Why is limerence so bad?

Post Reply New Topic

I'll do things the "ND" way if it were to guarantee success with girls.

While I find much of what rdos too specific and generalizing, I generally think he and Hopper have a point.

Literally the only reason though I want to live a normal life financially and educationally is because it would improve my dating chances.

Otherwise I give no damn about career and wouldbe content with spending the rest of my life only to move out to a small place on my own and stay on disability but dedicate myself to my music and occasionally volunteer. That is the life.

I just don't have the patience to do it the "ND" way.

If a woman glances at me longingly, I would want to talk to her. I would want to caress her. I can't deal with days and days of just staring. I want to set the ball rolling NOW.

Limerence, to me, is too hurtful for me. I wish I could use my limerence in my writing without feeling the pain; I wish I could compartmentalize it, so to speak. But the experience is just too painful for me. I want to detach myself, divert myself from it. Maybe this is why I'm not published LOL.

Much great writing is the result of the experience of limerence. Alas, I have difficulty making use of it!

I feel that RDO has a "special interest" in this, and studies it intensely.

I agree with some of what he says; but I don't feel it applies to my own situation. I really would have difficulty implementing what he recommends.

It doesn't mean he's totally "wrong."

But if you implement his recommendations in the wrong manner, not knowing that the other person will be amenable to the staring, then one can get in a decent amount of trouble.

But RDO, himself, is not an obnoxious person.

Whether or not he's an obnoxious person is irrelevant. His behavior here is obnoxious. I know I'm not the only person who has stated annoyance at his behavior. He argues with people and acts as if they "aren't ND enough" because they disagree with something that is literally a personal theory of his.

Also, what he is stating is more akin to a sociological theory (a field he erroneously claims to invalid) than anything "hard science." And whatever field it is in, it's not even a usable theory because it's literally his personal experience.

I don't think anyone here would give a damn about his crackpot theories if he wasn't so insistent on forcing them on people and then trying to act like they somehow are less ND or disconnected from their ND self when they disagree with him. That is incredibly annoying.

People shouldn't raise their own subjective impressions to the status of some sort of "scientific fact" or "discovery." That I agree with.

Nobody can say whether or not I'm "not ND enough." That would be ridiculous, especially we are on a Forum, and not meeting each other in real life.

I would say, in general, that people should never be cocksure that their own subjective impressions are the "be-all, end all--the "answer" to everything.

I always get suspicious of those who feel their subjective impressions, always, rise to a higher level than others' subjective impressions.

Although I'm sceptical of rdos's theories (and concerned for anyone trying them out), I'm also somewhat interested. I'm waiting for someone other than rdos to come along and say 'yep, I do/did what he describes, and it's brilliant!'. I generally prefer to deal with concrete and particular facts when it comes to dating advice and relationships, but I am still curious as to quite what he's on about.

I know, statistically speaking, we're a small crowd. But it's simply taking the piss to dismiss the preferences of a group of autistic individuals in their approach to attraction, seduction, bonding and relationships by saying 'yes, but that's the neurotypical way, you're not doing it the ND way!' when they say that (mutually) staring at and obsessing over their beloved just doesn't/wouldn't cut it.

Being someone who has Asperger's Syndrome, and so by any other consideration is not 'neurotypical' and is indeed of the 'neurodiverse', my response to rdos's assertions is now, as I suggested upthread, to keep in mind that when he talks about 'neurodiverse', he's talking about something quite different from those on the autistic spectrum.

Autism is defined and diagnosed through a cluster of behaviours and difficulties. rdos is trying to pinpoint 'ND'ness to a given biological marker. Which makes it possible that, if he's succesful in getting his theory accepted, we could see a large number of autistic people who lack that ND biological marker.

Which, I think, is at the heart of the difficulties here. rdos is insistently defining his version of 'neurodiverse' into being and using the term to mean that, whereas most anyone else who uses it considers it to be referring to autistic etc individuals. So we get the situation we see here, where rdos posits certain characteristics of the 'neurodiverse', and every other member (as far as I can tell) here who reads them just looks askance at the suggestions. It can look like an attempt at a bait-and-switch.

Which is the problem with people who insist on theories over facts. They want to tell the world how it should be, while the world just gets on with being how it is. The only way to account for the gap between rdos's insistence on just what is 'neurodiverse' (theory), and the 'well, no, that's not my experience or preference or inclination at all' of members of a forum for the neurodiverse (facts) is to see that rdos means something quite different by 'neurodiverse' than is commonly understood by other members here.

It's just a shame he couldn't have picked another word. A whole heap of bother and confusion and annoyance would be saved.

I think he means "neurodiverse" in a general sense. People on the Autistic Spectrum, mostly, but not exclusively.

His theories are his conception on how "neurodiverse" people interact. But they are only "theories."

Perhaps, there are some people who relate this way--but I would tend to doubt that they relate in precisely the way RDO portrays.

I find that he is a respectful poster---though I wouldn't want somebody questioning whether I'm neurodiverse or not.

Rdos uses neurodiverse in a sense that has become the less common one, but it is clear that he uses it as opposed to NTs. Just forget about it, and also a little bit about the eye contact thing: Hopper and Rdos both have presented techniques that work, with different kind of people, e.g. before I found these guys who stared at you then had eye contact with you with me thinking "oh no", and then approaching you, rather unappealing, now that I know more about ASD, I have no bigger problem with that. I have no biger problems with most forms of getting into contact with oneanother, all in all I am much more aware of how it works if it works smoothly, even if I feel still a little estranged when I read rdos explaining it so "technically", but I might get used to that more technical approach when I am more in L&D). Let this quite interesting thread prevent from getting stuck.

I still have a problem with limerence requiring a sustained and personalized interaction in order not to be harmful. For instance, there is a lot of limerence going on in grieving processes, even if it is a normal process (often it is not). Then I have kind of a crush for a poet like Apolliniare or Theophile Gautier who unfortunately are already dead. To the point that, if they still lived, I might groupie-like travel to Paris in order to meet them. (Or probably not, ... I am definitely not the groupie-type of person). And as I mentioned it, how about groupies and the real fans? Arent they the perfect limerencers?

I would agree that limerence is part of a normal bonding process. Normally it pushes you to go further. Now there might be plenty of reasons why you dont approach a person, and some of them are good ones. But in order to say whether the limerence itself can be good, and under which circumstances, one has to anwer what are good or bad reasons for feeling attracted to someone in the first place and what needs or purposes are fulfilled in a normal relationship and which might be as well fullfilled in a limerence "relationship". I would say that you can feel attracted to someone for 2 reasons:
1. The person is really great. I mean something along the lines "There is no remedy against too big merits other than love." (Goethe)
2. You feel attracted by someone because you believe that he might give you what you need emotionally or because he raises your interest (so something you dont know yet). Basically you lack something, and you expect to get it. I think some fatal attraction or attraction to someone who you actually consider as a bit dangerous falls under this category,too.

With 1.it is easy. Why should you not limerence about a great person? Warm (romantic or non romantic) feelings towards someone who is great or is engaging in a great project cant do any harm to anybody. On the contrary, others might get interested in that person, because they hear you talk about him or her or react to him or her in a special way, the person herself might be lifted in her courage to undertake things that maybe only people like him or her can do well. I have for example Victor in mind, a clown of the Gorky circus, who cheered at Billy Joel and his band up on his tour through the Sovjet Union. This probably works best, if the supporter is a pretty unique person, too.

With 2 it is a little bit more complicated. So give me some time to think about it.