free · a workbook
is it love, or is it limerence?
free, on one page.
the feeling that gets stronger when they pull away is not the same as love, even though it wears all of love’s clothes. here is the test i use, plus space to work out your own answer.
free, no wall, no catch. fill it in on the page in your browser, or print it and write by hand.
what you’ll work through
- run the certainty test. imagine they are completely certain about you. no chase, no chance of losing them, it is simply yours. if you still want them, that points to love. if it goes flat, that is limerence.
- check the direction. love gets stronger as you get closer. limerence gets stronger with distance and doubt, and quietly dies once things are certain and easy.
- watch for the ache. limerence lives on uncertainty: the intrusive thoughts, the replaying of tiny signals, the highs and crashes tied to their attention. that intensity is not proof of love. often it is proof of doubt.
- notice the relief. imagine a clean, final "no" from them. if under the grief there would be a thread of relief that the not-knowing is finally over, you were likely in limerence, not love.
want the rest?
one letter a week.
the love, or limerence card is the start. the rest is a letter a week: the word for one feeling you’ve had but couldn’t name, as i find them. if that sounds like your kind of thing, come sit with us.
no pressure, no spam, no gatekeeping. come see if it clicks. and if it doesn’t, that’s okay too.
more free cards
- the seven kinds of attraction. the whole map, on one page.
- the friend crush. yes, it is real.
- am i asexual?. a calm, no-pressure primer you write on.
- love, or just comfort?. the two look identical from the outside and feel completely different from the inside.
- known, or just familiar?. most of the people in your life recognise you.
- the spark, or the pattern?. the pull you keep calling chemistry is often just recognition.
- the room test. six things that do not look like abuse, and the one question that checks all of them.
- the romantic dial. romantic attraction described with the sexual part taken out, and the four things that get mistaken for it.