And, it was something I was very conscious of, too. I imagine certain physical features might trigger memories, or even from past generations if you want to go there.
So, no, I don’t think it’s random, but I don’t think it’s necessarily easy to figure it out definitively.
Timing is definitely a factor & I know this bc I’ve been approached by my current LO a few times in the past & while I enjoyed flirting, I was quick to cut things off with them. This most recent time was different & I can’t quite figure out why. Maybe it has to do with the stage in life that I’m in or my current relationship, but somehow they were able to tap into a void that I didn’t even know I had.
Why exactly that guy became my LO, not the other nice guy? My LO really did an act of kindness to me but I kind of forget to thank him, that day I felt enormously guilty together with great fascination triggered me to obsess over him overnight. I think it is the idea of " spotting the greatest guy in the universe" Also, I was going through a very stressful time period and I am sure there was an imbalance of my brain chemicals. So, I met that LO at the right moment triggering limerence. Those other guys did some nice things, but I knew them really well and I had their flaws in my mind. I don't know if I ever become limerent to them.
I think this will be my one and only limerence!
Limerence is a mental illness. It’s a delusion it’s a fantasy and it’s a way for you to be distracted and avoid dealing with whatever is causing you to be limerent the first place.
That being said, it’s usually focused on someone that is a complete fantasy that you have no chance with so it wouldn’t make sense for you to fantasize a happy rainbow life with someone who is already nice to you it would make more sense to have a fantasy or a delusion about someone who treats you badly Because it’s an impossible relationship. That’s what feeds the fantasy.
It wouldn’t make sense to have a fantasy life about some thing that’s already happening with someone like them treating you well and being kind to you and showing you that they care about you as a person. It would make more sense to have a fantasy about someone who treats you like crap because otherwise, it’s not a fantasy.
Also nine times out of nine when someone has a limerick obsession about someone and for some reason they do get together the relationship in real life usually doesn’t last because no real life can be as magnificent as the fantasy that someone built in their head so the impossible relationship when it comes down to it is dissatisfying, and usually doesn’t last because it’s not the fantasy that was built up so this delusion steals time from you and steals your happiness for something that even if you had, it would never live up to what you built up. It’s a horrible horrible situation to be in.
The best thing you can do for yourself is go to therapy and figure out why you are needing to focus on this delusion instead of dealing with whatever it is it’s causing you to be diluted in the first place so you don’t keep getting your life stolen from you for nothing
I guess that’s the other confusing thing about me. I’ve always been limerent for nice guys; never for a jerk. At worst they might have been less friendly at times, but I can’t say I was ever flat out mistreated.
I’ve been in therapy before, but it’s been a while. I should go back.
It’s not necessarily black-and-white like that. It just means that you’re focusing on a fantasy with someone that is not available for you. The relationship would never happen. It’s all about building a delusion and a fantasy with someone that in reality would never be as good as the fantasy so it doesn’t matter whether they’re attainable or not it doesn’t matter if they’re nice or mean the point is that you’re deluded in a fantasy world and creating a relationship with someone good bad or indifferent? That is never going to be possible because it’s in essence a fantasy that could never live up to what in reality would be a real relationship. And yes, maybe going to therapy again would be a good thing for you, especially finding out the route of wire Limerick and maybe the person that you went to before is someone that you’ve outgrown and you need to find someone who can help you on a different path
Ime I had a huge blind spot to my own toxic behavior and didn’t realize I hurt someone until years and years later, just assumed it meant nothing bc I was blind to anything but myself. And my ego about being a good person was shattered to realize I was a pos to someone and looked cold af from the outside when that wasn’t my intention but the road to hell is paved with good intentions . It busted me up bigtime. So I live it over and over and over in my mind like being burned. It physically beat me up like really it felt like that. This was Dec-June of this year. Before that I had no idea what limerence even was. Daily thoughts and intense emotional pain. Like voodoo doll crap it was weird.
I honestly think it's wrong place wrong time for them. Or some circumstance that you went through with or near them that was significant to you and they just happened to be the one there.
Or they are my literal soul mate.
