Limerence

If you’ve ever been obsessed with someone can’t stop thinking about, then this may be “limerence”.

It’s an extreme state of romantic infatuation, an anxious and/ or exciting period of time when you can’t stop thinking about someone. It’s that period of constant thoughts about them, elation and intense emotional arousal that can progress to an obsessive craving and longing for another person. It’s often coupled with feelings of hope versus uncertainty, self-doubt and fear of rejection and embarrassing physical factors like literally not being able to talk or think clearly.

For example:

You have spent hours daydreaming about them and /or appear in your dreams and fantasies
You can't help sending that extra message, meme, or gif ... and another ... and another
You crave them to reciprocate your feelings to the point that it ‘aches’
You have received a DM message that sends you into an emotional tailspin. When they do reply you feel a thrill
You believe you cannot live without this someone.
You engineer your life around them (hoping to bump into them)
You search endlessly for clues that they do like and love you too.
You replay and over analyse your encounters with them
You find a way to bring them up in conversation with others
Every song reminds you of them
You put them on a pedestal

The term was coined by psychologist Dorothy Tennov in the 1970s who wrote the seminal book “Love and Limerence”. More recently, psychologist Albert Wakein describes the condition as a combination of obsessive-compulsive disorder and addiction.

Some might tell you you're just "loved up" or a hopeless romantic – and there’s nothing wrong with that – but what happens when these feelings affect your day-to-day life. Limerence is not the same as a crush which tends to come and go. Limerence is an all-consuming ‘addictive intoxication’ in the pursuit of another and feeling in love, a never-ending quest, resulting in a relentless and exhausting lifestyle. Rather than a balanced work-life balance, your sole purpose is affection from the person or ‘limerent object’. Tennov coined this phrase to make the distinction between the desired person being an object projecting romantic feelings upon rather than a person to interact romantic feelings with.

Limerence | Wikipedia
Dorothy Tennov | Wikipedia

The dark and addictive form of romantic attraction affecting 5% of Americans | BBC Reel | 8 Oct 2021 | 4m 5s
My first crush | juliapot | 10 Jul 2007 | 3m 50s

Albert Wakin, a professor of psychology and expert on limerence, defines the term as a combination of obsessive-compulsive disorder and addiction – a state of “compulsory longing for another person.” Professor Wakin estimates that five percent of the population struggle with limerence.

Limerence involves intrusive thinking about another person. It is often confused with love addiction but there is a fundamental difference. In love addiction, people want to replicate the feeling of falling in love again and again, while those experiencing limerence are focused on feelings for a specific individual.

Limerence is not the same as being in love. It is smothering and unsatisfying with little to no regard for the other person’s well being. In healthy relationships, neither partner is limerent; they do not struggle with constant, unwanted thoughts about their partner. A person experiencing limerence has feelings so intense that they rule every waking moment causing everything else to be left in the background. The person also tends to focus completely on the positive attributes of the “limerent object” and avoids thinking about any negative aspects.

Professor Wakin says, “It’s an addiction for another person. And we find that the obsessive-compulsive component of it is extremely compelling. The person is preoccupied with the limerent object (the subject of their obsession) as much as 95 percent of the time.”

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