I lost my virginity at 41 to the son of a former nun. From the time I’d gone on my first date—at 14—to my last—at 40, with the man who is now my husband—I went out with, hooked up with, and dated over 100 men. That’s an average of five a year—some years more, some years less. After wading through the trenches of dating for two and a half decades, where physical intimacy is expected and emotional intimacy is discouraged, I wanted something to remain meaningful. For me, that meant waiting for a mutually loving and committed relationship to have sexual intercourse.
So why did it take me so long to find one? Hadn’t I tried hard enough?
About a year before I turned 40, I began seeing a somatic therapist every other week. During one of those sessions, Glenda looked up from her notes and said, “Amanda, longing is your lover.”
Limerence—ruminating (sometimes obsessively) on an idealized version of a romantic interest in hopes of emotional reciprocation—and not my virginity had kept me from ever getting into a loving, committed relationship with someone available. It felt safer to remain in love with the idea of falling in love, in crush after exhilarating crush, than to risk failure and vulnerability in an imperfect relationship. I confused anxiety for excitement and excitement for love.
Together, uncertainty and hope keep limerence alive, as experimental psychologist Dorothy Tennov, PhD, explained in her seminal work, Love and Limerence. Hope is generally a good thing. But in limerence, it is born from an individual using “clues” to make connections where there are often none. As a deeply feeling woman with ADHD, I saw clues and made connections Agatha Christie couldn’t find. I got a dopamine rush just from anticipating connection with a limerent object, known in the limerence community as an LO.
Like many limerents, I searched for small signs that my LOs reciprocated my interest: a text back after being ghosted for a couple days, a “love” on a Facebook post, a wink at work. I thought if I tried hard enough, I could prove my self-worth to the LO. I was raised to be a go-getter feminist, but it didn’t look that way based on how I was dating.
The rise of limerence
While the term “limerence” was coined in the late ’70s by Tennov, it’s only become a psych buzzword in the past five years. Why the resurgence? Are there just more insecure overthinkers like me grasping onto it?
