We cannot analyze painful unrequited love without also dipping into the components that underpin exciting, mutual, newly-emerging connections. If reading those mere words triggers your brain to conjure up a chain of negative thoughts regarding how ‘impossible’ it is for you to experience real love, these are falsehoods and a sign that you are still trapped in the limerent headspace. I suggest that you explore the rest of the content on this website and take care of yourself, giving this article a miss for the time being.

If you have implemented all of the techniques described in my book and feel completely psychologically, neurochemically and spiritually recovered, now is a fantastic time to open yourself to new connections. With your new self-concept and your healed brain, you will be able to greatly enjoy magical connections without slipping into any state of limerence or chemical dependency.

After Limerence, Dating Feels Intuitive and Safe

When in harmony with yourself and capable of approaching romance in this healthy way, you will also reap the collateral reward of being less deluded – this will allow you to judge situations better, and get a feel of where you stand with someone quite effortlessly.

Why? Without any of the chaos of limerence, it is far simpler to intuit whether someone is interested in you romantically or not, because your limbic brain is no longer in survival mode. You are no longer subconsciously craving for someone to shield you from painful elements of your own psychology or meet needs that you are neglecting, as you will, by virtue of having beaten limerence, a). be meeting your own needs and b). have integrated all of the traumatic elements of your past. Here is a very curious, subtle but utterly undisputable psychological sign that someone you are enjoying time with is interested in you romantically.

Receptivity Is Everything

If I had to wrap up in one word the energetic frequency that you radiate while falling into evocative, stimulating romantic feelings for someone new, it would be ‘receptive’. A smidge of mania and appetite loss is normal at the beginning of any flourishing bond, but the overwhelming experience will be returning to a safe, childhood-reminiscent state of sheer appreciation for life and the desire to expand. Since I assume that those of you still reading this have dealt with the root elements the psychology that once made you limerent head-on and recovered, this notion of romance – slightly less euphoric and dizzying than limerence, but more real – will resonate with and excite you.

Do They Lean Into Your Energy?

Now, we are going to decipher what really lies behind the umbrella term ‘receptivity’ so that we can learn to spot it in others. What does this state comprise?

Toddlers are receptive to the world, children are receptive when they start school and are inundated by stimuli and adults are receptive when their interests have been truly piqued by someone on a psychological, romantic level. When we consider the younger two age categories entranced by this state, we may find ourselves imagining them making a beeline for whatever interests them and generally being keen to assimilate things, friends, songs, books and concepts as part of them.

As will not come as a surprise to you, the adult version of this emotional experience has similar behavioural correlates. Someone very emotionally moved by a new potential partner will face them with an open energy field; despite how shy or reserved they may be, their desire to merge with this person (healthily and non-obsessively) will shine through any façade of being cool, calm and collected that they intend to uphold.

If a someone seems to tend towards entering your energetic ‘bubble’ while spending time with you, or steering their own one to align it with yours, it is very probable that they deem you a sparkling, fascinating concept.

Intimate Friendship vs Romantic Connection

While some friendships can feel like non-sexual twin flame relationships and involve an indescribably special fusion of minds, they never involve the same degree of wholeness, mental union and receptivity that someone who wants to start a life chapter with you will exhibit. They never involve the two of you floating around together for hours while completely oblivious to the outside world and entirely drunk off each other’s energy.

If you consider yourself relatively emotional astute and sense this type of energy encompassing you both, trust your gut and risk saying something that interrupts the circular ‘are we, are we not?’ dance. However, in the face of an emotionally-significant situation that involves a little risk, it is normal to want to systematically analyse the situation rather than solely relying on your instinct; onto the last part of this article.

Signs That Someone Is Receptive and Romantically Interested

• You both inhabit a dreamy state: hanging out with them is mutual magic. When your schedules permit it, you two can easily spend an entire day exploring the city without a fixed plan and still end up spontaneously going for dinner and drinks. Regardless of how independent you both are as people, there seems to be no inevitable ‘endpoint’ to your antics – time flies as you embark on different adventures together and, snugly cocooned in a state of bliss and hoping for more to come, neither of you wants to disconnect at the end of the day.

• There is a touch of vulnerability present: since you are both affected by each other on a deeply emotional way, you will both experience changes in your affect (a psychological term used to describe your underlying feelings and energy levels) that you have not dipped into since adolescence. Aspects of your psyche that you perhaps thought that you had grown out of or simply transitioned away from will be re-activated; namely, you will show some vulnerability, which is not only normal but actively desirable. If you did not feel self-aware, ‘different’ and that your guard had been lowered by this individual, the bond would not be romantic. Additionally, triggering some of these ‘weaker’ aspects of yourself (nerves, self-consciousness etc.) is necessary to process them and eventually overcome them, as anything psychological that is suppressed only surfaces later in a more destructive form.

• Many adults like to hold onto their egos and are averse to viewing themselves as ever-changing entities, but the truth is that your personality and energy does shift when you truly start to fall for someone. There is a reason why falling in love is not a choice – it requires finding someone whose personality traits and attitudes resonate with you in a potent way. If you feel that someone is enthused to be with and communicate with you but they present with an edge of caution, or occasionally pull back and seem to say less than they wish, they are most likely falling for you and trying to keep their vulnerability in check.

• This relationship is unlike any other that either of you has: you probably both have clear boundaries when it comes to other, less-fulfilling connections in your life and know when to prioritize work and your hobbies, but you both share the unspoken knowledge that this bond is different so make many exceptions. When you are with this person, it is impossible to deny the truth that you both greatly value what you share and that you find it in no one else. This might involve them waking up incomprehensibly early to grab a coffee with you before you travel, being keen to go for dinner on a Tuesday when they would normally prefer to practice their Norwegian or sharing a bottle of wine with you when they rarely drink, just because having the chance to enter a tipsy state with you and push the limits a little more is worth it.

• Hesitance to let the real world encroach on your bond: by virtue of the fact that they are keen to date you and let the bond expand to its full dimensions, this person will want to play the game carefully and avoid ‘friend-zoning’ you or letting any dull, terrestrial components of life shatter your magic. They may be shy to introduce you to all of their friends, because you are not another platonic friend of theirs; even if you two have not yet put any labels on your relationship, they know full well that inviting you to a dinner with their closest friends will either a). make you conform to the platonic situation and potentially start relating to them differently (what horror! They want your energy and how special you make them feel to remain untarnished) or b). make it obvious that they view you as a potential partner. The former possibility depresses them and the latter excites but simultaneously terrifies them. While someone more brazen people may introduce you to their innermost circle early on with the intention of making it clear to you AND their friends/family that they view you romantically (since they know this step will have to be taken eventually), many people will err on the side of caution for a little while just in case you don’t feel the same way about them.

The upshot: if you sense this receptivity, openness to experience and childlike wonder in someone that you spend a lot of time with, ensure to let them know that you feel the same way through words or actions. Do not worry, you won’t be left hanging. Someone who has this reaction to you will be dying to take the mental connection further and into the realm of romance, so they’ll pick right up from there and reveal their world to you further, confirming to you that your hunches were correct.