Limerence

Limerence, a term coined by the psychologist Dorothy Tennov, refers to an all-absorbing infatuated love or love madness, commonly felt for an unreachable person.

Quotes

[T]he kind of love that Dante felt for Beatrice... ~ Nicky Hayes
...or that Juliet and Romeo felt for each other. ~ Nicky Hayes
  • I coined the word "limerence." It was pronounceable and seemed to me and to two students to have a "fitting" sound. To be in the state of limerence is to feel what is usually termed "being in love."
  • The English language lacked a noun singular for the state of being love smitten, or having fallen in love, until Dorothy Tennov (1979) coined the term, limerence, to fill the void. It is formally defined as follows: limerence (adjective, limerent): the personal experience of having fallen in love and of being irrationally and fixatedly love stricken or love smitten, irrespective of the degree to which one’s love is requited or unrequited.
    • John Money, Principles of Developmental Sexology (1997), p. 119
  • Writers have been philosophizing, moralizing, and eulogizing on the subject of "erotic," "passionate," "romantic" love (i.e., limerence) since Plato (and surely long before that). And more often than not, what is said is enough to make a limerent dissolve into the walls in embarrassment. It can be dangerous to stick your neck out on the subject of love—dangerous to your self-esteem and to your reputation.
    • Dorothy Tennov, Love and Limerence (1999), p. 172
  • Reaction to limerence theory depends partly on acquaintance with the evidence for it and partly on personal experience. People who have not experienced limerence are baffled by descriptions of it and are often resistant to the evidence that it exists. To such outside observers, limerence seems pathological. The phenomenon that provides the subject of much romantic poetry and fiction has been called an addiction, an indication of low self-esteem, irrational, neurotic, erotomanic, and delusional. To those without direct experience it seems inconceivable that a sane person could attach so much importance to another individual.
    • Dorothy Tennov, Love and Limerence (1999), p. x
  • Tennov (1979) used the term limerence to refer to a kind of infatuated, all-absorbing passion — the kind of love that Dante felt for Beatrice, or that Juliet and Romeo felt for each other. Tennov argued that an important feature of limerence is that it should be unrequited, or at least unfulfilled. It consists of a state of intense longing for the other person, in which the individual becomes more or less obsessed by that person and spends much of their time fantasising about them.
    • Nicky Hayes, Foundations of Psychology 3rd ed. (2000), p. 457
  • Most of Tennov's research came from thousands of personal accounts of those who had fallen in love. She discovered that many who considered themselves "madly in love" had similar descriptions of their emotions and actions. She chose the label limerence to describe an intense longing and desire for another person that is much stronger than a simple infatuation, but not the same as a long-lived love that could last a life-time. Limerence is often overpowering, and in intense cases will cause a person to be obsessed with the one they've fallen for.
    • Joe Beam, The Art of Falling in Love (2012), p. 72
  • Tennov called it limerence — to distinguish it from other concepts of love — and it corresponds with mental states conventionally described as 'being in love' or 'falling in love'. The principal features of limerence are obsession, irrational idealisation, emotional dependency and a deep longing for reciprocation. Typically, limerent individuals pursue inappropriate partners, fail at relationships, and seem unable to learn from their experience.
    • Frank Tallis, Love Sick: Love as a Mental Illness (2004), p. 42
  • Tennov (1979) interviewed more than five hundred passionate lovers. Almost all lovers took it for granted that passionate love (which Tennov labels 'limerence') is a bittersweet experience.
    • Elaine Hatfield, The Psychology of Love (1988), p. 197
  • Data collection largely began with the now classic dissection of this madness, found in Love and Limerence, by Dorothy Tennov. Tennov devised approximately two hundred statements about romantic love and asked four hundred men and women at and around the University of Bridgeport, Connecticut, to respond with "true" or "false" reactions. Hundreds of additional individuals answered subsequent versions of her questionnaire. From their responses, as well as their diaries and other personal accounts, Tennov identified a constellation of characteristics common to this condition of "being in love," a state she called "limerence."
    • Helen Fisher, Anatomy of Love (2016), p. 20
  • For most people, crushes come and go. But for others, the longing can last years and become addictive. A spark of interest turns into obsessive rumination sustained by a pernicious cocktail of hope and doubt. This is not a crush. This is limerence.
  • All the letters make fine reading, but I was particularly struck by your complaint (letter 2, page 27) of a persistent heavy feeling in the chest that can only be relieved by sighing. Ralph, this is a clue. You are not just in love, you are limerent. This is a brand-new word made up by a University of Bridgeport psychologist, Dorothy Tennov, in her new book on romance, Love and Limerence. If you haven’t guessed it already, limerence is the ultimate, near obsessional form of romantic love. Now pay attention to this, Ralph. Here are the telltale signs of limerence: pressure in the chest (literally "heartache"), an acute longing for reciprocation, fear of rejection, drastic mood swings, the growth of passion through adversity, and intrusive thinking about the LO, or "limerent object."
  • Turns out, I am mentally ill. Aspects of my current brain chemistry resemble that of a person with obsessive-compulsive disorder. I haven't started turning the light switches on and off or urgently avoiding sidewalk cracks. But I have been shopping for beauty products and underwear in a fever. I read cookbooks now. I spend an embarrassing amount of time looking at myself naked. My classic symptoms—involuntary preoccupation, mood swings, emotional sensitivity, enhanced sensual awareness—are what tip the diagnosis. I am limerent.
  • Limerence is also fairly common to see in media geared toward young adults. Both Snape, who has an unhealthy lifelong fixation on Lily Potter in the Harry Potter franchise, and Bella Swan and Edward Cullen, who become obsessed with each other before they’ve even spoken to one another in Twilight, are struggling with limerence.

See also

  • Encyclopedic article on Limerence on Wikipedia
  • The dictionary definition of limerence on Wiktionary

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