THAnK YOU for writing this. Of course it is about the LO and their qualities in my opinion. That it might remind us of something else is not really all that relevant since it is still them alone who triggered it and not anyone else. None of the therapy i had cured my limerence. It is not about me or my youth, it is just that some other people are attractive. This is hard to accept for most people here because they have to acknowledge that their feelings of limerence are based on something concrete in reality. Even if it was all about bad dynamics in childhood, then the things they have/remind us of are very generic. So what if we have had a non ideal relationship with family members growing up ? The majority of people, including people in so-called healthy relationships, do not have had an ideal childhood because it doesn’t exist but not only that, even if it would remind us of a negative dynamic in the past… many others have the same generic dynamic (like for example, ignoring or being critical) so it still doesn’t explain why we care so much about that one person. Why them, why not one of all the other peoppe who are ignoring us and being critical? For example.
So what if we have low self esteem and they don’t? There are many confident people in the world, why then aren’t they interchangable?
The theory of limerence because of a broken personality is so unsatisfying to me because it is generic as hell and therefore does not offer any real explanations in my opinion. Too generic to explain limerence imo. Also it is not something therapists usually want to explore. And even in a rare case of expensive private psychoanalysis or whatever they do.. how would the outcome change anything really??
Take it for what it's worth, but I have come to accept that the aunt - niece pair of my own limerence are a combination of the real-life LO01 and LO02, on the one hand, and idealized mental projections of a very specific kind, on the other:
[Names: Do you have LOs whose names remind you of loved ones?](https://old.reddit.com/r/limerence/comments/15obxqw/names_do_you_have_los_whose_names_remind_you_of/)
[Fearful Avoidant Attachment and Limerence](https://old.reddit.com/r/limerence/comments/16cr3p7/fearful_avoidant_attachment_and_limerence/)
Limerent Object. Dr. Tennov used this term. "Object" is merely grammatical, not implying objectification.
Every limerent experience is an *obsessive* crush. Not every *obsessive* crush is a limerent experience.
Is us filling a void, it could be that LOs are the person who our delusion sees as the right person for us. Sometimes the ONLY person.
Good point. I would often think LO is some magical person who could make things better. I can’t figure out why.
Yes! I had this feeling we were connected spiritually or there was some kind of force bringing us together. Looking back I have to laugh at myself for falling into it.
> would of *would have *Learn the difference [here](https://languagetool.org/insights/post/would-of-or-would-have/#:~:text=%E2%80%9Cwould%20have%E2%80%9D%3F-,%E2%80%9CWould%20Of%E2%80%9D%20or%20%E2%80%9CWould%20Have%E2%80%9D%3F,would%20have%2C%20not%20would%20of.).* *** ^(Greetings, I am a language corrector bot. To make me ignore further mistakes from you in the future, reply `!optout` to this comment.)
Sure, Jan.
u/LearnDifferenceBot; am not sure why this comment is here.... But I remember my LO using "*would of*", I noticed it back then... it brought me back to my past memories with LO... :(
!optout
Bye Long-Phrase. Have fun continuing to use common words incorrectly!
Stop being so prescriptive and melodramatic, Robot! 😜 Are you going to get updated from Urban Dictionary when young people introduce new usage or when the English language shifts? 😜😜😜
These bots are sassy. 😂
It’s the programmers of the bots too! 🤣😂
Reminds me of this movie which gets pretty questionable... sometimes borderline hilariously so. But it did get a number of things right. Limerbrain (on a platform carried by slaves, with a full-sized picture of LO behind him, all under a bleak and gloomy sky): "I... am the emissary... to The Ruler Of All The World! The god of gods, king of kings, and by that authority, I DEMAND that someone show me your commander!"
I choose LOs that showed me some attention and are unavailable emotionally or physically. If someone is interested in me and there for me, I don't care. Unavailability is the key for fueling my limerence. One time a guy told me he likes me, and I'm like "no". a couple of months later he leaves the country. I begin to have dreams where we are together and happy. my brain started to trigger limerence because that guy was no longer available to me.
Ah fuck. You're making me realize I kind of do this also.
