"... who is often perceived as perfect but unavailable.... The LO is most often a friend, colleague, or stranger met in passing... 'It’s often not romantic or sexual in nature. It is very much about wanting to feel loved and cared for.'... We begin to mistake anxiety for excitement and excitement for joy.... One strategy... to de-idolize their LO is listing reasons the LO is not perfect... [or the] ways in which the LO and the patient are not compatible.
Name it to tame it: You can deliberately interrupt the habit by calling it out — 'Hello, limerence' — and paying attention (for example, through journaling) to what it feels like when you’re in that state of longing.... You should also believe you deserve more...."
The article says the word "limerance" was coined by the psychologist Dorothy Tennov, and the OED finds her first use of it in print in 1977.
That first quote denies any etymology: "I first used the term ‘amorance’ then changed it back to ‘limerence’... It has no roots whatsoever. It looks nice. It works well in French. Take it from me it has no etymology whatsoever."
So if you were seeing a connection to "sublime" or "limn," just forget about it. If you can't forget it, make a list of things that are rootless, nice looking, and well functioning in French.
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I remember an article from long ago titled, "Is it love or limerence?" The idea got a lot of play at the time. Alas, it was from before the world wide web, so it doesn't show up in Google (at least by the time I stopped scrolling).
My limerent object was a man from Nantucket.
My love for 7-Up is a lemon-limerence, which is like an Orange Crush.
I guess it's nice to have a clinical term for "hopeless romantic" but I doubt I'll be using it in conversation any time soon.
Limerence is a beautiful sounding word. It reminds me of something I read years ago about Tolkien and word sounds. He said cellar door is the most beautiful word or phrase in the English language. Limerence sounds like a word that he might have created, relating to elves.
"The LO is most often a friend, colleague, or stranger met in passing..."
Well that really narrows it down, doesn't it!!?!? LOL...
Responding to Mid-Life Lawyer 7:41: My high school English teacher of 60 years ago said "cellar door is the most beautiful phrase in the English language." Who knew she was an LOTR freak.
Academic masturbation of the idea of a teenage crush produces new word. News at 11. How low has scholarship fallen?
Everyone, except sociopaths and psychopaths, has a deep longing to be loved unconditionally for who one is. That such relationships exist is very rare, but happens often enough that people who do not have that see the possibility for it and the longing for it can lead to dissatisfaction in ones chosen relationships and encourages lots of self destructive and inappropriate actions. Be careful, friends, and I hope you find the love you long for.
Is it live or is it Limerence?
The answer is only your hairdresser knows for sure.
'Cellar door' is beautiful, innit?
What? No limericks about limerence?
""The LO is most often a friend, colleague, or stranger met in passing..."/"Well that really narrows it down, doesn't it!!?!? LOL..."
I know. That made me laugh too.
I see a format for humor: You begin a sentence as if you were going to name one item but you, surprisingly and absurdly, list more than one.
Variation: You begin a sentence as if you are going to list several things, but in then you only name one.
Presumably, the Greeks had a word for this.
The Navy is having recruitment issues, so it's decided to accept sailors without a high school diploma or GED. All they have to do is score a 50 out of 99 on the Armed Services Qualification Test. So, to meet the demand for sailors, the Navy is enrolling high-grade morons.
Maybe they should deep six the DIE requirements and value their sailors instead of calling them racist White Privileged Deplorables.
"The answer is only your hairdresser knows for sure."
Back in the 1950s/early 60s, it was standard advice that blondes and redheads should follow a shampoo with a rinse of water with lemon juice — a "lemon rinse." Brunettes were advised to use water and vinegar.
There weren't that many products other than shampoo to use on your hair. That was before the term "conditioner" came into general use. There was one conditioner-like product that I remember: Tame. This was supposed to "tame" tangles. It was referred to as a "creme rinse," and you had to mix it with water.
So the idea of a "lime rinse" is hard to understand, I think, if you're not old like me.
"... cellar door is the most beautiful phrase...."
Remember Stella D'Oro cookies?
In the 1970s we would debate about whether Breakfast Treats or Angelica Goodies were better for dunking in coffee. Maybe that only happened in NYC.
“Presumably, the Greeks had a word for this.”
Germans too. Maybe Freud.
Huh. I used to use Tame when I was a kid, but I didn't mix it with water - I slathered it on, stood there in the shower for one minute, counting seconds, and rinsed it out. It was a damn sight better than that lemon rinse, which left my hair feeling as if it had grown a bunch of microscopic hooks that bound it to itself irretrievably.
At present I am using up a shampoo bought while traveling that leaves my hair feeling "crispy." Ugh. I use a great whack of conditioner after that shampoo on the days when I wash my quite long and naturally wavy-to-curly hair so I don't have to struggle with it for half an hour to comb it out, or give up and shave myself bald.
But limerence. Sure. I think when my husband gets home I'll try saying, "Hello, limerence!" and see what he says.
Further - so, "we," when in a limerent state, experience anxiety as excitement and excitement as joy? So anxiety is what we believe joy feels like? When I've felt something I think could be described as limerence (and praise God, it seems to have been a characteristic only of my extreme youth), I remember feeling anxious about whether that LO - that friend whose attention I craved, for instance - would notice me and give me the same level of attention I gave her. It did not feel like either excitement or joy. It felt like anxiety. Maybe I wasn't sufficiently limerent.
