the field guide · part III — love & its counterfeits
is it love, or limerence?
there is a specific kind of wanting that feels exactly like love and isn’t. it has a name, a timeline, and a tell — the feeling gets stronger when they pull away. this chapter is how to run the test.
the shelf
everything worth reading, hearing and watching on this — books, podcasts, articles, studies, and the videos. tap a format to filter.
- book
Love and Limerence · Dorothy Tennov (1979)
the book that named it: intrusive thinking, fear of rejection, the ache that needs uncertainty to survive.
- book
Attached · Amir Levine & Rachel Heller
why anxious attachment is limerence-prone — the obsessive machinery was already running, it just found a target.
- study
Misattribution of arousal (Dutton & Aron, 1974)
the shaky-bridge study: we constantly mislabel where a feeling is coming from.
- podcast
Where Should We Begin? · Esther Perel
real couples, real ambivalence — good ear-training for the difference between wanting and longing.
- video
- video
