Yeah, obviously. That’s the point of limerence. You want them to love you.

Now, when I perceive that ‘look’, I generally stay well away. I met a mum last night whose child is new at my child’s school. We chatted for a while and eventually her husband came along. I could see immediately that same look in his eye. I steer well clear of my friends’ husbands. I frequently end up ostracized by the women in my communities even though I go out of my way to spend time only with women. But what on earth compels men to do something like look me up and down (in front of their wife) and say I look amazing for my age?? Does it not occur to them that their wife will hate me?

For anyone who read my posts about my trainer I think I’m going through heartbreak and rage right now. I’m heartbroken because I took the fall for his sake and lost an entire community that I’d grown to love. I work from home. It was my only source of daily communication with anyone other than my child. I wanted to do the right thing and I’m fairly sure I’ll be vilified or called ‘crazy’ for what I did. I don’t really care so much about that but I’m furious with him for backing me into a position where the only way out was to leave.

I suppose I need to take it as a lesson. I should never have signed on with him as my trainer. I am now looking for a female trainer. I would love to be able to be part of a community of both men and women but it feels absolutely impossible for me.

Hm, I dunno about this one. In theory, it should be super-easy to tell someone you like them in a strictly platonic sense but harbour no romantic feelings for them, and a relationship is out of the question while an ongoing friendship is most welcome…

How about a rejection that runs along the lines of: “I have no romantic feelings for you whatsoever, and I never will. However, I like you as a friend. I really value you as a friend. I want you to remain in my life as a friend, despite this .. erm … misunderstanding that has arisen between us. And if you need to take an extended break before resuming our strictly platonic friendship, that’s okay.” 🤔

The problem is the limerent is often suffering very deeply at this point in the interaction, and really wants to see hard evidence that LO is suffering too. (Proof of a secret passion which in reality never existed for one party). The limerent likely also resents LO at this point, because LO is not providing the desired level of affection/attention to limerent. The limerent feels so hurt the limerent is probably unwilling to listen to reason. The LO, on the other hand, is baffled and blindsided by the implosion of what they assumed to be a pretty solid, completely straightforward, mutually satisfying friendship. 😲

A young lady had a crush on me once. Actually, I think she developed limerence for me. To this day, I have no idea why she liked me. But I have my theories. Basically, she was an extrovert with an extremely flamboyant personality (an ENFJ/ENFP I think) and I think people always dismissed her as “silly” and “superficial”. She had a conversation with me one day and, unlike most people, I took her ideas seriously and listened to what she had to say. I was a good-looking lad and I treated her as an intellectual equal. I think she fell for me because I validated some aspect of her rather complex nature she wanted seen.

She tried very hard to lure me in with her physical appearance after that, and she was a very beautiful girl. Yes, I did notice her lovely clothes, hair, make-up, etc. I just had no idea she was putting on a show for my benefit. I thought she just liked dressing up for the sheer fun of dressing up. 😜

She dropped subtle hints too that she wanted to spend time with me one-on-one e.g. she asked me whether I had my driver’s license yet. (I think she wanted me to invite her on a long romantic drive to the beach or mountains or whatever). Unfortunately, I missed any hints she was dropping and just responded in a factual manner to any questions. Her approach was basically just too darn subtle.

On the other hand, she was the opposite of subtle when talking about me with other people. Apparently, our entire school knew that she was into me. Even her own parents knew she was into me, and her mother treated me like a potential son-in-law. But the girl never explicitly told me that she liked me, or wanted to go on a date with me, so I assumed that she was just an abnormally friendly person! 😆

I have never been the kind of person to indulge in gossip, or listen to gossip, so I was never really aware of what people were saying about me and this girl behind my back. Sometimes, however, teachers or other students would make sly/knowing remarks and these sly/knowing remarks would always confuse me.

Actually, in hindsight, I feel a tiny bit uneasy about the girl’s behaviour e.g. talking about me behind my back, because I feel like she was “marking her territory”, and warning other females not to come too close to me. And I had no problems with other females coming too close to me! I saw myself as a free agent. However, I don’t believe the girl was ill-intentioned in anything she did. I believe the girl sincerely believed that I liked her as much as she liked me, and the whole situation was just a mildly embarrassing misunderstanding on both sides. 🙄

Apparently, there are some people who hate or dislike their limerent admirers. I don’t feel any animus towards this girl-now-woman whatsoever. I just feel that maybe she got overexcited, “jumped the gun” a little bit, and maybe she should have sat down and had a few more heart-to-hearts with me about what was or wasn’t going on between us. (Answer: absolutely nothing at all, from my side of the fence!) But, like I say, I harbour no ill will toward the young lady whatsoever. Since I wasn’t emotionally invested in her to begin with, how could I possibly be hurt or offended by her infatuation? 😉

