Is limerence a made-up thing – a term that’s thrown around – when actually it’s just the infatuation stage of love? Or is it a real, neuroscience-based phenomenon? Sceptics, please read this!
Welcome to our series, The Love Diaries – a space for you to share your experiences, advice, fairy-tale endings, setbacks and heartbreaks. We’ll be hearing from industry experts giving practical advice alongside Capsule readers (You!) sharing your firsthand experiences with love – from the woman who cheated on her husband with a work colleague, one woman’s temptation now the love of her life is finally single (although she’s not), and the woman who forced her husband to choose between her and his girlfriend.
We talk to U.K. neuroscientist Dr Tom Bellamy, who recently revealed that he’s ‘Dr L’, who runs Living With Limerence, a blog turned website read by millions. Tom has also just published a book on limerence called Smitten: Romantic Obsession
I’m guessing some of you might be sceptical about whether limerence is a real thing. So what is it exactly? The late psychology professor Dorothy Tennov coined the term as a play on the word ‘amorance’ (love). She drew on data from thousands of questionnaires she administered, several hundred case studies of people she interviewed, and centuries of autobiographies and published personal journals.
In her 1979 book Love and Limerence, Tennov contrasted limerence with the experience of falling in love. She wrote that limerence is “an uncontrollable, biologically determined, inherently irrational, instinct-like reaction” and spoke of “its intrusiveness, its invasion of consciousness against our will”.
Tennov received letters from thousands of people thanking her for showing them they’re not alone and not crazy. However, at the time, her work didn’t command as much attention as it should have in academia. But now limerence is becoming a recognised phenomenon, as the fields of psychology and neuroscience continue making great strides.
A medically reviewed Psychology Today article says “limerence is a state of involuntary obsession with another person. The experience of limerence can include obsessional thinking about the object of one’s limerent desire, an irrationally positive evaluation of that person’s attributes, and a longing for reciprocation.”
The words ‘obsessive’ and ‘involuntary’ are key. This all-consuming mental and emotional state is almost an addiction – one which can see you swing between euphoria and agony.
A Medical News Today article, reviewed by clinical psychologist Dr Lori Lawrenz, says “when someone experiences limerence, the person who becomes the subject of their obsession is known as the limerent object (LO). The LO may have no romantic involvement with the individual who experiences limerence. A person who experiences limerence may obsess about their LO so much that it affects their productivity and daily functioning.”
Still sceptical? Don’t take my word for it. Take the word of neuroscientist and self-described limerent Dr Tom Bellamy. He wrote anonymously for seven years as ‘Dr L’ on Living With Limerence, which began as a blog and has become a well-resourced website visited by millions.
Tom recently revealed his identity to publish his book about limerence, called Smitten: Romantic Obsession. He looks at what’s happening in the ‘limerent brain’ and offers guidance for people experiencing limerence to their detriment.
There hasn’t been much research on limerence specifically, but that doesn’t mean limerence doesn’t exist. Tom sifted out the relevant parts from aligned research studies on love. He also commissioned an independent survey of 1500 adults in the U.K. and the U.S., which found 60% of them have experienced limerence. Meanwhile, he’s also written advice guides for people experiencing limerence, for partners of limerents, and another for professionals in the therapy or coaching field that sets out the literature on limerence and summarises the current evidence base.
Tom spoke to me about over Zoom – and there was a LOT I wanted to ask!
For starters, how would he describe limerence? “Well, there are two schools of thought. Some people have proposed that limerence is when it’s an obsession – almost an out-of-control addiction.” Proponents of this school of thought think we should reserve the term limerence only for circumstances where your quality of your life has deteriorated. “So they see it almost like a mental-health condition that needs management.”
“Other people also consider limerence to be the above – but also to be an ordinary part of early love for many people.” Dorothy Tennov thought it was both those things, Tom explains. “I subscribe to her view, because I think many people do experience the early symptoms of limerence, but then they’re actually able to form a bond and start a healthy relationship.” That way, you might transition out of limerence into actual love.
“Limerence isn’t necessarily something bad, if the person you’re limerent for is compatible and available.” But if feelings aren’t reciprocated – or you never find out whether they are – that’s when limerence can be a problem.
“The circumstances tend to be rooted in uncertainty. You don’t feel you can form a healthy, secure bond with this person for whatever reason – whether that’s social barriers, their behaviour, maybe your insecurity. You don’t openly talk to them about your feelings, so there’s that lack of communication, uncertainty and mixed messages. That precise situation can drive it from the intoxicating euphoric stage of early falling in love into a sort of addictive phase where you feel much more desperate and fixated on them, and no longer feel psychologically in control.”
What’s the difference between limerence and infatuation? “The intensity. Many people can have an infatuation, and it’s exciting and enlivening, but it doesn’t take over everything or become an abiding obsession.” Limerence tends to be involuntary.
But isn’t love involuntary? “I mean, yes, but also, it depends on who you ask! Many people experience the attraction, the desire, and the exhilaration of falling in love, but they don’t succumb to an altered mental state that feels like an addiction.”
If you do form a relationship with the person you’re limerent for, you may or may not feel some confusion down the line. “Things can go very well until the point where you ‘fall out of limerence’, because inevitably that euphoria fades, and that’s often a crisis point in relationships. Some people think ‘I’m not feeling the euphoria and the extravaganza anymore – does that mean I no longer love this person?’. There’s that terrible phrase ‘I love you, but I’m not in love with you’. From the perspective of a limerent, that phrase could be ‘I love you, but I’m not limerent for you anymore’.”
I tell Tom that some of our readers may still think limerence is a term that’s thrown around, and think it’s just the infatuation stage of love. What would Tom say in response?
“Well, it’s part of an ongoing debate about ‘what is love?’. Everybody thinks they know what love is, but everybody also recognises that there are lots of different forms of love – and that love matures throughout a relationship.” He says people who are sceptical of limerence being real tend to “split between two camps. They either say, ‘what you call limerence is just love, or maybe a crush’. Or they say, ‘what you call limerence is neurotic, a mania, not real love, because real love is stable and unconditional – and healthy love looks very different to the mania of limerence’. I think that’s a slight mischaracterisation because I don’t think you can form healthy, unconditional, selfless love for somebody you only met shortly before. The early period of love is different to the later periods of love.”
Tom says people feel “affection, attraction and desire in the early stages of love. But not that exaggerated euphoric high that comes with limerence and feels intoxicating and addictive.”
So is the LO genuinely special to you, or is this a brain malfunction? “They’re special to you because they’re triggering something deeper in you. So your history, your personality, and everything that’s led you to your present state makes that other person seem extraordinary.”
However, limerence is pretty ordinary – in that it’s thought to be fairly common. It’s estimated that about half of the population experience limerence. “Men and women equally. The numbers are about the same with homosexual and heterosexual people. Two groups very likely to have experienced limerence are people with an anxious attachment style, and bisexual people.” That might be because, if you’re bisexual, that doubles your pool, so to speak. “But it might suggest that the romantic reward is a very powerful drive for people who are bisexual and that might be part of why they’re attracted to people of both sexes.”
So yes, many people experience limerence. Odds are that, if you’ve never been limerent for someone, somehow you know has felt this way – and perhaps even been limerent for you.
*Look out for Part 2 of this story, where Tom explains how he felt limerent for a colleague, but told his wife and they worked through it
