Today’s case study is from Owen, who has begun to realise the unexpected impact that limerence has had on his life.
I’ve never been in a relationship or really gone beyond the first couple of dates with a girl, and haven’t had any sexual experiences since I was 19 at university. Since I’ve learnt about limerence, with hindsight I can now probably say that I’ve had two previous LOs… both causing me to go into depressive and anxious spirals, but I probably never really admitted to even myself that this was such a big contributing factor to my problems.
Owen fell into limerence at university, and it was so deep and disruptive that his performance suffered, he self-medicated with other addictions (alcohol and marijuana), and he ended up leaving without completing his studies.
As a consequence, he:
…took the decision to completely cut out dating and the idea of having a relationship as I tried to get myself back on track with work and quitting my other vices.
Fast forward a few years, and Owen has met a new limerent object. He asked her out and they went on a couple of dates, but it didn’t work out – in part because Owen felt insecure and inexperienced. They are now just friends.
Owen now understands that his previous tendency to use limerence fantasies for mood regulation, had unintended consequences.
I don’t want to be beholden to the romantic fantasies in my head, but I have no idea how to progress and be confident to find something in real life without it going the same route again, and whilst I know comparing myself to others is foolish, I do feel like I’ve caused myself to be left behind in such a key area of life.
So, that’s the crux of it. He now sees that limerence has held him back in life, but does not feel confident about how to turn things around.
He seeks romantic connection, but feels like he doesn’t know what he’s doing, or how to progress a real relationship without falling into limerent fantasies.
Let’s try and help.
The positives
Starting with the positive aspects of Owen’s story, he is now very self-aware and able to see his situation clearly. That is a big first step towards purposeful living.
Many people who seem to have their lives together in their twenties end up crashing into a crisis at midlife, when they realise that the ambitions they pursued did not bring them happiness after all. Their dark night of self-evaluation comes later, when it is far more disruptive.
Cold comfort, but comparing yourself to friends who seem to have it all figured out is often an error – they can just be passively drifting too.
Second, Owen is just entering his prime. He may feel he is behind his peers, but he’s also on the threshold of the best part of adult life. There is time to capitalise on that opportunity.
Third, he is doing a lot right. He has got a stable job, even if his original ambitions from university were compromised, and he has a group of friends who can offer emotional support.
It seems to me that Owen is at the starting line of a purposeful future, and ready to go.
The negatives
OK, so, ready and raring to go, but… where?
How do you start a race when you feel unprepared, unfit, and unsure of the route?
How do you gain confidence? How do you deal with embarrassment during dating? How do you manage limerence when it overwhelms your efforts to be calm, cool and collected?
Well, rather like preparing for a race, you need to practice. To train.
Owen had the courage and purpose to ask his LO out, and they went on a couple of dates. He felt like an awkward teen and it didn’t work out, but he did it. That’s actually profoundly important.
The critical next step forwards is to understand that this wasn’t a failure. OK, maybe there isn’t a future with his current LO (who he might be advised to limit contact with), but there are other opportunities ahead.
Success rarely comes immediately. Much more commonly, it comes after trying repeatedly and incrementally improving your odds. Failure only really arrives when you give up for good.
When you put pressure on yourself, and treat dating as a high stakes situation, it inevitably feels like a disaster, rather than a setback, when it goes wrong.
The mental reframe needed is to move from:
Oh that was awful I felt like a fool and didn’t know what to do. I’m never doing that again.
to
I got some romantic training in today, but it was hard going. I need to work at it.
It is only a tiny minority of people who have “natural confidence” (and even some of them turn out to have some underlying mental insecurity driving them).
Most of us have to put the reps in.
Dispelling embarrassment
On a date, men typically want to be as suave and worldly as James Bond, but feel closer to Mr Bean.
A lot of embarrassment comes from the mismatch between how insecure we feel and how confident we think we should feel. If we do something naive or awkward or clumsy, we get that hot flush of embarrassment as our dignity crumbles.
There is a secret, though, that all the dating gurus know and share, but no one really wants to believe. A way to sidestep the game playing and performing that can complicate dating.
Authenticity.
Confidence isn’t really the belief that you can handle anything, that you are in charge of the world and action-orientated. It’s more about being comfortable in your own identity, and at ease with yourself.
Purposeful living is all about building that sort of confidence naturally, by becoming more self-aware and pursuing meaningful work and building healthy relationships with the people you care for.
It’s surprising how effective that is at removing embarrassment too.
If you don’t pretend, you won’t feel embarrassed when the pretense wobbles.