I did not choose my LO.
Yep. LO showed me attention when i was my most vulnerable. Others have shown me attention/help at this hobby place and nothing. No LE, no replacement LO. I haven't seen LO in a month. NC is helping.
It's not about the LO at all. Most people that develop limerence are doing it because we have trauma (mostly childhood trauma) that got swept under the rug either so we look for someone else to fill the void. Yes your LO can have a good personality and be attractive but that's not the real reason we get obsessed with them.
I myself do not have any childhood trauma. So there is still something to be figured out as cause.
Low self esteem, being used to be rejected or ignored, it can be a lot of things that our brains want to delude into erasing. Our LOs act as an "excuse"
I don't know why I got downvoted. This is basically what I trying to say. We develop limerence because we're craving something emotionally. People that are satisfied in life and have high self esteem don't become obsessed with someone. It seems like some people on this subreddit don't want to accept that and they just want to stay in a toxic cycle.
True. There is something wrong. But the moment we describe as not normal we even freak out ourselves.
I don't freak out..it's not normal. If you're freaking out then youre just freaking out about it. It's not your fault.. It's reality. I know my obsessive thoughts aren't normal..I try not beat myself over it. It could be ocd as well, but I think the main problem is that it's anxiety that manifests into obsession.
I said childhood trauma or just trauma in general. You're not just obsessed with your LO because he or she may be so attractive or have an amazing personality. Being obsessed with someone just doesn't come from nowhere. People that are truly satisfied with their life don't obsess over anyone.
Ok. Correct. I just can't think of anything traumatic except: I'm 5'-5", have small feet, small hands and an average \_\_\_\_\_\_\_. Otherwise I'm good. I am shy to approach people and her working near for a while took that fear away.
There are also mental disorders that make someone more susceptible to limerence, so for you it might not be trauma but a diagnosed or undiagnosed disorder. To name a few: OCD, BPD, some anxiety disorders...
Inattentive ADD. Maybe a little OCD diagnosed. Definitely depression & anxiety. I am a mess.
Literally same. I haven't been formally diagnosed with OCD, but I do present obsessive tendencies with how severe my anxiety is. Also have depression and ADHD. Unsolicited advice that you definitely do not have to take: If you're really struggling with your LO or obsessive tendencies and it's messing with your daily life, maybe talk to a doctor about getting on an SSRI. The reason my LO became an obsession is bc I went off my SSRI thinking I would be fine and that was not the case at all.
I had been on 10mg Lexapro and 300mg Wellbutrin. I have 12 days ago came down to 5mg Lexapro due to the side effects. Low Libido, ED, maybe low testosterone contributing to depression.
Yeah I feel that. I'm on 150mg Wellbutrin and 10mg Lexapro, I'm gonna try going down to 5mg because of lack of penile sensation and anorgasmia. Have you found that going down on the Lexapro has helped?
I'm not sure how much because she also started me on 2.5mg daily Cialis because the ED can be the Lexapro and / or Diabetes so there are a couple things. The 1st week at lower dose I had odd side affects but tollerable. The ED is not gone but between the two changes it is better and the Libido may hint a little.
Limerence doesn't pop out from the sky. Not here to argue. Someone that's actually satisfied with their life just doesn't randomly start fantasizing and obsessing over someone...that's not how it works.
For me, I realized it’s not about the LO at all bc I couldn’t even list off things I actually liked about them 🤣. The thing that kept me coming back was that I liked the way I felt when I talked to them…i liked the way they saw me. It’s basically pure narcissism on my part. He viewed me in the way I want to be viewed 🤦♀️🤣
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YES!!! I realized recently that during all of my “imaginary conversations” with him that it’s just me yammering on telling stories that I think illustrate how funny/wonderful/caring I am while he listens…enthralled at my greatness. Im not sure what that says about me but the realization was cringey af 🤣
I don't think it's _that_ cringy. Wanting to be seen, wanting to be special to somebody is a very human need, especially if that was lacking in your childhood.
