Limerence

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Playing Devil's Advocate, would it perhaps make sense that limerence serves a function? Perhaps, as I have oft heard parents joke that it is a good thing that kids are cute, this state allows for a suspension of conflict where one sees the other person in a gilded light?


M.

Well, in the case of the person I like, it does, in the cosmetic way that even though she seems to not do a great job at work, or even be very into her job (or interact with people well), clearly some of us guys here find her attractive. I probably find her the most attractive out of everyone (from what I hear), but she is in good shape and is still in theory able to bear children (though this is receding fast) and be a mother/wife.

Interesting; thank you for sharing.


M.

I've read that it overlaps with OCD which tends to overlap with ASDs... so maybe we're more susceptible?

I think for sure -- prior to my first GF, I would definitely obsess (to the point of almost stalking, though without ever contacting the person or wanting my presence to be known) girls that I found beautiful. After my first GF in my senior year of high school, my tastes shifted dramatically and exclusively to one ethnicity. Now, I can pretty much not obsess about most pretty women, but there's always someone from that one ethnicity that seems to catch my eye and my imagination.

I think in a way it has to do with th Autism spectrum thing about collecting and cataloging.

Well. toad, limerance doesn't wait. At least the one time it happened to me. I had more or less resigned myself to being asexual. I found women attractive, but it was in a sort of unfocused way. Heck, I even got infatuated with some. Still, it was the Aspie male lament of never even had held hands, much less kissed...

But, I still remember the moment a woman I will call Ell walked through the door, nearly 30 years ago. I lost my soul in that moment as my life immediately bifurcated into pre-Ell and post-Ell. I never regretted the fact that 'flirting' was just a word in the dictionary before then. The thing that really sucked was it was a massive 'do not WANT'. I had learned by that point was that I knew nothing about dealing with NTs on that level.

Still, I gamely tried.



That didn't work. I then tried ignoring it in the vain hope it would go away. No dice. Finally, I just gave up and told her. Which led to The Talk. You know, "you are a nice guy and we are great friends"...

Bummer.

So I decided that I would just be her friend. That way I'd have at least something. And it more or less worked out. Except for one time when I think she wanted me to kiss her. I don't know if I did or not. I remember thinking 'she wants me to kiss her' and the next thing I remember is standing in the hallway of my apartment wondering what had just happened. I guess I blacked out under the emotional overload. That scared me.

Anyway, we eventually lost touch. We recently got back into touch and...

Well, it hasn't gone away. Doesn't burn as hot, but it is still there.

I really, really don't need this.

Last edited by CJBinks on 02 May 2009, 9:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Even as depressed and violently heartbroken as I am lately...

this is the best thing I've seen in a long, long time.

Agreed. I've been so useless in love and so hideously depressed about it. I think I'll print that out and slap it next to my computer. At least I can smile and know that other people get irritated that love isn't something you can decode. It's not an equation.

I WISH people were equations!

I found it through this site

Aspie humor

But the xkcd site has a lot of stuff that I can identify with.

CJBinks: What you describe is all too familiar.

I was recently hanging out with people which included the object of my last limerent episode.

Wow, the pains and awkward feelings came rushing back. I really want to at least just be her friend, because we could get along very well. But it's just so uncomfortable...

xkcd is an amazing comic...

I have felt limerence for two people before, the first was in the year above me, for some reason she seemed very familiar but I had no idea why. Purely by coincidence her brother became one of my only friends so I got to see her more often and once she ended up standing very close to me when I went to my friend’s house due to the smallness of her brother’s room. The limerence started really kicking when she said that I looked cute when I was lining up for lunch, and I felt the same for a while after that even though I never got the chance to talk to her.

