Why is limerence so bad?

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The Before trilogy - if you will, my favourite film - is very much worth watching. Starting from a youthful mutual infatuation and following the attempt to try and make something deep and long-lasting from that, and all the difficulties it brings, all conducted through interesting conversations and ruminations (of just the sort I enjoy, though YMMV).

I don't think all of these are part of infatuation / limerence. These definitely are not:

•Extreme shyness,stuttering, nervousness and confusion around the other person
•Fear of rejection and despair or thoughts of suicide if rejection occurs
•Maintaining romantic intensity through adversity

Nope. Snap shots and infatuations are at the extreme ends on the scale, so are not in any way related. A snap shot is when you find somebody physically attractive on first sight, and then have a brief encounter, like a date or a one-night-stand. Infatuations are long-lived obsessions / crushes, and require no dating or sex.



Only if you plan it verbally. There are other ways to meet a stranger again that doesn't require any planning or conversation.

I think the list is more a bundle of possible-probable aspects/experiences, rather than a definitive 'all these must be present' list. I've not experienced all of them, but I have experienced a lot, including the last of those you reject. For the duration, I had an ambivalent view of limerence, but generally indulging it. After the spell had broken, I've tended to be of the 'what the f**k was i thinking?' attitude. but as Fiona Apple sang:

This is not about love
Cos I am not in love
In fact, I can't stop falling out...
I miss that stupid ache

'Stupid ache' indeed!

But again, my experience does not and cannot negate your experience (and vice versa). That's not how it works.



I think the comparison was more in the attitude - in their own way, both require not really knowing someone. Both give an illusion of intimacy, all the rush and none of the risk. That's what I meant by comparison with Wilde's view of sentimentalists.



Indeed, I can think of no better way to dispel an infatuation than through dating or sex.

Two Cures for Love

1. Don’t see him. Don’t phone or write a letter.

2. The easy way: get to know him better.

- Wendy Cope



That seems to be edging a bit too close to stalking.

Amazing trilogy, but not a good exactly of limerence/unrequited love.

Like you say, I interpreted it as very mutual between the pair, but they both had to sort out their own issues and lives in their dedication for one another.

Personally, though, I do not believe unrequited love should be idolized.

You can argue 'great things' have come of it, but for every great thing that has come from it, there has been just as much pain, misery and suffering.

Unrequited love is one of the most terrible feelings in the world, second only to depression (and the two often go hand-in-hand), anxiety, fear and trauma.

Oh yeah, it's not unrequited. But I think the films are by far the best (and realistic) look at the move/attempt to make a relationship from infatuation. I mean, it'd be hard not to fall in love with someone after spending the night walking around Vienna!







I think there are (at least) two variations on the theme. One is the unrequited lover sincerely wants their beloved. The other is the unrequited lover wants to go on wanting. What they want is not the beloved, but the longing, the yearning, the desire for the beloved; to actually 'get' what they (on the surface) want would be experienced as a loss.

The first is something like a state of distress, of despair, of being denied. The second is something closer to melancholy, or poignancy, like a piercing sorrow; the pleasure is in the pain.

Thus many who have turned to art to express themselves are often more convincing when talking about their extravegent longing than about any actual attributes of their beloved. The former can often seem more real to them than the latter.

If I'm involved in Limerence too long, I can become rather depressed.

I might do things I would regret later.

I mean limerence is enjoyable for a while. But I'm the sort of person where it just keeps going and it becomes unhealthy.

I don't really see anything particularly wrong about it though. I think that a lot of interesting works of fiction have come about because of it.

I think limerence can overlap with negative things too though. You sort of idealise the person into what you want, which is fine if you never enter a relationship with them, but not really good if you do date them or attempt to. It's a harsh slap to the face when you realize they aren't as perfect and wonderful as your idealizations.

I say that from personal experience. I experienced limerence related to this guy that went on and off for years, and eventually we dated and I realised he wasn't really what I had built him up to be (and was in fact a truly unpleasant person).

I think it would take a really determined person to overcome being disillusioned (even if it was your own fault and not theirs) and accept them as what they actually are after being disappointed like that. I don't think many people could manage staying with someone and making things work after that.

/whatever. I am done with this thread.

Last edited by The_Face_of_Boo on 12 Sep 2016, 10:10 am, edited 3 times in total.

OK I've acknowledged already that it's limerence. There's no need to beat me over the head with it. You're flogging a dead donkey.

Now...I REALLY wish I could fly over to England to take you bowling.

I don't like it that you're sad.

If it means you recite Limericks constantly, yes I would have to agree it is that bad.

it's because of the below post I was under the impression that you were not fully acknowledging it's limerence.



Anyway I am done with this thread, no need to be passive-aggressive like that - just keep in mind that you are not the only person who was romantically ignored/rejected on this planet - have a nice day.

Reminded me of this:

Defining the Problem

I can’t forgive you. Even if I could,
You wouldn’t pardon me for seeing through you.
And yet I cannot cure myself of love
For what I thought you were before I knew you.

- Wendy Cope (again)

In your set up you define neurodiversity as



This directly contradicts how you are using ND here as if it was a specific group.

However you have also arbitrarily combined a bunch of neurotypes which you lump together with a bunch of arbitrary traits under the auspices of nuerodiversity. You have not properly established relationship between traits and neuotypes and between neuotypes themselves. Nor have you fully allowed for free movement to establish what these relationships are.

You are right that the DSM defines conditions quite arbitrarily. We agree on that. In the Aspie Test you also arbitrarily picked traits and trait relationship, and the there is limited free movement here as these trains are effectively weighted and scaled to fit into the two sided model. Don't get me started on the modified polarised spider graph.

I find the study quite circular, it is model that this constructed in a way the fits the conclusion you intended. Nothing more. It is also largely based on self-reporting/questionnaire you have constructed to support your theories.

[/quote]

I don't disagree with that. I never argued that it was the extreme end of normal distribution. In fact that would contradict both my definition of diversity and your own.

This is an elaborate circular exercise IMO.

To the contrary. It defines both the ND and NT group as factors in human diversity.



I have. All the traits in Aspie Quiz (which is over 1,000) are related to the two factors. I've even shown that the relation to these factors can predict how strongly they correlate with random traits.

IOW, the Aspie Quiz study found no evidence whatsoever that there are more than these two factors in human diversity, and they explained 60-70% of the variance. I even found that the Big Five factors didn't survive being analysed with Aspie Quiz items, rather the resulting factor structure was that of Aspie Quiz, and not of the Big Five.



First, Aspie Quiz tested more than 1,000 traits in the construction process, many part of professional surveys for psychiatric disorders. Second, factor congruence coefficients showed that the exact item selection was not important. That's also why I can add new traits and still achieve reliable scores.



The current spider graph is weighted with coefficients from Confirmative Factor Analysis (CFA), and it showed that the 10 dimensions were acceptable in the CFA analysis. It had CFI close to .95, something that few (if any) psychiatric survey has achieved. The new 10 dimensions were also extracted with explorative factor analysis, so are not arbitrary at all. Still, the two used programs for CFA (R and MPlus) had big problems with the dominant two factors in the dataset.



Factor analysis of a very wide set of traits never can be circular.