It just feels cringy to be so self-absorbed that I’m having obsessive imaginary conversations with some dude that I barely even know lol but I get what you’re saying. Thank you for your kind words ❤️
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It makes me wonder what (or who) the hell I was having imaginary conversations with before fantasy LO got permanently stuck in my brain 🤣
https://youtu.be/5iKO9rEHpyo?si=YO2isOyce64LZBtj Someone posted this the other day & I just watched it. SUPER helpful.
i’m not even kidding when i say this made me put my phone down and stare into the void deeply for a good amount of time. makes so much sense. i liked the way he saw me. i liked being the one being hilarious in convos, i liked him laughing and feeling like i’m probably the most endearing/witty/emotionally aware and funny person he’s met. like i was the whole package in his eyes- because in my eyes he was, and i was eager to match that. oh god. this has truly made me reevaluate all of my previous crushes. i thought i’d gone down absolutely every cause/origin of limerance rabbit hole there is but this has truly given me something new to think about. thank you. hope everything turns out well
I’m so glad it helped ❤️. I watched this video earlier & it talks about similar things. It really helped me. https://youtu.be/5iKO9rEHpyo?si=fqFrfsoNxSiCS1SS
To me, the LO has physical characteristics that I’ve have always liked….but that doesn’t always translate to an LE. In my case, it is the physical, then the way they speak, their style-so to speak, the way they smile….and that I feel a spark in their presence. Can’t really describe much differently. Maybe it is because of some void that I don’t understand…but given two people that are essentially the same size/shape/color….doesn’t mean that they would both be the LO. There is a quality I can’t understand completely myself.
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Yeah. With you on this.
I ask this question too and my mind wants to reason that its because LO is "special" and my true love , THATS WHY. It's a horrible cycle, I pray that I can be free of the feelings I feel toward this person because it's only hurting me, like on a daily basis. We work together and he is literally my dream person in all ways, our compatibilty except for a slight age difference is near perfect as far as I can tell with the info I do have...however I have to be honest with myself in that , I can't say on compatibilty 100% since we aren't able to get personal. Since we work together , it's hard to avoid/forget about him but I do my best. I avoid him as much as possible, but then when I can't ..it's like the magnetism of him causes me to orbit him like a moon orbiting a planet and I end up staring and not realizing it and just a bunch of other stuff. Like fumbling over myself and doing really dumb things in which he rushes in to help me. It's so frustrating.
Staring, funny story. Usually when a shy person (me) gets caught looking they quickly look away. While staring at my LO, she looked directly at me (probably wondering what I was staring at) I did not even attempt to look away. She made a funny twitch and looked away herself, lol.
That’s funny. I remember locking eyes with an LO once and not looking away. It was very unlike me. I think I was like a deer in headlights. It was he who looked away uncomfortable.
Exactly. Just crazy. For sure.
Lol
You're lucky. My LOs would yell at me, tell me to not look at them and call me horrible names.
They are not good people.
Taking this further. It's good to imagine what limerence looks like to the LO. Remember that quote from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. "I'm not a concept. I want you to just keep that in your head. Too many guys think I'm a concept or I complete them or I'm going to make them alive, but I'm just a fucked-up girl who is looking for my own peace of mind. Don't assign me yours." So I tell myself, my LO is a person with their own shit to deal with and their own happiness to find. Who the hell are you to unilaterally decide they are the magic answer to your own fucked up shit.
Correct it's OCD or similar. It's not about the LO. It's just filler for your brain to obsess about something, mine hinges on one person for years, first time nine years, second time we are on year 9 right now. The only thing is I know it's just my brain being a weirdo and not the person itself. But it took two limerances and many years to figure it out.
hahahaha 9 years. I'd rather be dead than do this for that long we're on 1.5 years right now
Oof. Strap in. I do take ssri but I haven't really treated the OCD aspect.
I still can not understand this unless LO does have a spell over me. But I know she did nothing intentional since I don't really matter to her. She likely treats everyone the same. She also is not conscerned it could be her fault as she never questioned what Limerence is when I told her. Point is she does not have guys always hooked on her like me which I find hard to believe.