To give a personal example: leaving an academic post where I was working on Important Neuroscience to go it alone as a writer talking about love and infatuation (including exposing my own personal dramas) was not generally seen as an enhancement of my professional status.
I was prepared to deal with the embarrassment of old colleagues teasing me, but it never happened.
Leaving was a purposeful choice. I simply explained myself straightforwardly and – almost universally – people responded with polite curiosity. Respect, even.
I don’t have extraordinary confidence or insensitivity to embarrassment.
I just behaved authentically and most people accepted it.
Self-development
Coming back to Owen’s case, the overall message is to keep going with developing self awareness, and understanding why you are how you are.
It takes time to reverse the limiting beliefs of the past and build new beliefs about the future. Rewriting those programs is going to involve some trial and error, and openness to risks and disappointments.
Your best chance of finding someone special who might be a long-term partner is to find someone who aligns with your values, goals and purpose.
That means you have to have a clear idea of what those values, goals and purpose are, and you have to anticipate that there are bound to be some false starts.
This contrasts with most people’s approach to dating:
She’s attractive, I’ll try to impress her, and hope she likes me.
Instead it’s:
She’s attractive, I’ll try and get to know her, and see if we’re compatible.
Approach dating with the same purposeful mindset as you approach the other areas of life, and you’ll get better outcomes.
All that said, it is a long time since I was dating, so while these universal principles are hopefully useful, if anyone has more timely observations, add them to the comments below.
Good luck Owen!
I would just add that being a Mr. Bean is not all bad. I dated a lot before I got married, and sometimes those little embarrassing moments can be endearing.
Authenticity is attractive.
I hate to see young people put so much pressure on themselves.
Besides being authentic, my personal suggestion: Read Novels, especially classics ones.
*****
New York Times
Attention, Men: Books Are Sexy!
Aug. 2, 2025, 7:00 a.m. ET
A black-and-white photo of James Dean reading the complete poetical works of James Whitcomb Riley while smoking a cigarette at a kitchen table.
Credit…Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos
By Maureen Dowd
Opinion Columnist
It was one of the most erotic things I ever heard. A man I know said he was reading all the novels of Jane Austen in one summer.
At first, I figured he was pretending to like things that women like to seem simpatico, a feminist hustle. But no, this guy really wanted to read “Northanger Abbey.”
Men are reading less. Women make up 80 percent of fiction sales. “Young men have regressed educationally, emotionally and culturally,” David J. Morris wrote in a Times essay titled “The Disappearance of Literary Men Should Worry Everyone.”
The fiction gap makes me sad. A man staring into a phone is not sexy. But a man with a book has become so rare, such an object of fantasy, that there’s a popular Instagram account called “Hot Dudes Reading.”
Some of the most charming encounters I’ve had with men were about books.
Mike Nichols once turned to me at a dinner in L.A. and told me his favorite novel was Edith Wharton’s “The House of Mirth.” I was startled because I have read that book over and over, finding it a great portrait of a phenomenon that is common in politics. Someone makes a wrong move and is unable to recover, slipping into a shame spiral. (This does not apply to Donald Trump.)
I went to interview Tom Stoppard in Dorset a few years ago. The playwright has no computer and is not on social media. He writes with a Caran d’Ache fountain pen with a six-sided barrel.
Stoppard had a romantic-looking bookcase full of first editions of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. He complained that his book collection was regularly raided by “American burglars.”
It was ensorcelling. I felt the same when I interviewed Ralph Fiennes, and it turned out that he loves Shakespeare and reciting Beckett at 3 a.m. under the stars.
He recalled that his mother, a novelist named Jennifer Lash, read him bedtime stories from Shakespeare, including “Henry V” and “Hamlet.”
“My mother said, ‘I’ll tell you a story. There was this young man and his father’s died, and he’s a young prince.’ And she told it to me in her own words.”
President Trump projects a crude, bombastic image of masculinity. I can always escape by rereading Dickens’s “Our Mutual Friend,” and falling back in love with Eugene Wrayburn, an indolent, upper-crust barrister who turns out to have every quality a man should have.
I asked my friend Richard Babcock, a former magazine editor and novelist who taught writing at Northwestern, about the male aversion to reading. His new novel is “A Small Disturbance on the Far Horizon,” set in the Nevada desert in 1954 under the shadow of nuclear bomb testing. It follows three people whose lives are entwined. “The book is about guilt, adultery, murder, a chase through the mountains — you know, the usual day-to-day stuff,” Babcock said wryly.
“Not to blame the current cultural landscape on Ronald Reagan,” he said, “but I think the obsession with money and wealth that arrived in the 1980s may have encouraged the false idea in men that there was little to learn from a novel. If you want tips on how to crush your rival, better to read nonfiction.
