More About Limerence

More About Limerence.

Limerence, the state of mind resulting from unrequited love that makes an individual form fantasies to initiate or maintain a relationship with the object of unrequited love, and have those feelings reciprocated.

Components

Limerence includes being constantly lost in the thoughts of the limerent object, intense desire for unrequited love to be returned, nervousness in the presence of the object of limerent’s desire and fear of rejection. In one-way love, the unrequited lover finds considerable relief in the mere thought of his love being reciprocated.

Tennov says that distance intensifies limerence and makes the limerent do anything possible to be around their beloved and overcome any obstacle to stay close to them. This also makes them imagine certain actions of the limerent object (LO) to be especially favourable and meant only for them. They even cook stories in their mind with those thoughts and tend to draw fabricated inferences from the words of their beloved.

Effects

A limerent is so completely lost in this world that most of the other important matters in life are usually left aside. In this state they are consciously or subconsciously doing everything that is love-centric and, in their mind, leads them closer to their beloved. As mentioned in my previous blog “Limerence”, it is often believed to be the initial or constant stage of unrequited love. Most importantly it is a condition of cognitive obsession and has been perceived to be genetically driven. This may be caused due to low serotonin levels in the brain, as compared to people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorders.

Memories of the time spent with the LO, the experiences and effects keep returning to the lover unnervingly and occupy a large part of their mind space. If there is nothing a limerent finds to connect the LO with, for example in a movie, a situation or a song, they immediately make-up something in their minds to connect their fantasy to real-life romantic fiction.

At their height, these thoughts completely occupy an individual’s waking hours leading to addiction-like condition and affecting their creativity and interest in other matters of importance in day-to-day life. This often results into long lasting underachievement in school, family life and work. They continue to imagine a situation from the past and think of it from different angles, until they are able to construct a story that matches their actual desire and give it a desirable ending. The thoughts can be both pleasant and unpleasant. The more time they get to themselves, the more their imagination soars. When their thoughts linger around “possible rejection”, they start focussing more on despair; these fabricated stories sometimes also have a tragic end and leave the limerent unhappy, low on self-confidence and sometimes even suicidal.

Mostly their dreams are also occupied by the LO and often make the lover sad when woken up, though the dream itself brings them a lot of happiness and rekindles the fire towards LO.

Hope

Limerence remains unaltered while hopes are still high and there is uncertainty of the LO’s feelings. The premise for limerent trust is not in objective reality but rather in the way reality is seen by them. The idea is to filter through words and behaviour of the LO and derive hope from it. Every act is constantly thought upon and every word is weighed in to reach a conclusion involving reciprocity of unrequited love. Every word and act is forever accessible for survey, particularly those deciphered as proof for reciprocity. Whenever objects, individuals, places or circumstances are experienced with the LO, they are imprinted in the memory, particularly if they happened directly between themselves and LO. Unless the LO has openly and outrightly rejected their feelings, they continue to build hope on grounds of fantasy.

Fear of Rejection

Based on the fantasies and imagination, the limerent is mostly sure the LO loves them back. However, when they return to their senses and see the actual world and its happenings, it sows seeds of self-doubt, from what they had imagined as well as from what is actually happening. This leaves them heart-broken and constantly nervous in the presence of LO and even in other matters of life that demand confidence and emotional strength. What actually destroys the limerent is the extended period of confusion about their place in the LO’s life. Though absence makes the heart grow fonder, uncertainty makes them uncomfortable, which usually is a result of doubt about the LO’s feelings.

I am going to write more on Limerence in my next blog. Please share your experiences in the comments section and I will talk about them in my future blogs.