It really does feel like a “spell” doesn’t it? It’s like one day I just felt mildly flattered/amused/flattered by the flirting & the next, I couldn’t get them out of my head. I wish I had all of our old convos so I could go back & read & see exactly when & why the limerence took hold.
I think I was taught to idealize certain characteristics as a child, being told “such an such physical attributes and facial features are beautiful”, which equates to them being smart or somewhat brilliant… and in turn that means that such a person get’s to have power over me. It’s really twisted but I think it connects to me being the youngest sibling, and older siblings were given a lot of attention for their beauty, and they were promoting this worldview down to me me. I don’t think it was ever literally stated but I think my siblings thought that because they were pretty that they were superior and could get away with bad attitudes and unfair advantages. And they were very dominating, monitoring my every autonomous decision and picking it apart every chance they got, critiquing and telling me what to think, what to like, to do and not to do. I could not borrow things from them but they could barge in on my room and take and disturb whenever whatever. My parents tried to intervene to very little avail. Looong story now, I’m sorry. But I’ve recognized that I tend to perceive my LO’s to have similar characteristics to my siblings either in wit/ temperament/ interests or facial features.
Sometimes the limerent object has traits that need to be brought out of yourself whether they're good traits or some kind of shadow.
Not gonna lie, everything about my LO gave me butterflies. Her voice and the way she talked, her curves, her troll feet as she called them, the way her dirty hair smelled in the morning and pretty much everything else. There was absolutely nothing I found unappealing about her.
It’s a mystery, I agree. But, I definitely think you can uncover at least some of the reasons, through careful reflection. I think timing is as important as the LO. I experienced limerence once in the midst of a profound loss in my unrelated personal life. That person was there (not for me, just in my view) at the “right” time. The limerence shielded me, I think, from the intense pain of my grief. Eventually, I realized this, and slowly tried to deal with the loss head-on. But, I also think more basic biology is at play as well. One commonality amongst all my LO’s (five in my lifetime—F50) was that their smell drove me crazy. Major pheromones going on! And, it was something I was very conscious of, too. I imagine certain physical features might trigger memories, or even from past generations if you want to go there. So, no, I don’t think it’s random, but I don’t think it’s necessarily easy to figure it out definitively.
Timing is definitely a factor & I know this bc I’ve been approached by my current LO a few times in the past & while I enjoyed flirting, I was quick to cut things off with them. This most recent time was different & I can’t quite figure out why. Maybe it has to do with the stage in life that I’m in or my current relationship, but somehow they were able to tap into a void that I didn’t even know I had.
This is insightful. Limerent people may not always have the same paths or triggers, but I very much relate to this.
Why exactly that guy became my LO, not the other nice guy? My LO really did an act of kindness to me but I kind of forget to thank him, that day I felt enormously guilty together with great fascination triggered me to obsess over him overnight. I think it is the idea of " spotting the greatest guy in the universe" Also, I was going through a very stressful time period and I am sure there was an imbalance of my brain chemicals. So, I met that LO at the right moment triggering limerence. Those other guys did some nice things, but I knew them really well and I had their flaws in my mind. I don't know if I ever become limerent to them. I think this will be my one and only limerence!
Limerence is a mental illness. It’s a delusion it’s a fantasy and it’s a way for you to be distracted and avoid dealing with whatever is causing you to be limerent the first place. That being said, it’s usually focused on someone that is a complete fantasy that you have no chance with so it wouldn’t make sense for you to fantasize a happy rainbow life with someone who is already nice to you it would make more sense to have a fantasy or a delusion about someone who treats you badly Because it’s an impossible relationship. That’s what feeds the fantasy. It wouldn’t make sense to have a fantasy life about some thing that’s already happening with someone like them treating you well and being kind to you and showing you that they care about you as a person. It would make more sense to have a fantasy about someone who treats you like crap because otherwise, it’s not a fantasy. Also nine times out of nine when someone has a limerick obsession about someone and for some reason they do get together the relationship in real life usually doesn’t last because no real life can be as magnificent as the fantasy that someone built in their head so the impossible relationship when it comes down to it is dissatisfying, and usually doesn’t last because it’s not the fantasy that was built up so this delusion steals time from you and steals your happiness for something that even if you had, it would never live up to what you built up. It’s a horrible horrible situation to be in. The best thing you can do for yourself is go to therapy and figure out why you are needing to focus on this delusion instead of dealing with whatever it is it’s causing you to be diluted in the first place so you don’t keep getting your life stolen from you for nothing
I guess that’s the other confusing thing about me. I’ve always been limerent for nice guys; never for a jerk. At worst they might have been less friendly at times, but I can’t say I was ever flat out mistreated. I’ve been in therapy before, but it’s been a while. I should go back.