“Similarly, with the education focus turning to math and science, gateways to good-paying jobs, the value of the humanities has been degraded. And we don’t hear enough about how novels, sweeping over landscapes, personalities, ideas, events can open perspectives and discipline the mind.”
Susan Sontag once said novels can “enlarge your sympathies,” preventing you from “shriveling and becoming narrower.” That’s more essential as everyone is hunching over fiendish little personal devices.
She called fiction an ax that “kind of splits you open,” shakes you out of your crusty habits and preferences “and gives you a model for caring about things that you might otherwise not care about.”
As Babcock points out, the decline of literary fiction with everyone has left romance and historical fiction, traditionally favored by women, the dominant genres. Still, he said, he is “a bit distrustful of the men-don’t-read-novels lament,” noting that “my friends eagerly read novels, even returning to the classics, such as ‘Anna Karenina’ and ‘Middlemarch.’ Some wonderful male writers are turning out thoughtful, dramatic books, such as Daniel Mason’s ‘North Woods’ and Ben Shattuck’s ‘The History of Sound.’”
A couple years ago, I wrote about how getting my master’s in English literature from Columbia underscored for me that we need the humanities even more when technology is stripping us of our humanity.
Works like “Frankenstein” and “Paradise Lost” shed light on the narcissism of the powerful, male tech geniuses birthing a world-shattering new species, A.I.
After that, a New Yorker named Paul Bergman emailed me an invitation to his book club — all men, lawyers and a judge who had gotten to know one another from the Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s office.
“For the last 45 years,” Bergman wrote me, “we’ve been sharing our thoughts on books we’ve read.” Would I join a few sessions on “Middlemarch”?
Dear reader, I did.
Hi,
As the guy that this case study referenced, I’d just like to say I appreciate the advice and clips (which I’ll give a watch) from your other comment, but also the article you posted in this comment was really interesting as someone who is actually an avid reader.
Funnily enough I started talking with the girl who, as referenced in this piece, is my current LO about the book I was reading at the time (The Count of Monte Cristo). Obviously nothing more than a friendship ended up coming from that, but it’s quite nice to hear from someone that one of my main hobbies in reading is something someone might find interesting.
Owen,
“The Count of Monte Cristo“ was my feverish reading in one go within 3 days, besides eating, sleeping, and schooling, during my teenage.
The video clips echo DrL’s main idea: be authentic and not afraid of showing our vulnerabilities to a date or anyone else…
A classical book reader, male or female, or bi/either, would score you 5 more points (out of 10), in my opinions. It would be hard to sustain a lasting friendship/relationship between avid and scarce readers of classics literature.
Good Lucks to your dating journey!
Thanks for the advice and kind words, it’s really appreciated.
I definitely think mixing in some classic literature with any other reading is a must!
I would’ve loved to find a classic novel reader in my single days! The closest I got was geeks reading fantasy and sci-fi novels…. Seeing “Northanger Abbey” in the article made me perk up, lol!
🦇 📕,
It’s synchronicity– DrL’s dating tips, NYT article today, Owen’s book taste, your Austen and my Dumas reading…
One can’t help believe in the “nagging” Jung
I’d say I’ve got quite a wide range in my reading tastes, I think getting some classics in there is a must but I do also enjoy some fantasy (big Tolkien fan) and historical fiction, as well some more modern reads for a bit of a change of pace at times.
If we treat “dating” as an “alive being”, then classical literature is the bones, modern reads the flesh.
One needs both to date and purposefully live in the modern life.
I’ve read most of Tolkien’s books at least once. Watched the LOTR movies many times over. I’m not to the level of Stephen Colbert, but then, who is? lol My interests are varied—I LOVE old Gothics, and many newer writers. 🙂
I remember one of my lit teachers (male) in college was into Jane Austen. He was married, but another lit teacher (male) was young and single. Also a writer. Oh did I have a crush on him….
I must’ve read through The Lord of the Rings close to ten times now since I was like 9 or 10, and I love the bits and pieces that Christopher Tolkien compiled together, The Children of Hurin is a particular favourite. Honestly, I had to look up Stephen Colbert (being British, I hadn’t come across him) but anyone with that level of devotion to Tolkien must be a solid guy haha.
I haven’t read loads of gothic pieces, probably only really Frakenstein, and then maybe Wuthering Heights and The Picture of Dorian Gray if they were to come under the gothic genre.
I’d love to be able to write some stuff of my own, I did some poetry in my teens which in hindsight was a bit melodramatic, but haven’t really found the inspiration per se to try anything else more recently.
