Living with limerence Quotes

“Ultimately, there comes the realisation that the LO is detrimental to your life, but you also know you can’t give them up without significant emotional pain. Heads you lose. Tails you really lose.”
― Dr. L., Living with limerence: A guide for the smitten

“Happiness comes from self-esteem and self-actualisation, and they come most reliably from concrete achievement.”
― Dr. L., Living with limerence: A guide for the smitten

“They are not that special. Nobody is. You’ve probably had moments of clarity when you’ve seen this, and had that weird dissociative experience of wondering why you are so gaga about someone who is objectively pretty ordinary”
― Dr. L., Living with limerence: A guide for the smitten

“Limerence is fundamentally about neurochemistry. It feels spectacular, but that feeling is coming from within you. That means you are the one who can reverse it. Your limerent object may be a splendid person, but they are just a person. Not a god or goddess. Not an angel or demon. Your feelings are not evidence of true love, or a twin flame soul connection. The fact that limerence emerges from your internal world means that the mechanism to stop it lies within you and your ability to understand and manage your emotions.”
― Dr. L., Living with limerence: A guide for the smitten

“Seeking pleasure leads to a life of escalating thrills, risky behaviour and short-term gratification of drives. Seeking happiness, by contrast, leads to long-term thinking, self-discovery, honesty, and consistent work to improve the situation of your life.”
― Dr. L., Living with limerence: A guide for the smitten

“Another issue is that the different attachment styles of LOs will exacerbate or neutralise limerence symptoms. If anxious-preoccupied people are more prone to limerence, then fearful-avoidant types are the perfect LOs – unpredictable, emotionally hot-and-cold, variably available or unattainable”
― Dr. L., Living with limerence: A guide for the smitten

“The key point is to recognise that increased limerence can be an indicator of increased stress, and that the actual problem to solve is the stress.”
― Dr. L., Living with limerence: A guide for the smitten

“It’s a form of rationalisation or bargaining: we’re only friends. I’ll just wallow here in the shallow end of the relationship pool – the friendzone, if you will – and bathe in their loveliness. No danger of drowning.”
― Dr. L., Living with limerence: A guide for the smitten

“Mixed signals can also cause insecurity in the limerent, making them even more likely to ruminate over their behaviour and their strategy and, generally, keep guessing about the state of their relationship with LO.”
― Dr. L., Living with limerence: A guide for the smitten

“The final factor for a full-blown limerence reaction seems to be uncertainty. If for some reason there are obstacles to the free expression of mutual feeling, it acts as fuel. Either consummation or direct rejection can lead to the cooling of limerent feelings, but uncertainty seems to inflame them.”
― Dr. L., Living with limerence: A guide for the smitten

“You become hyperaware of the body language and emotional state of your potential LO. Each interaction is analysed for meaning. Signs of hoped-for reciprocation accelerate the drive to full-blown limerence; overt disinterest or hostility can slam on the brakes. More simply, if the signs of reciprocation are very good – your LO flirts with you, is obviously aroused themselves, and starts fiddling with their hair or laughing at your flimsy jokes – that in itself can be a powerful limerence aphrodisiac.”
― Dr. L., Living with limerence: A guide for the smitten

“It seems there is some sort of blueprint deeply integrated into each limerent’s psyche that the subconscious mind is able to rapidly access, and if it spots a match, it activates the limerent circuitry.”
― Dr. L., Living with limerence: A guide for the smitten

“There is something special about certain people. Obviously, over the course of a lifetime most limerents will meet many people who are potential sexual and romantic partners, but they don’t become limerent for them all. There is something about particular individuals that chimes with the limerent, and often it is recognised at a subconscious level very soon after meeting the potential LO. It’s best described as an immediate sense that this person is romantically potent in some way – they cause what I call “the glimmer”. I suspect that this glimmer is the same elusive “spark” that people complain is missing from a disappointing date, but without the ability to actually articulate what it was that was wrong. But we limerents know an LO when we meet one. Their appearance, their mannerisms, their scent, their laugh – some physical or personality trait accesses the networks in our brains that trigger limerent interest.”
― Dr. L., Living with limerence: A guide for the smitten

“The intoxication of reverie is a defining feature of limerence, and a primary cause for deepening it.”
― Dr. L., Living with limerence: A guide for the smitten

“That’s the basic reality of limerence: sensation overload.”
― Dr. L., Living with limerence: A guide for the smitten

“remarkable ability to emphasise the positive features of the LO, and minimise, or empathise with, the negative.”
― Dr. L., Living with limerence: A guide for the smitten

“People who have not experienced limerence are baffled by descriptions of it and are often resistant to the evidence that it exists. To such outside observers, limerence seems pathological... it seems inconceivable that a sane person could attach so much importance to another individual.”
― Dr L, Living with limerence: A guide for the smitten

“Since coming across Tennov’s book, I’ve bored a significant number of friends and acquaintances with my excitement about the concept of limerence, and (possibly somewhat impertinently) asked them what they think of it. Their responses have tended to fall into two categories: That’s just love. You don’t need a special word for that. That’s crazy. There’s something wrong with people like that. Curiously enough, that is exactly the reaction that Dorothy Tennov got after publishing her work.”
― Dr L, Living with limerence: A guide for the smitten