the glossary · concept
what is limerence?
limerence
Limerence is an involuntary, obsessive state that feels exactly like love and runs on completely different fuel. The psychologist Dorothy Tennov named it in 1979, after interviewing hundreds of people who all described the same thing: intrusive thoughts about one person, a desperate hunger for them to feel it back, and a high that gets stronger the less sure you are. That last part is the tell. Love gets calmer as it gets safer. Limerence gets weaker. If a feeling needs uncertainty to survive, it isn't attachment to a person. It's attachment to not knowing.
where it comes from: Tennov, Love and Limerence ↗
how to tell
- the thought loop runs on its own. you never decide to start it
- every neutral message gets read four times for a hidden meaning
- certainty kills it. the moment they are definitely yours, the charge drops
- you know very little about their actual daily life, and that has never bothered you
this one has a whole chapter under it. read: is it love, or limerence? →
what to read on this
- Love and Limerence Dorothy Tennov the 1979 book that named the thing. intrusive thinking, the need for them to reciprocate, the fear of rejection, and a burn that runs eighteen months to three years. if you read one book off this page, read this one.
- On Love Stendhal where crystallisation comes from. a novelist mapped projection in love in 1822, two centuries before the researchers got to it, and nobody has described it better since.
- Attached Amir Levine & Rachel Heller why anxious attachment is limerence-prone. the obsessive machinery was already running before you met them, it just found a target.
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also asked
is limerence the same as being in love?
No, and the difference is direction. Love is built out of information: you learn a real person and choose them anyway. Limerence is built out of a gap, and your mind fills that gap with someone better than anyone could be. That's why limerence can run for years on almost no contact, and why love can't.
how long does limerence last?
Tennov's interviews put the usual range somewhere between a few months and a couple of years, with the average around eighteen months. It lasts longest where uncertainty lasts longest, which is why the situations that never resolve are the ones that never end.
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sits next to
- limerent object The specific person a limerent state has attached itself to. Often more of a screen for the feeling than its real cause.
- anxious attachment An attachment style marked by a fear of abandonment and a pull toward inconsistent partners. The obsessive-thought machinery that limerence loves to borrow.