I think these clips might be helpful to some eager-to-date mind (may differ from trendy dating coaches):
1. How to Seduce Someone on a Date — https://youtu.be/v9OdeEzon_0?si=TH8IqZgSalEfIrST
2. https://youtu.be/IKTd98LzAp8?si=D-WvAvdjq5um07Od — The Best Chat up Lines
3. https://youtu.be/y_pGong8-68?si=Z7y8BFsnm4j055te — What to Talk About on a Date
4. https://youtu.be/bcNr9SXdsMQ?si=z_olHlXcxd20WBOi — The Mistake 90% of People Make in Dating
Owen,
Have all the women you’ve been interested in/asked out been LOs? If so, that’s too high of a standard to expect to experience before you pursue someone. Also, dating is on some level a numbers game and if you’re only getting up to bat every now and then, the numbers aren’t in your favor. You’re hyper focusing on one person, who then also has to be interested in you and want things to move forward. That’s a lot of pressure on one person and one situation to work out.
So if any of what I wrote applies … I’d say your best course of action is to ask out some women you like and find appealing but aren’t LOs.
Hi Marcia,
So I’d say you’ve pretty much hit the nail on the head for me there. I only really found about limerence a month or so ago, so didn’t really realise that I had, as you said, only been interested in and asked out women who were LOs for me. I’d then put a lot of pressure on myself for those situations to work out, which when they inevitably didn’t would cause me to revert to type and shy away from dating again as I didn’t like how it made me feel. Earlier this year one of my friends set me up on an online dating app, and I went on a couple of different dates but in hindsight I was obviously comparing to LOs and decided it wasn’t for me.
Now that I have learnt about limerence, and received some really good advice from here, it’s starting to all click into place a bit and that I have obviously approached dating all completely wrong and had only been pursuing someone through a limerent lens.
Thanks for the comment and advice, as I said I think you explained pretty much perfectly how I’ve approached dating, so I’ll definitely take that on board.
To Owen:
I dated a lot before I got married, and sometimes I would go on what I called “practice dates.” I went out with people I wasn’t terribly interested in just to hone my conversational skills and maybe try to learn about different subjects from the person I was with.
It helped me feel more at ease and the whole experience became less nerve-wracking.
Owen,
“Earlier this year one of my friends set me up on an online dating app, and I went on a couple of different dates but in hindsight I was obviously comparing to LOs and decided it wasn’t for me.”
I did the exact same thing about a month ago.
I didn’t like the apps, either, but ultimately, as Norma posted, it was good practice. In talking to men. In getting through the early-dating nervousness. You can be as old as I am and still need the practice. 🙂
Do you have other ways of meeting women besides the apps?
Yeah I think looking at it again now I should maybe give the apps another go with that different outlook, of at least giving it a go for some practice in the dating department as both you and Norma have said.
In terms of meeting women outside the apps I’m not really sure. I’ve got a decent social life, but nowadays it’s more meeting up with mates for a catch up and some drinks rather than meeting new people, compared to at uni where you’d meet new people all the time. The LO that I went out with more recently, and am now perhaps a bit stupidly friends with, I met at a pub but it’s not exactly a regular occurrence that I’ll start chatting with new women.
To Owen:
What I was trying to say, and what you might consider, is that if you are not limerent for someone you’re asking out on a date, you can feel more confident and like you have nothing to lose.
You won’t feel like your life depends on the success of the date because you have a very small emotional investment. That will help you be more comfortable all the way around and will build your skills and confidence.
Owen,
“Yeah I think looking at it again now I should maybe give the apps another go with that different outlook, of at least giving it a go for some practice in the dating department as both you and Norma have said.”
I plan on doing the same thing. I’m bracing myself for it. 🙂
“In terms of meeting women outside the apps I’m not really sure. I’ve got a decent social life, but nowadays it’s more meeting up with mates for a catch up and some drinks rather than meeting new people, compared to at uni where you’d meet new people all the time.”
Are you in your 20s? Are there social groups you can join? I do meetups and I often see groups for people in their 20s and 30s.
“The LO that I went out with more recently, and am now perhaps a bit stupidly friends with”
What happened there? She didn’t want to go out anymore after the dates you went on?
Hi Norma,
That makes a lot of sense, thanks for the advice.
Now knowing a bit more about limerence, I’m starting to see that I only really asked out a few women that I was limerent for ( I guess mistaking that the feeling of limerence is what you should feel when you want to ask someone out). So yeah I think what you’ve said about being able to ask someone out without that pressure and emotional investment of an LO is a good idea to become more comfortable with dating etc.
