The vast majority of the literature on limerence concerns overcoming and fighting the phenomenon as if it were a disease, which feels immensely counterintuitive when the euphoric heights it allows you to climb to are so dizzying. How can it be right to dismiss the opportunity of being with your true soulmate, when so few people thrill you in this way? Why should I label this wonderful, intelligent and enticing person as ‘my LO’ and distance myself from their attention when I will never have such amazing conversations with anyone else?
In this post, I will break down the reasons why nearly everyone with the neural makeup that results in limerence comes to the same conclusion: that it is best to consider limerence something strongly pathological and unwanted, even if you are single and not tied down by children.
Limerent Objects Are Often Manipulative Nightmares
Firstly, most people who are prone to limerence fall for unpredictable, confusing limerent objects (LOs) with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) or another display of poor boundaries. They come to realize that the highs of limerence are simply not worth it, because the possibilities of them forming a mature and real relationship with one of these stimulating and addictive people is absurdly small; such LOs do not go about life like the rest of us, and will flirt and enmesh emotionally with us without desiring anything real with us.
Imagine you’re a heterosexual man in a happy marriage that does genuinely enrich him, but that you experience drug-like ecstasy whenever you get to know a certain archetype of woman (let’s say: unstable BPD women who flirt with and bizarrely seem to imprint on you before forgetting you entirely). What do your relationships with these women look like? Well, they don’t constitute as cheating on your wife, because they’re not explicitly romantic; whether these are girls you train at work or meet when out with friends, you are instantly physically and mentally drawn to them beyond belief but end up in intimate, boundary-lacking ‘friendships’ with them.
During this time, they message and communicate with you constantly, and it dawns on you that you are the closest person to them: their primary support line. This, naturally, has you wondering if they are also in love with you. After all, any normal woman who phoned you so frequently while drunk or called you her ‘soulmate’ would probably be harboring romantic feelings for you, right? Or are you crazy? Why has this girl posted something on Instagram including a quote from your favorite book.. is it her way of expressing her feelings and telling you that you mean a lot to her? Or have you just had such a huge influence on her (you hope so!) that she has unconsciously assimilated a lot of your interests? Regardless of this, and irrespective of why her entire being lights up and her pupils dilate on the precious occasions that you two eat lunch together, she slips away. Messages become more spaced-out, and she meets you with contempt for the first time: a pity-filled smile in the office, or a snappy text reply in response to a paragraph of yours. You’re in agony, in neurochemical withdrawal… and have no idea what this means, because you are attempting to compare the behavior of someone truly illogical to your own. Have you lost her? Is this the end of such a stimulating and REAL bond?
Stop Assuming Everyone Has Your Rationality and Values
The above is a very realistic imaginary account of how strong infatuation pans out. While you may spend a decade believing that you are ‘in love’ with these different women that pop up in your life, truly pondering your feelings will reveal to you that a). you fall for a trigger archetype, b). that the lows are destabilizing beyond anything most people experience, and your work, health and friendships suffer and c). a real romance just wouldn’t happen with these people. It’s not what they want – they want validation and for you to fill the void/hit them with a dopamine buzz while they text you about their childhood on a Monday night. You’re the fool, apparently, for believing that this translates to anything on Tuesday, so do not be surprised if they ignore you in the canteen!
On A Positive Note, Mutual Limerence Can Happen.. But…
Even those who have had the luck of falling into limerence over someone obtainable who liked them back are typically anti-limerence for the following reason: limerence is tendency, not a one-off. It’s the product of your obsessional neural makeup and your unmet psychological needs, and results in you always carrying the propensity to fall for whoever you meet with the specific personality and appearance that ‘lights you up’.
In other words, despite it being possible that you could fall limerent for someone mysterious enough to trigger the phenomenon BUT level-headed enough to want to date you, you will unfortunately not be absolved of the nightmares of limerence. During the euphoric early stage of the relationship, when you are floating on a mixture of dopamine, noradrenaline and gratitude, you will be certain that this is it, your happy ending. The prospect of desiring another person in the future will seem implausible and impossible. This is because the very chemicals that produce the visceral ‘love’ sensation underpinning new relationships also allow for delusional thoughts about the future, and the inability to realize that you will NOT always feel so lovey-dovey and infatuated.
When limerence is mutual and a relationship can be initiated, it will certainly fade within weeks/months and the person’s attention will eventually produce no visceral euphoria. The brain cannot cope with constant over-stimulation and excitatory neurotransmission, and evolution has put a cap on such phenomena; plus, regardless of whether you are gay or straight, you are programmed to want to seek new partners every 2-4 years. Monogamy, securing a house and having children is inconsistent with this limbic drive, and many people struggle with long-term marriage for this reason.
As with all psychiatric dilemma and tendencies, being limerence-prone can be conceptualized as a spectrum. Some people do fall into mutual limerence, get married, bask in the new, soft and less exciting companionship that they receive and never fall limerent again. However, these lucky individuals are few and far between. Most of us will revert back to subconsciously giving out the “someone, please, make my life intense” message, will align with LOs and will eventually fall for another one. Many serial limerent-euphoria-chasers only realize the true dangers of succumbing to every whim of the limerent mind when they are in this position: feeling trapped in a marriage to a former LO, with children, and struggling to resist a new LO. Only then do they realize that no LO can cure or satiate your limerent desires, because their ability to trigger limerence in you has nothing to do with them and everything to do with your dopamine transmission and reward center functionality.