So if you’re a straight girl and you’ve ever fallen for a gay boy, please don’t beat yourself up over it. It’s highly unlikely there’s any bad blood! I’m just flattered that she thought I was worth getting dressed up for! Honestly, I become so much more popular among my straight male peers when she started liking me! Oh, and all her female friends started inviting me to their birthday parties, too! 👍😎😁

Hi, I can relate to that. My LO started with unusual flattering (non sexual) attention for a woman, then many mixed messages and I often experience rejection. However she craved the attention and we are still communicating a lot on whatsapp. However as tension was building up I made the mistake of sending her an emotional email at night in which I expressed by hurt for taking our friendship for granted. After that she has distanced herself and has indicated she wants loosen the friendship. However we still have a lot of contact on whatsapp and also she is really interested in what I offer in work. The thing is this: I could not handle her self centeredness anymore. I knew I was not strong enough to walk away and so I write this very emotional email accusing her of not putting in enough effort. And the result is that I feel horrible because it feels she is rejecting me again and she is giving up on the friendship. Why could I not just limit my contact with her myself? I feel even more obsessed with her now that I am losing her as a friend (although the friendship was not good for me)…I think partly because as you say it feels SHE is deciding and not me. I feel she is in control and I am out of it. How to regain control and feel like it is my decision?

@Vicarious limerent

I am rational to a fault as well. My therapist says I use rationality as a defense mechanism. My answer to “What religion you belong to” is “Human” because religion is man-made as per me.

I don’t know what it is. Its surreal.

There are so many instances where I knew beforehand what was going to happen.

I remember that my first job, my first internship, my second job, my third job and my current are all those that I knew the second I heard of them would be places I would be working.

The internship was an experience I will never forget. The company would come to give a talk in our college and I would think I am going to work here. After having a pretty crappy day, I get a call from the firm and I sail through the interview, even arguing with the interviewer. I remember thinking about that feeling about the company talk as I waited for my turn to interview!

Coming back, I still remember feeling that I would date my ex one particular afternoon we spoke. We would go out much later.

The ESP thing is not something I believe in, but have had way too many coincidences

@Limerick, I am a fairly rational, logical person. I don’t believe in things like fate or extrasensory perception, but it does seem so strange sometimes how we can have these weird premonitions, doesn’t it? Maybe we do have a sort of “sixth sense” we can’t really identify?

My LO experience is something like this.

I found my LO, who would become my girlfriend, then friend, and finally LE, and 15 years later LE again, drop dead gorgeous the very first second I saw her. She fancied me too apparently but the dance would take a year or serendipitous occurrences to result in our 2 year dating process. Reality is I did fall in love with her and according to her, she with me.

When we broke up, I would move away and visit my home city. Her boyfriend (and my sort of friend) had also moved away. I came in for 3 days and was sitting in a restaurant some 5km from her house. I don’t know what happened but something kept telling me she’s going to walk in. Lo and behold! She walks in with him (who also had no business being in the city),triggering off all crazy feelings again. That has been our last face to face but her success today and my marital troubles are triggering another LE.

3 years since that day, I had complete NC with her aside of wishing her once more on her birthday.

One afternoon, something told me she had broken up and I remember asking myself why I am thinking about her. Her boyfriend would later visit me at home as we had common friends and were living in the same city. I found it strange but would later discover she had broken up with him around the time I thought of her!

It’s a small world for sure! That is an incredible coincidence you mention.

The funny thing with this lady is I knew who she was probably for a year-and-a-half before I even met her. The first time I met her, she and her other friend seemed to name drop LO #1’s name pointedly, but I don’t know if that was my imagination or if they knew my story (they both swore they had met me before but they hadn’t). At first, my curiosity was really just about the possibility of LO #1 coming back into my life (and I do still think about that sometimes), but this lady now gives me glimmery feelings herself, aside from LO #1 (although I don’t think she will become LO #3).

It was all so strange because I didn’t have much of a social life for years, and I hooked up with this current crowd of friends at least partially to get over LO #1. I never thought I would meet someone like LO #2 and experience transference to her, and then possibly come full circle back to have LO #1 come back into my life. But to have this experience with one of LO #1’s best friends just seems so strange, and to get to a situation where she is now friends with both LO #1 and LO #2 also seems very weird.