Marcia,
Yeah I’m 26 now, but haven’t really looked into any new sort of social groups. I’ve always felt pretty comfortable with my current group of friends, but as I said don’t really meet new people all that often through the things we do anymore. So perhaps as you say looking into some new groups and activities might be a good idea in the long term.
Regarding LO, we get on really well and have quite a few common interests, when we went out they were quite long dates, from the afternoon til the early hours of the morning, but she ultimately said to me it felt more like friends to her. I think that might be due to how I was when we went out (don’t know for sure ofc, she could’ve just decided that whilst we get on I wasn’t what she was looking for), but I’m quite aware that I’m not massively comfortable being flirty and in hindsight got a bit awkward at anything flirty she would say or do and my default is to turn anything I’m uncomfortable with into a stupid joke or something and I also just didn’t make any moves. It’s a bit frustrating because we have become pretty good friends, and I know that most of the advice is that with an LO you should try and go no contact, but I don’t really want to cut out that friendship and potentially hurt and confuse her over stupid feelings I still have. Even though I’m aware that it’s still probably overall being selfish on my part thinking like that.
To Owen:
One more comment. I think it was Dr. L who brought up Mr. Bean in his article. I will say that I am 72 and act like Mr. Bean around my LO, who is six years younger than me, and gay.
Maybe because we’re both so old, neither one of us is bothered. Maybe that kind of comfort comes with age.
So what I was going to say is, if you DO end up acting like Mr. Bean, just embrace it. It’s rather endearing.
Hi Norma,
Yeah I quite liked the Mr Bean analogy Dr L brought up. I’m definitely more of a Mr Bean than a James Bond as he put it. In person I definitely don’t talk how I write (although admittedly that’s surely the same as everyone) and can be quite silly and sarcastic, but then after the fact with people I don’t know as well, will start ruminating about whether they thought I was an annoying idiot or something and that will then affect how I try and interact again in the future. So yeah I quite like what you’ve said about just embracing it.
Thanks for all your replies and advice!
Owen,
“So perhaps as you say looking into some new groups and activities might be a good idea in the long term.”
You have a bit of an advantage over the rest of us on here because you are young. You should still be able to meet people IRL who are single and available and around your age. So take advantage of it! 🙂
“when we went out they were quite long dates, from the afternoon til the early hours of the morning, but she ultimately said to me it felt more like friends to her.”
I am by no means an expert, so I’ve watched a lot of YouTube videos by dating coaches. The general consensus is … don’t go on long dates. Two or three hours, tops. Leave them curious about you. Don’t give everything away at once.
I’d recommend TheSingleGuy. American guy. Maybe 30 or 35 years old. He gives dating advice for men, but I watch him to get the male perspective. It’s how to ask a woman out over text, how to text to keep her interest, how to tell if she’s into you, etc.
” I don’t really want to cut out that friendship and potentially hurt and confuse her over stupid feelings I still have. ”
You and every other limerent. 🙂
“Even though I’m aware that it’s still probably overall being selfish on my part thinking like that.”
And selfish of her as she probably knows you have feelings but she’s still getting some male attention.
Marcia,
“You have a bit of an advantage over the rest of us on here because you are young. You should still be able to meet people IRL who are single and available and around your age. So take advantage of it!”
That is true haha, I definitely need to try and push myself out of my comfort zone a bit more and try and do things that’ll let me meet more new people again.
That’s definitely interesting about the lengths of dates, I never really thought about that. With LO, when we went out, it was definitely the longest period of time I’ve been out on dates for, which at the time I thought was a good sign. We got on really well and had fun to the point it wasn’t really a conscious decision to be out that long, but that is something I’ll keep in mind in the future.
“You and every other limerent. 🙂”
Yeah, I’ve definitely come to realise that is a common sentiment from reading here, which is obviously why so many of us find it hard to break it off even if you know it’s for the best.
“And selfish of her as she probably knows you have feelings but she’s still getting some male attention.”
Honestly, I haven’t really thought about it from that perspective, but I guess realistically as you say she must realise that I still have feelings, even if I’ve never been great at expressing that. That is food for thought.
Genuinely I’m really appreciative of the comments and advice from everyone, it’s not something I’ve ever felt comfortable being able to talk about with friends or family.
