The term “limerence” was coined by professor and psychologist Dorothy Tennov in 1979.
Limerence is the emotional craving that a certain person will love you as much as you love them.
In most cases, limerence strikes a person before a relationship begins. One or two meetings can often be enough to trigger limerence.
The person who suffers from limerence experiences obsessive fantasies and thoughts involving them and their romantic interest. No matter how much they try, they simply cannot stop their obsession with the romantic interest from occupying their minds.
Limerent sufferers also experience a distorted sense of reality. They often believe the romantic interest can be either a saint, a person without flaws, “a good person deep down, just deeply misunderstood”, their soulmate etc.
Because of this distorted sense of reality, Limerent sufferers often mistakenly believe the actions and behaviors of their romantic interest show interest towards them. In reality, the romantic interest was simply polite, without any romantic intentions.
Another major symptom of limerence are the brutal emotional mood swings. Signs of interest can send limerent sufferers in a state of drug-like euphoria, while rejections or indifference can induce depressive symptoms and bring the sufferer to despair.
