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Of blossoming and fruiting. Love and limerence.

Writer's picture: Alex IAlex I

There is this cherry tree in my neighbourhood. Its impressive crown flourishes every spring with an exuberant bloom. The intoxicating scent attracts bees from far and wide until the petals fall down ushering in the beginning of summer. Here is the thing, in over seven years of witnessing this tree’s blossoming I noticed no fruit ever adorn its branches.


You may know someone who similarly falls in love with comparable flourish and a spectacular promise but somehow often ends up disappointed. I am that person. I am limerence-prone.

Falling in love fast and hard was something that I would do routinely. If it didn’t feel like a head spinning adventure it wasn’t “love”. Afterall, I had a substantial body of evidence to corroborate my viewpoint. Every heartachingly performed love song, every romantic comedy, every love poem, that I used to recognise the visage of true love, told me of the delicious uncertainty, of secretive yearning, of purity that transcends ALL obstacles. When it’s true love it will feel like panacea to all that ailed me before I saw the lifelong promise in a glimmer.


“Wait!” you might ask, “isn’t that just how everyone falls in love?” Well, not quite. The way I perceive it, limerence is a romantic getaway from a sense of anxiety by means of… more anxiety. Limerence has a set of key characteristics that make it distinctively a limerence, and not just budding love.


  •   It’s intense. Really intense. The euphoria is so mystical that it can only mean one thing and it feels like you’re meant for each other. It feels so good to be around the object of your desire and it feels so horrible when you are apart that it is easy to conclude that you are meant to be. It’s bordering on supernatural, alchemic reaction.

  •   Knowing the other person in a meaningful way isn’t sought. While you may accrue an impressive list of trivia and know what their favourite colour of socks is, their whole self is not known and isn’t even that important. It’s true love! Right? In this respect limerences are very similar to parasocial relationships with celebrities. You know about them, but not them.

  • It adversely affects limerent person’s life. Work gets done shoddily, friendships and close relationships suffer, self-care goes awry giving way to self-neglect, and hobbies and interests are sacrificed to be replaced with an all-consuming preoccupation with the other person.

  •   Limerence comes with rose tinted glasses that make it hard to identify the red flags. Disinterest is interpreted as allure, cruelty is taken for wit, and lukewarm civility is taken for a sure sign of an undying love. There is no open communication in limerence. Things are either not conveyed, or misinterpreted, or both.

  •   Frequently, the pick of limerent object can appear odd. Limerence is often experienced for people who are unavailable, unsuitable, or disinterested. Traits and behaviours that would put us off pursuing a lifelong connection with someone, paradoxically work really well to fan the flames in limerence.

  •   It feels more like a collision of celestial proportion than a growing of togetherness based on respect and understanding. I am no physics buff, but I have learned to appreciate that things that smash together hard and fast are also quick to bounce off one another. Elopements become resentments and hastily made commitments bind two strangers socially and financially long past the point of breakdown of the relationship.

  •   Companionate love that is usually expected to develop once things settle a little, doesn’t feel real or satisfying. The real person that emerges after a vertiginous period of courtship feels like a disappointment. The love that follows the rollercoaster of limerence feels dull. The man (or woman) behind the curtain is inevitably less impressive than the lore that a lovestruck limerent constructs around them.

Yours truly wearing those pink glasses

Ok. So, what can be done?

If you are in the position to see a counsellor or a psychotherapist to explore your tendency to experience limerence, it might be useful to do so. There are many reasons why we may become lovesick, and it would be a tall order to list them all. My contributing factors were my gender and expectations around it, my neurotype, my anxious and introverted disposition, my unresolved insecure attachment, and my “unfinished business” in relation to my early affection bonds. It’s a “proprietary blend” and I would invite you to approach yours with curiosity in the presence of a compassionate other.


If therapy is not your bag I would recommend these books:



Lastly, it was Dr L, who pointed out that it is not productive to compare limerence and love. To do so was to commit a cardinal category error. Rember that tree from earlier? Well, I found out that it was called a Cherry Blossom Tree and that it was designed to offer stunning displays of bloom, that I subconsciously underestimated because they didn’t become fruit. Limerence is the pain and the delight. Limerence gives us bravery, it moves us to create beautiful art, it offers us a flight into a sweet delirium that feels like a religious extasy. While not all blossoms go onto developing fruit, is it really necessary to think about cherries in order to appreciate the cherry blossom?

I will leave you with this passage attributed to Rumi. “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” If you feel that limerence has become such a barrier, get in touch and I will do my best to help you.

 

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