Owen,
I copied some of the content of one of the videos I watched:
“There are good dates and there is practice for good dates. It’s not exactly fair or even accurate to consider any date that doesn’t lead to connection, sex or a relationship as a failure, and if you approach dating with this mindset, you’re very quickly going to get burnt out. Most first dates will not lead to second dates so being able to reframe anything that doesn’t lead to a second date as a learning experience will help prevent you from becoming angry, disappointed and demoralized. Some people are reluctant to even go out on a first date with someone when they don’t believe there’s any possibility that it could lead to a long-term relationship. This attitude is problematic for the following reason: If you only go out with people who you
believe are strong fits for a long-term relationship or with people you are extremely attracted to, you’re just not going to go out on many dates and this is going to make you rusty. The ability to have interesting conversations, the ability to flirt, the ability to seduce — these are skills. I don’t care how hot or rich or awesome you are. These things generally don’t come naturally to folks. Like any other skills, they require practice to hone and an effort
to maintain and if you’re not going out on a lot of dates to keep these skills sharp, what’s going to happen when the perfect
guy or the perfect girl suddenly sits down next to you at the bar
or you actually match with each other on the app? You might blow that chance because you haven’t kept a hand in the game now. I’m not advocating that you go out with people that you have zero attraction to but dating regularly helps you get better at dating and reduces the likelihood that you’ll blow a good chance when you get one those opportunities that don’t come around every day. It’s important to be ready for them when they do present themselves.”
I thought that was exactly what we were talking about.
In terms of your LO, I’m assuming you’re still limerent for her ? Other posters will disagree, but I don’t think you can be friends with an LO. Not if you still have feelings for them. And if you’re still all wrapped in her, you won’t exactly be motivated to date other women. Aside from the fact that those other women can’t possibly compete with the fantasy that is your LO. It’s a not a fair fight. 🙂
picking up on the friends thing.
She probably knows you still have feelings. She may not know. She may not undestand limerence and it being painful. But that is why in your situation I would probably tend towards disclosure, especially as she seems not to be a core part of your life and it is easy to walk away from for both of you.
But flip the script a bit on remaining friends/confusing her. Ask yourself how would I behave if you knew your friend found being around you painful because they had feelings and you’ve rejected them already.
Would you:
(a) cut them off and hope that it will be the best for them long term
(b) talk to them about it and see if you can resolve their feelings somehow and make it clear they need to move on
(c) try to help them find alternative partners, also signalling that this will not be with you
(d) just carry on as is, even though you know it hurts them
Limerents are great at convincing themselves this means a lot to LO too, rather than just being a nice bit of attention/fun friendship, and if it all went away it would be a rather insignificant episode in their life. The LO is not responsible for your pain and decisions you make, but they are responsible for deciding how they react to that and if they willingly prolong it then that is on them.
“It takes time to reverse the limiting beliefs of the past and build new beliefs about the future. Rewriting those programs is going to involve some trial and error, and openness to risks and disappointments.”
This is very true. I feel like this is the current place I am in. Or at least try to be. My biggest challenge is working around my sick Father’s issues and of course work itself. I have very little time for actual dating and giving of myself to one person. However it is something I long for.
Which makes the idea of longing for LO, still a very nice idea. I also realize it is pointless because she is nothing more than that. An idea, a fantasy. Someone who is real but someone I don’t know. Have never “officially” met. This still makes me sad, but given how I have always felt about her, probably wouldn’t yield too much anyway if infact I did know her. Because I would probably try too hard. Pedestal her and be her simp. It would be me trying and working too hard to make her happy. All because she’s just this magical person (to me), that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside.
Some of those quirks spilled over into my Friendship I eventually made with LF. Who I feel was integral in helping me out of LE disappointment. At the same time, she was also a practice person for me at normalcy again with the opposite sex. I enjoyed the hell out of being around her. Felt like it was the beginning of living purposefully. Things between us were mostly good, till I disclosed and made things awkward. Then somehow I miraculously fixed things again, increased our friendship to something even better than it was before disclosure, but then jacked things up all over once more by divulging more personal details of my past. Which repulsed her. This has now pretty much put any friendship we ever had on hold. She doesn’t hate me and I definitely don’t hate her. We seem to avoid each other at work nowadays on purpose, but can still say “what’s up?” now and then. It’s going to take some work to bring things back to friendship level status between us again, but it’s the idea of that, that repels me from wanting to make the effort.. I don’t want to be her Simp, Orbiter or Validation Guy again. That isn’t high value. Neither of us need or deserve that.
To me, this just proves that thru trial and error, we have to find our way with certain people. It’s not always easy as I have found out.
I’ve since met a few other Women and recently asked one out to lunch but she has a SO, kids and a mortgage. All without actually being married. So it’s drama I’m really not interested in involving myself with there. What makes it hard is she’s so cool and down to earth. She’s not a whiny young Woman with an attitude or agenda. I know her and I would make a great pair. But it’s the work it would take and even at that, I know she doesn’t seem like she’s in a place to want to leave her current somewhat comfortable life. I hardly want to get in the way.