Is this feeling what gives rise to middle-age "love affairs"? A desire for someone to notice you thoroughly?
Responding to ronetc- "My high school English teacher of 60 years ago said "cellar door is the most beautiful phrase in the English language." Who knew she was an LOTR freak."
I looked it up and the quote came from a 1955 talk. She must have been a fan to have discovered it so long back.
Responding to Ann - "Remember Stella D'Oro cookies?
In the 1970s we would debate about whether Breakfast Treats or Angelica Goodies were better for dunking in coffee. Maybe that only happened in NYC."
I didn't remember those until I saw the label for them. That's the kind of thing I was attracted to in those cool little gourmet cheese shops that were around in the seventies and maybe eighties. Stella D'Oro is definitely kin to cellar door.
The other words as pretty as 'cellar door': 'rain barrel'.
"If you can't forget it, make a list of things that are rootless, nice looking, and well functioning in French."
All I can come up with is Josephine Baker.
Once again the NYT arms women heading to brunch with talking points.
What's your name?
Let me out!
Listen, this whole thing is as unexpected and overwhelming for me as it is for you.
Let me out you fucking freak!
Why is it so hard for some people to reciprocate emotionally? I mean, is that so much to ask?
Pleeeease! Let me out. I promise I won't tell anyone...
Did you know Tolkien said cellar door is the most beautiful word or phrase in the English language?
Heeeelp! Heeeelp!
I'd read the term and guessed from the context that limerance referred to a transitional emotional state ("liminal") between rational and irrational attachment.
Nifty to have the inventor of the word explain its nonexistent etymology. I suppose I'm like the fellow in Annie Hall who claims to understand McCluhan, and Marshall McCluhan suddenly shows up and puts him in his place.
I'd read the term and guessed from the context that limerance referred to a transitional emotional state ("liminal") between rational and irrational attachment.
Nifty to have the inventor of the word explain its nonexistent etymology. I suppose I'm like the fellow in Annie Hall who claims to understand McCluhan, and Marshall McCluhan suddenly shows up and puts him in his place.
I'd read the term and guessed from the context that limerance referred to a transitional emotional state ("liminal") between rational and irrational attachment.
Nifty to have the inventor of the word explain its nonexistent etymology. I suppose I'm like the fellow in Annie Hall who claims to understand McCluhan, and Marshall McCluhan suddenly shows up and puts him in his place.
Althouse made a new tag (e) and I have no idea what it is about.
I believe "limerence" is older than 1977, if only by a few years. When I was in HS (class of '74) the so-called Announcers' Test (a memory feat) game mentioned Limerent Oysters. The Wikipedia version now archived shows this as LIMERICK oysters, which seems incorrect to me both by memory and the part of speech : limerent being an adjective applied to a living thing and limerick being a noun place name or a type of poem. Wiki has it a a comic bit performed by Danny Kaye and Jerry Lewis going back to the 1940s. Who knows?
In any case:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Announcer%27s_test
Now do pompatus of love.
>"Limerence is a state of overwhelming and unexpected longing for emotional reciprocation from another human, known as a limerent object..."
"... who is often perceived as perfect but unavailable.... The LO is most often a friend, colleague,...<
Limerence seems like nothing particularly unusual or noteworthy, or hopelessly dead end. Aren't lots of limerences the springboard from which develop actual relationships, romances, even marriages? Aren't they the nature of the rudiments of attraction for many individuals...who then work up the gumption to pursue the "impossible." I certainly had a several limerences that worked out that way, anyway. I'm certain that lots of young men (and women?), especially teenagers, must have as well. But I guess that stage of the game "needed" a label so this psychologist did it. Well, why not...
“I see a format for humor: You begin a sentence as if you were going to name one item but you, surprisingly and absurdly, list more than one.
Variation: You begin a sentence as if you are going to list several things, but in then you only name one.
Presumably, the Greeks had a word for this.”
—————————-
Or Monty Python does, The inquisition stands for three things; justice, truth, honor, and … charity. The inquisition stands for four things…. If my Memory is correct.
Stella D’Oro. Stars of gold.
Semantic playfulness in the service of legacy.
Beutiful words in English: undue delay.
A lot of what therapy does is to move people past places where their development somehow got arrested, so yeah, to another person, this probably seems bizarrely childish. I notice that every time Althouse blogs one of these, commenters 90% of the time go Bob Newhart on them. But if this therapist can help people thus afflicted, without drugs, well, thank you for your service.
A Limerance Limerick
A woman residing in France
Is hot for all people in pants.
...Her avid flirtation
...Lacks reciprocation
She's suffering from limerance
The tag "e": e-motive, e-licit, e-ntriguing, e-tc.
So "Brand New Key" must have been about limerance, then.
The “cellar door” line was used by Drew Barrymore’s character in “Donnie Darko”, without attribution to Tolkien.
Dorothy Parker maintained that the two most beautiful words were “check enclosed”.
LOL re e
Is the accent on the middle syllable or the first syllable?
Is it a long i or short i in the first syllable?
I first used the term ‘amorance’ then changed it back to ‘limerence’
Wait...what?!?
If you first used 'amorance' then how can you change it back to something it never was before?
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