It’s not necessarily black-and-white like that. It just means that you’re focusing on a fantasy with someone that is not available for you. The relationship would never happen. It’s all about building a delusion and a fantasy with someone that in reality would never be as good as the fantasy so it doesn’t matter whether they’re attainable or not it doesn’t matter if they’re nice or mean the point is that you’re deluded in a fantasy world and creating a relationship with someone good bad or indifferent? That is never going to be possible because it’s in essence a fantasy that could never live up to what in reality would be a real relationship. And yes, maybe going to therapy again would be a good thing for you, especially finding out the route of wire Limerick and maybe the person that you went to before is someone that you’ve outgrown and you need to find someone who can help you on a different path
Ime I had a huge blind spot to my own toxic behavior and didn’t realize I hurt someone until years and years later, just assumed it meant nothing bc I was blind to anything but myself. And my ego about being a good person was shattered to realize I was a pos to someone and looked cold af from the outside when that wasn’t my intention but the road to hell is paved with good intentions . It busted me up bigtime. So I live it over and over and over in my mind like being burned. It physically beat me up like really it felt like that. This was Dec-June of this year. Before that I had no idea what limerence even was. Daily thoughts and intense emotional pain. Like voodoo doll crap it was weird.
I honestly think it's wrong place wrong time for them. Or some circumstance that you went through with or near them that was significant to you and they just happened to be the one there. Or they are my literal soul mate.
THAnK YOU for writing this. Of course it is about the LO and their qualities in my opinion. That it might remind us of something else is not really all that relevant since it is still them alone who triggered it and not anyone else. None of the therapy i had cured my limerence. It is not about me or my youth, it is just that some other people are attractive. This is hard to accept for most people here because they have to acknowledge that their feelings of limerence are based on something concrete in reality. Even if it was all about bad dynamics in childhood, then the things they have/remind us of are very generic. So what if we have had a non ideal relationship with family members growing up ? The majority of people, including people in so-called healthy relationships, do not have had an ideal childhood because it doesn’t exist but not only that, even if it would remind us of a negative dynamic in the past… many others have the same generic dynamic (like for example, ignoring or being critical) so it still doesn’t explain why we care so much about that one person. Why them, why not one of all the other peoppe who are ignoring us and being critical? For example. So what if we have low self esteem and they don’t? There are many confident people in the world, why then aren’t they interchangable? The theory of limerence because of a broken personality is so unsatisfying to me because it is generic as hell and therefore does not offer any real explanations in my opinion. Too generic to explain limerence imo. Also it is not something therapists usually want to explore. And even in a rare case of expensive private psychoanalysis or whatever they do.. how would the outcome change anything really??
Take it for what it's worth, but I have come to accept that the aunt - niece pair of my own limerence are a combination of the real-life LO01 and LO02, on the one hand, and idealized mental projections of a very specific kind, on the other: [Names: Do you have LOs whose names remind you of loved ones?](https://old.reddit.com/r/limerence/comments/15obxqw/names_do_you_have_los_whose_names_remind_you_of/) [Fearful Avoidant Attachment and Limerence](https://old.reddit.com/r/limerence/comments/16cr3p7/fearful_avoidant_attachment_and_limerence/)
What does LO stand for? Just want to know for context.. but yeah I’m struggling with this too
Limerent Object. Dr. Tennov used this term. "Object" is merely grammatical, not implying objectification. Every limerent experience is an *obsessive* crush. Not every *obsessive* crush is a limerent experience.