Owen,
For what it’s worth, I met LO #2 a month before I turned 27. The first date I remember was when she took me to lunch on my 27th birthday. Over 40 years later, I still remember where and what it looked like.
My stories of LO #2 are scattered all over LwL. Many of the posts are very uncomplimentary but I will say this:
That young woman showed me that happiness was a possibility for me. For a lot of reasons, I didn’t think it would be. For the first two years we were together, I was happier with LO #2 than I’d ever been.
It didn’t work out for us but my attitude was “that one didn’t work but maybe the next one will.”
It took a few tries before it did, with the exception of one trip down the rabbit hole that landed me on LwL.
As far as I’m concerned, my life began at 27.
Hi,
Cheers for sharing, your line “that happiness was a possibility for me” is genuinely quite reassuring to hear. Similarly to what you said, I’ve felt at times it wouldn’t be possible for me, I had certain things when I was a lot younger, and then during my early twenties, as Dr L referenced, I had issues with addiction and self medicating. But it’s encouraging to get the perspective, from multiple people here, that you can keep trying and it can happen.
Thanks again!
Hi Owen, I am madly limerent, but strangely or luckily enough, I wasn’t limerent for my husband at all. He was my best friend and still is. Our relationship built organically and we even thought it to be immoral because of our age gap. We were both veteran single 🙂 We did not even date each other 🙂 He took me out for a film as a christmas present, but we didn’t feel like we were dating each other.
My husband is my first real partner (I met him when I was 28, like reaaally late) and he is the best man of the universe, a fairy-tale, so healthy, kind, calm and generous. He had two previous relationships a long time ago which didn’t work out and was certain that he would never be capable of an enduring relationship. (Why? He is just tolerant and self-confident, loyal and just loving.) I didn’t give up. We did not want to achieve a relationship so badly. Maybe this was the right strategy. At some point, both veteran singles couldn’t resist 🙂
First, I was frightened a heated argument could push him away, but I am an intellectual and read a lot about negotiation strategies (for my master thesis). I was really lucky, the relationship worked out and we can discuss the best approach to everyday-life at eye level.
My personal opinion is that a relationship comes on top of a friendship, but I don’t know whether that’s the case for anybody else. I never really liked dating- to me, it feels like a job-application.
Our marriage even survived my limerence 🙂 It was hard and still is. You know what caused me to be limerent for some hyper-male, authoritarian, married and manipulative colleague? It will be quite hard for me and my husband to have children and biology kicked the “back-up partner” thing. My husband did nothing wrong. As his mother was a non-diagnosed gamble addict, my husband understood that my limerence was an addiction for a person and he fought it with me.
Quite late (and not dating), I have found my personal happily ever after 🙂
28 is really late?
My husband was 57 when he first met me 🙂 he had his last two relationships when he was 17 and 32…
Mmmh yeah, meeting my husband with 28 felt late for a girl in my situation because I never had a real relationship before. But these things highly depend on the cultural context. Just my personal opinion. I felt terrible when teenagers around me had relationships with 14 or 15 and I didn’t. I don’t know which depth and quality their relationships had. But I felt like something was wrong with me. I was picked on. When I was 18, someone told me: “You do not even have someone to …”.
I had a crush on one or two boys during my adolescence, but they were really shy and not ready for a relationship which was ok.
I don’t want to put pressure on anyone, no, that’s not what I was trying to say, sorry…
I just wanted to encourage others. Probably, everyone around here will find what they’re looking for. I stopped believing a long time ago but luckily, it worked out.
Haven’t commented on here for a long time, but this post really stuck out to me.
Aaagh, Owen, I feel for you. Your story could in many ways almost be mine. But things are going to get better for you now, you are doing the right thing.
First up , the good news, as many people above have posted developing self-awareness etc. and deciding to do something about your situation in your mid 20s is a good time, you have a big chance to make a difference. I had a very similar backstory (below), but clocked on (20 years ago) that something very odd was up with me, which I now know is limerence, and now have kids, wife, love my job/career, happy life etc….. well as much as anyone does, we all have our own other issues outside of our love/self centered lives.
Bad news – limerence doesn’t go away. And there is a strong chance you may carry around this lost period of your life with you , so it is good to be conscious now about trying to ‘come to terms’ find closure blah blah with what you may have missed out on. Being as purposeful as possible now will bring you that, and also probabyl dating more broadly.
To save you reading my backstory below, I will try and summarize my advice.
