Hi, I really would like the link!!

Thank you to all the people I connected with in the community pages and I sincerely wish you all good fortune for 2023 and beyond, free from the destruction of limerence.

I wonder if it is worthwhile exploring and blogging about whether there is a link between the LE and the eventual purpose in one’s life

That’s a really interesting idea, TP. I definitely think it’s worth exploring.

For purposeful living, I agree with Sammy that it is a somewhat nebulous concept, but I wonder if it is worthwhile exploring and blogging about whether there is a link between the LE and the eventual purpose in one’s life — in other words, can the LO archetype or the LE be useful in giving us clues as to what would give our lives meaning? By that I mean, for example, if one’s archetype is the “damsel in distress” then maybe looking for ways to be of service to people (non-LO people!) is a good way of finding purpose? I’m thinking of the way you used your LE to inspire the life-saving (literally, in many cases, I suspect) resource you’ve created here. My LO archetype is the charming, confident, dazzling professional — should I pursue a public speaking classes/club to develop my own skills? And I bet other lime rents could think of other examples for their own LE/LO case. Just something I’ve been thinking about.

May I request that the new forum’s link be shared in the Resources section of your blog?

Thanks for the nudge, Why! I’d meant to do this.

I’ve now added a link to the Resources page.

Any mustachioed connections were purely coincidental 😉

Thank you so much again for what you’ve done over the years and beyond! Every week, I always look forward to your insightful writings. Thanks to you and the community from the old forum, I’m now out of the LE fog and mindful of any possible glimmers in the future.

P.S.: I suspected that the moustachioed man pictured in one of your posts was aimed at me, lol. How did I end up liking my last LO, who could pull off a Santa look if he wanted to, when facial hair in men has never been my thing?

Jokes aside, I’m truly happy to hear you’re starting to fine-tune your focus, and I’m probably right now at the “trying everything out” phase, which at the moment could simply look like a distraction.

But I’d rather be distracted by the typical mid-life crisis hobbies than by LE. If it doesn’t work, maybe someday I’ll arrive at the place you’re at now and be able to fine-tune my life’s purpose even more.

I don’t think it’s ever going to be a one-time fix. I need to do the maintenance often, like you implied with the garden in your previous post. I want to keep SO in my happy garden, so I’ve got to do what it takes to keep it fresh and interesting.

I’m not part of the Discord group, but I do know some members who are active in the new forum. I would suggest heading there to ask for the link; the link only lasts about 7 days before needing to be replaced too, if I’m not mistaken.

Perhaps some of them missed the comments on this site as well, because it’s more difficult to keep track of new comments coming in, or simply because they read the comments on this site only occasionally.

In my opinion, giving a Discord link here might also feel a bit more public compared to the small forum. My best bet is to try asking there. Sorry for the little extra trouble.

Yes please. Im very active on discord and have just discovered this community and dont want to loose connection.

In part, that’s because – by it’s nature – it’s a more nebulous idea that means different things to different people, but it’s also because I haven’t clearly defined anywhere what I mean by purposeful living and how to put it into action.”

I am definitely curious to read some articles on purposeful living, and what that might actually mean/look like for different people when put into practice…

Obviously, signing up for a pottery class or two to “distract oneself from thoughts of LO” isn’t quite going to cut it, as already mentioned. Although, I suppose, if one really wants to sign up for pottery class, and has spent one’s entire life putting off signing up for pottery class, I guess there is no harm in taking the plunge!! 😉

I’m beginning to wonder if the key to tackling limerence successfully has something to do with addressing the elephant in the room of “enmeshment”? It seems to me that limerence is really an unconscious drive on the limerent’s part to enmesh with the LO. And people who struggle with limerence might struggle with enmeshment in all of their relationships, both platonic and romantic. I.e. limerents might not just be seeking enmeshment with an LO.

In other words, maybe having a fairly weak, porous, unclear sense of identity is what predisposes people in the first place towards limerence? And I don’t think that developing a stronger sense of self is in any way incompatible with purposeful living.

For example, now when I meet an attractive young straight man – the kind that always glimmers for me – I remind myself that this individual has his own goals, dreams, and ambitions which have nothing to do with me. At the very least, this man’s goals will include (a) securing work, (b) saving money, and (c) spending time with girlfriend if he has one. Just keeping all this in mind helps me remember that I am not and will never be at the forefront of this man’s thoughts, and that sort of nips limerence in the bud before it has a chance to bloom. 😉

I even had an almost-LO tell me once (in considerable frustration on his part) that he and I had “different goals, different dreams, different ambitions”. I imagine his goals/dreams were pretty much the ones mentioned above. (Work, money, quality time with girlfriend).

I think I mix up “love” and “enmeshment” simply because of the family I grew up in, where a high level of enmeshment among family members was the norm. As the years have gone by, I’ve gradually “disentangled” myself from each and every member of my family of origin, although my attempts at self-definition have at times met with a fair bit of resistance, especially from my very controlling mother.

Speaking of family, a couple of days ago, my dad had a heart attack. He survived the heart attack, underwent a successful operation, and is now stable and recovering in hospital. I went to visit him in hospital on the same day as the heart attack and as I looked at him in his hospital bed, with mixed feelings of sadness and relief, I realised that I’m no longer enmeshed with this man…

In other words, I think I’ve spent my entire life viewing my father in much the same way as people often view their limerent objects. I’ve viewed my father as an object, that is, and not as a fully-fledged human with his own history and personality. I’ve kind of seen him as someone who exists solely to make me happy, solely to make me feel safe, solely to shower me with praise and affection.

Seeing my father so powerless and indeed so human in a hospital bed made me realise that he doesn’t really belong to me, he’s a separate person altogether, and that the impulse to objectify him was wrong although perhaps also very natural at certain points in my early psychological development.

I think maybe limerence is at least partly about unmet needs and also at least partly about learned helplessness – the incorrect belief that one can’t meet one’s own needs, so must be forever looking outside of oneself for someone to pick up the slack.

I am finding purposeful living at the moment doing all my father’s chores while he is in hospital. Also, I am spending time with my growing group of platonic friends.

Humorous aside: while in an active state of limerence, I used to avoid women like the plague. I avoided women like the plague mostly because women couldn’t “make me feel high” in the way men could “make me feel high”. But I also avoided women because I developed this almost irrational dislike of women.

There’s a part of me that would like to unpack my temporary aversion to women as fellow members of the human race. (Were beautiful young ladies the insufferable “competition” for the man I wanted and couldn’t have? Hahaha! Did I unconsciously see women as nefarious rivals or malicious interlopers in a private party to which they definitely weren’t invited?) Now I’m transitioning away from limerence, I spend more time with women and women are some of my closest friends. I realise I can have jokey brother-sister type friendships with women. A relationship doesn’t have to make me “feel high” in order to be fun. 😆

Limerents perhaps want an ocean of joy from a single source. That’s too much to ask of one person I think, even in those rare instances where the feelings are mutual. Maybe the answer is to get (and give) a drop of joy from many, many people? You know what they say: “It takes a village…”