Limerence = being madly in love with someone, or borderline obsessed. Ultimately it’s something totally different to true love, which is calm and slow.

Being madly in love makes us well …. mad. It’s not an emotion that you should get used to feeling, when you start to fall for someone you tend to be crazy for them, but eventually you kind of want that to tone down and turn into true love, true love is what lasts forever, limerence is what creates obsession which is filled with a whirlwind of passion and no doubt a lot of sex (sounds fun so far).

While going through limerence we experience extreme highs (when they give us any kind of love or affection) and extreme lows (when they act off or seem distant we will automatically think it’s because of us) it can quite literally be a roller coaster of emotion, so watch out for whiplash!

All of a sudden you’ll notice that you’ve become hyper vigilant, constantly looking for signs that they love you, but with this also comes the hyper vigilance for signs that they don’t, if they frown, get upset, or angry, you’ll assume that it’s because of you. But this can even go to the extreme of physical manifestation, where you can feel physically sick if you think they’re pushing you away or being distant.

If you’re in limerence with someone and the person you feel it for is bad for you, well to put it nicely you’re kind of screwed, you won’t be able to see any of their bad elements, all the reasons why they might be wrong for you, don’t exist (at least in your mind anyway) and this is because of the halo effect, the halo effect is where the person we’re in limerence with can do nothing wrong, even if others around us are pointing out flaws in them, we can simply shrug it off or give justification for their behaviour, telling people around you that they don’t understand, or it’s only something minor that to you isn’t a big deal. YOU’RE LITERALLY BLIDSIDED.

All your friends and family could be screaming that this person isn’t right for you and they’re an awful person, but not to you, because all you can see are their good sides, this perfectly flawed individual who’s displaying very concerning behaviour, well to you .. you’ve never wanted approval and adoration from anyone as much as this in your whole entire life!

Being in limerence will make us all of a sudden want to change anything we can to make the subject of our affection happy, or at least make them happier to be with us, we will change our behaviour, maybe the way we dress, or even push away our circle of friends. You’ll happily bend over backwards to change things that if anyone else asked you to change, you’d shut them down with a solid no instantly. But limerence makes us do some crazy things!

Where you used to have certain standards for someone else’s behaviour towards you and how you want to be treated, that’s now gone. You don’t care, because if you can sacrifice all this just to feel love from the person you’re in limerence with, then you’ll do it, because that love they give you, well right now it’s like a drug and despite the fact you can get it from someone else, it will NEVER be the same as the feeling you get from being loved by that one damn person!

You’ll feel as though you can only ever be fulfilled and happy if that person loves you in the way you love them, you crave love and affection from them like a drug addict (not that I know what being a drug addict feels like, but if it’s anything like being in limerence with someone it must fucking suck)

Limerence is the definition of love and obsession, it’s intense, it will make you seem crazy and obsessive, it will make you sit around filled with desire to possess your person  for the rest of your lives, craving love and affection from them.

So why do we want the calm that is true love, vs the turbulent passion that is limerence?

True love can come in and bring our brains back to normal, we’re no longer obsessive and negatively impacting our own behaviour, where limerence can stump our creativity and growth, true love can help to bring it out in us. True love can help you grow as a person and create help you create forever life, because you’re able to focus on more than one thing at a time.

True love is what you want, but let’s be honest, limerence is fun and maybe just what we need sometimes. Even if the source of your total adoration fucks you over and fucks off.