Then this other girl arrived and once when we were sitting next to these 3 lads at lunch (I was sitting next to them because 2 of them used to go to the same primary school and I didn't have any one also to sit next to and she was sitting next to them because the other guy was her cosine) her cosine jokingly said 'shag her hard' or something like that and she said that he was sick minded but then when he left she started talking to me and then started walking around with me for the whole lunch break and she kept asking me what I was going to do after school, but, still feeling limerent for that other girl, I hardly was bothered about her at all. In IT I tried to blend in with the other lads by spamming up the chatroom with them, but she insulted me because of it and in the next IT lesson, when she was getting insulted by other people in the same chatroom I started insulting her as well which resulted in insults flying everywhere between us, but if anything that helped because the day after I apologised and she started to talk to me more and said it's all right. At the moment I always seem to end up looking at her and whenever I'm alone I can’t stop thinking about her, and can't help feeling strongly Limerent towards her, even though I know nothing will ever happen between us. Sometimes I think of nothing but her and become obsessed.

I read that Wikipedia article, but it's a bit complicated and confusing. What's the difference between a crush and limerance? It's hard to tell from the language the writer uses.

Limerence is a lot stronger. If you're feeling limerent towards someone then that person is basically your obsession because you'll be thinking about them most of the time. If you're feeling limerence you normally get a load of fantasies about someone.

Has anyone else felt it?
I suppose I have, I never really heard of this word before but if it means having strong desires and feelings for others I've certainly had that.

How many people have you felt it towards?
It depends on the person but quiet a few. For one girl, my hormones go crazy and I go into a state of limerence every time she's around. I know she's not the one for me because her personality is not to my type but my sexual attraction towards her is over the roof and I wish those feelings would stop.

How long did you feel it for?
I've had these feelings last for years at a time. Sad, isn't it?

Did it end in a happy ending?
There's no story to tell. I've always keep my feelings about others secret and I refuse to tell a soul.

How many symptoms of it did/do you feel?
A lot. Intrusive thinking, Fear of rejection, and the physical effects.

Do you think there is a link between AS/autism and Limerence? Do you think it’s stronger for one particular gender??
I'm not sure

I've been rejected a few more times in my life by women I thought about a lot, directly or indirectly, but I was only hurt on a few occasions.

The first was when I was fourteen and I put it down to just being really naive and thinking that knowing a girl kind of liked me automatically meant that she was as besotted as I was, even if she didn't really know me. In retrospect I think if I had just paced things a bit better I could possibly have had a chance, maybe I'm wrong, but at any rate I eventually managed to shrug it off and get over it thinking that I could do it better next time with someone else. I was depressed for months and still thought about her on and off for a couple of years.

The second was when I was fifteen and I had this notion that this one pretty girl liked me and was totally certain that I would pass numerous long-awaited milestones during the day of a particular dance (such as my first relationship and first kiss). During the dance her friend approached me and tried to console me before I even knew she turned me down, and I didn't even realise what was happening because I was so certain that I was right and everything was going to work. Then I saw her with another guy. In retrospect, I'm not sure what led me to my conclusions, but I was bitter for months. My legacy of that is a bunch of sulking, and some angry exchanges with my friends and parents. I got over that, too, again seeing where I went wrong and thinking there were other girls as interesting as her if not more.

The third was when I was twenty-one and was totally devastating. I was in a depressive funk for a few months and my father tried to make me go into therapy. I still don't think I've gotten over it, and I'm not sure I ever will (at least not until I find myself in my hypothetical first relationship). Certainly I don't understand what I wasn't seeing or where I was going wrong, and think this person had some things going for her that very few people have.

There's a six-year gap there, but I think in the case of the last one I was having a hard time in general so maybe I let my guard down a bit more than I otherwise would have.

Last edited by Hector on 17 Aug 2009, 7:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

Discovering limerence and having a definition for it has been as big of an epiphany as associating myself with Aspergers. I mean, this really makes sense. I can count up to nine times where limerence has likely happened to me, and two other times where it was a near miss. It explains the stronge emotions I had from this unrequited love, why it took so long to get over it, and why I held out hope. It probably could have happened more if I hadn't learned to stifle my infatuations in recent years.

Perhaps if we as a society had a better understanding of limerence, relationships might be better. People might better understand why they are falling out of love with their partner. They would blame it on their own chemistry rather than their partner's faults or quirks. This is an interesting subject and i hope this thread keeps going.