(1) date (or whatever else…) the girls you are not super keen on but be very aware of limerence creeping on you. Just have fun with different women, in a nice way, go on dates, get into grey zones, walk away when you feel something is not right etc. – my biggest regret I carry around is the girls i sometimes literally shoved out of my bed, ignored obvious overtures etc. Women make their presence known when they are interested, but they very rarely make a direct approach. They will jstu be always seemingly hanging around. You may occasionally misinterpret friendliness for interest, or lead someone down the garden path, but as long as you are polite and thoughtful about it with good boundaries you won’t do anyone any long term harm. Just ask people on dates and dont pass up opportunities unless you really think you are going to hurt someone as they are way too into you, which is obviously a no-no. Dont be hruting other limerents…..
(2) Dr Ls advice about the mindset change is absolutely key – get to know someone, and think about whether they are compatible, wiht a basic view that they probabyl are not and the postiive is to be proven. I would also add ‘am I having fun with them’. Short or mid term fun is also fine. Dont be seeking that one big love, that is a classic limerent trait which for me was incredibly limiting. My now SO was one of my best friends and we would just spend hours chatting or going out to clubs, and the first time we ended up, well, ahem, there was miimal chemistry for both of us, but we both realized we wanted to spend more and more time together. Lots of other people have lots of other models of love, try to get away from a limiting mindset of seeking mutual limerence.
(3) All the purposeful stuff is super important – your interests are also things you can talk confidently about, share with someone, you bring something to the table. Maybe its hiking groups, running groups, concerts, shows, clubs, associations, voluntary work etc. etc. try the things you think you might like, most likely you will meet actual people. I didnt grow up in dating app world, but I think i would be looking to meet people in real life even now. You want a partner who shares mutual interests/hobbies, not all of them, but at least some.
(4) Get physically fit, dress well, smell good, tidy your room – you dont need to be a gymbro, the algorithms will try to take you down that rabbithole, but this is just a basic necessity. Be active, and don’t overeat. Weights 1-2 times a week are never going to hirt, but e.g. yoga and lots of walking is also fine, swimming, whatever it is. You are looking for a partner, you should want to give them the best version of yourself, and you should want to be the best version of yourself. This might all be a bit basic but bookish young men I think often forget some real basics like showering twice a day, regularly having clean bedsheets, regular heaircut, always having Deodorant on/with them, shaving, cutting toenails, well fitted clothes (also very easy cheap on e.g vinted). Women like something to get excited about, especially their partner.
So my backstory, fairly similar to yours. I had several short relationships, young people lovey dovey sort of stuff before I was 20, mostly around 2 months, then one longer one of around 4-5 months which may have been approaching mutual limerence, but then I just imploded becuase of my own self doubts and depression and completely sabotaged it. The limerent traits were always there in some form, but I think at 19-20 no one is a fully formed limerent, well apart from perhaps Dante….
Then just went into complete lockdown, 5-6 years where I got into a really bad place mentally and physically, LOTS of self medication, hugely overweight, and massively underperformed my potential. I got some decent degrees, but had been told my whole life I had the potential to be getting top marks at the best unis etc. in everything but was wasting myself, and I did for a long time, probably until my 30s. I was just crippled by self doubt and completely befuddled.
LO1 was right at the start of this and went on for 3-4 years. I rejected several cute girls i had mild interest in for no good reason, more or less escorted 2-3 girls out of my flats/rooms when their intentions were obvious etc. I had a backstory which you can find in various older posts, I was close to my father when i was young and then he became an alcoholic and emotionally completely, abset, or vacant, it is hard to describe, so it wasn’t just limerence, but the two things seem to be heavily intertwined. Anyhow, somehow at the peak/trough of depression where I was pretty close to ending it all, and started once, i met LO2 and we somehow ended up back at mine and then dating for like 4-5 weeks. She is probably one of the best looking women I’ve dated, most intelligent, most shared interests/hobbies etc. and I just fell super hard, but like you was crippled by my own self doubts and she was coming off the back of a messy breakup and it was pretty brutal how anxious i was and some of the ways I embarassed myself. It may not have worked out anyway but i became limerent, spiralled completely and ended up in the dreaded friend zone. I became more self-aware after that and it was probably the last time limerence was brutal, with minor episodes since then and a relapse last year on LO2 which brought me to this site and all the good learnings about limerence.
Just one last advice. Don’t be her friend. You can’t. Disengage in friendly manner. If you need to tell her why then do that, it may be better actually to disclose, but being her friend right now is going to hold you back. You can always be friends again in the future once you have found a new way and if your limerence for her truly ends.