She was really quiet, never initiated and didn’t accept a social media request. She moved seats in a car when I got into the back, to go and sit in the front. I felt she wasn’t into me. In that same car ride, her friend mentioned me living in a house near campus, and she chimed in quietly, “we should do that”.
A week later, I received a message from her, ‘I’m looking for a flat on campus or a house share, I was wondering if you were looking for the same?’
I asked her to meet for lunch. At lunch she was quiet, looking at her phone. I felt she wasn’t into me. She giggled. Her friend asked her if that was the guy from last week.

Hurt by that, I turned down her house share request. She looked at me sad and hurt. I didn’t want to live with her because I had feelings and I felt she didn’t share them. Later she would walk out of the classroom when I entered, or turn away with a smile.

She left to her home state on gap year. I wished her luck on message, she said the same. I talked to her friend, and confessed my feelings to them. The friend said she couldn’t speak for her feelings, but that she was really socially awkward and shy and doesn’t ever start social interactions and needs prompting.

After a year, I messaged her and told her I that I turned down her share house request because I had feelings for her. She said she definitely didn’t know. I said that if she was ever around I’d ask her to lunch, but then she said ‘Oh okay I don’t know how my boyfriend would feel about that though (sweating emoji).’

I feel like I want to get over this but we have a lot in common; I just want to let this go but I can’t seem to meet anyone who I can think of in the same way. I want to let her go. It’s been a year already.

Update: I haven’t been on her sm for over a month 🙂 I think I’m finally making progress. There are some days when I honestly don’t even think about her. I guess rationalizing everything has helped me lots. Time cures everything, even your limerance. But you have to work on it, not just hope it happens out of nowhere

Friendship with exes is possible but you often have to let time pass. Too soon and too many emotions are involved.

That usually can be a trigger for limerence. It will hit us when there is something else going on in our lives that we feel we are lacking.

In my case, I’ve been divorced since 2011 and had an SO I broke off ties with in Mid 2022. Feeling put-out and lonely shortly after, I fell for a much younger co-worker, who is almost half my age. (I’m 53, she is 29) It seems pretty common around here that us middle aged men end up in midlife crisis mode and seek out younger LOs.
You’re not the first.

I was basically rejected by my LO, and that caused severe and I mean severe depression. Lows so bad, I didn’t think I could even go on, but with the help of this Community, a Priest and God’s grace, I think I am doing better lately.
My story is all over the forum and begins in the Coworker LO thread, if you care to read it. (You’ll have to really scroll to get to it.)

Essgee,

“The slippery slope of furthering contact is a very good point. I don’t want things to get weird, be it anger, further attachment, or worse, an eventual EA or PA.”

When LO #4’s relationship collapsed and she reached out to me, I was in my EAP counselor’s office in 2 weeks. She asked what I was looking for out of this. I told her that I didn’t want to attach to her and I sure as hell didn’t want her to attach to me.

The EAP counselor glance at the email from LO #4 that I’d brought with me and said,

“That ship has already sailed.”

I tried limerence as a mood regulator and tried to ride the limerent wave for all it was worth. I was pretty good at it but it got away from me and had the potential to wreak havoc in my life. A good portion of it was that LO #4 went off script and I was suddenly dealing with a real person reaching out to me. Because of my pathology, I responded. My story is chronicled throughout the LwL blogs.

Just a cautionary tale.

My meditation doesn’t seem to have a particularly profound effect one way or the other as far as the limerence goes. It helps me more in a short-term way whenever I need to calm myself from a stressful event, or if i need clarity on something that’s stumping me.

I found that centering my thoughts–whatever they are in that moment–back to my breathing was is helpful and makes me less tense.

My glimmer encounter with my LO made me reevaluate things with my SO. We have since been working on our relationship, and things are going better. We were just kind of in a fog, then we started working on things in our relationship. The relationship got worse for about three months, and then it’s gotten better the last two months or so.

I realized things weren’t going right in our relationship, and maybe my LE was kind of a wake-up call to me and to the relationship. Because, frankly, my LO made me feel alive–something I hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

Hi, Limerent Emeritus. Thanks for replying.

The slippery slope of furthering contact is a very good point. I don’t want things to get weird, be it anger, further attachment, or worse, an eventual EA or PA. Her having those same feelings towards me is something I’ve wondered about as well, though realistically I believe it’s one-sided. I appreciate you pointing out that tends to be a pattern, and I sure as heck don’t need that!

I will check out those blogs down at the bottom, and I’m especially interested in further reading into the glimmer aspect.

I don’t believe I’m in danger (AFAIK, she’s made no effort to contact me either), but this further puts my mind at ease that NC is the right path moving forward.