Limerence
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Limerence is a state of mind which results from romantic feelings for another person, and typically includes intrusive, melancholic thoughts, or tragic concerns for the object of one's affection as well as a desire to form or maintain a relationship with the object of love and to have one's feelings reciprocated.
Psychologist Dorothy Tennov coined the term "limerence" as an alteration of the word "amorance" with no other etymology[1] to describe a concept that had grown out of her work in the 1960s, when she interviewed over 500 people on the topic of love.[2][3][4] In her book Love and Limerence, she writes that "to be in a state of limerence is to feel what is usually termed 'being in love.'"[5] She coined the term to distinguish between this and other less-overwhelming emotions[6] and to avoid implying that people who do not experience it cannot experience love.[7]
According to Tennov and others, limerence can be considered romantic love,[1][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] passionate love,[3][12][14][16] infatuation[17][10] or lovesickness.[10][4][18][19] It's also sometimes compared to a crush, but contrasted as being much more intense.[20]
Love and Limerence has been called the seminal work on romantic love.[14] Anthropologist and author Helen Fisher wrote that data collection on romantic attraction started with Tennov collecting survey results, diaries, and other personal accounts.[21] Fisher (who knew Tennov[22] and corresponded with her)[23] has commented that Tennov's concept had a sad component to it.[22]
Limerence is associated with dopamine reward circuits in the brain.[12][24][25][10][20] The early stage of romantic love has been called an altered mental state[26] and compared to a behavioral addiction.[25][27] Brain scans suggest that people experience motivational salience in response to a loved one.[12][25] A long-running theory also compared the associated intrusive thinking to obsessive-compulsive disorder[15] with a hypothesis that this is related to lowered serotonin levels in the brain,[23] but the experimental evidence for that is ambiguous.[14]
Overview
[edit]Dorothy Tennov's concept represents a scientific attempt at studying the nature of romantic love.[28] She identified a suite of psychological traits associated with being in love, which she called limerence.[23][29] Other authors have also considered limerence to be an emotional and motivational state for focusing attention on a preferred mating partner[12] or an attachment process.[30][13]
Nicky Hayes describes limerence as "a kind of infatuated, all-absorbing passion," the type of love Dante felt towards Beatrice or that of Romeo and Juliet.[31] It is this unfulfilled, intense longing for the other person which defines limerence, where the individual becomes "more or less obsessed by that person and spends much of their time fantasising about them."[31] Hayes suggests that "it is the unobtainable nature of the goal which makes the feeling so powerful," and occasional, intermittent reinforcement may be required to support the underlying feelings.[31]
A central feature of limerence for Tennov was the fact that her participants really saw the object of their affection's personal flaws, but simply overlooked them or found them attractive.[32][33] Tennov calls this "crystallization," after a description by the French writer Stendhal. This "crystallized" version of a love object, with accentuated features, is what Tennov calls a "limerent object," or "LO."[34]
Limerence is perceived by the person experiencing it as involuntary,[35] and involves at times intense preoccupation with thoughts of the LO[36][33] and a strong desire for reciprocation of one's feelings.[37][38] Limerence has psychological properties of passionate love,[39][40][3][12] but Tennov says that limerence is frequently unrequited[41][31] and argues that it mainly occurs in the context of some type of uncertainty about the situation.[42] Uncertainty could be, for example, barriers to the fulfillment of a relationship such as physical or emotional distance from the LO,[43] or uncertainty about how the LO reciprocates the feeling.[44]
For Tennov, sexual desire was an essential aspect of limerence;[45] however, the desire for emotional commitment is greater.[46] The sexual desires of Tennov's interviewees were overshadowed by their desire for their beloved to contact them, invite them out and reciprocate their passion.[38] More recent authors have also suggested that sexual desire is a separate phenomenon[47][23] and that infatuations such as limerence sometimes occur in the absence of sexual desire.[47]
Limerence can be difficult to understand for those who have never experienced it, and it is thus often derided and dismissed as undesirable, some kind of pathology, ridiculous fantasy or a construct of romantic fiction.[48]
Components
[edit]Dorothy Tennov's original components from Love and Limerence were:[49]
- intrusive thinking about the object of your passionate desire (the limerent object or "LO"), who is a possible sexual partner
- acute longing for reciprocation
- dependency of mood on LO's actions or, more accurately, your interpretation of LO's actions with respect to the probability of reciprocation
- inability to react limerently to more than one person at a time (exceptions occur only when limerence is at low ebb—early on or in the last fading)
- some fleeting and transient relief from unrequited limerent passion through vivid imagination of action by LO that means reciprocation
- fear of rejection and sometimes incapacitating but always unsettling shyness in LO's presence, especially in the beginning and whenever uncertainty strikes
- intensification through adversity (at least, up to a point)
- acute sensitivity to any act or thought or condition that can be interpreted favorably, and an extraordinary ability to devise or invent "reasonable" explanations for why the neutrality that the disinterested observer might see is in fact a sign of hidden passion in the LO
- an aching of the "heart" (a region in the center front of the chest) when uncertainty is strong
- buoyancy (a feeling of walking on air) when reciprocation seems evident
- a general intensity of feeling that leaves other concerns in the background
- a remarkable ability to emphasize what is truly admirable in LO and to avoid dwelling on the negative, even to respond with a compassion for the negative and render it, emotionally if not perceptually, into another positive attribute.
Relation to other concepts
[edit]Love
[edit]Tennov gives several reasons for inventing a term for the state denoted by limerence (usually termed "being in love").[50] One principle reason is to resolve ambiguities with the word "love" being used both to refer to an act which is chosen, as well as to a state which is endured:[51]
Many writers on love have complained about semantic difficulties. The dictionary lists two dozen different meanings of the word "love." And how does one distinguish between love and affection, liking, fondness, caring, concern, infatuation, attraction, or desire? [...] Acknowledgment of a distinction between love as a verb, as an action taken by the individual, and love as a state is awkward. Never having fallen in love is not at all a matter of not loving, if loving is defined as caring. Furthermore, this state of "being in love" included feelings that do not properly fit with love defined as concern.
(The type of love that focuses on caring for others is called compassionate love or agape.)[52]
The other principle reason given is that she encountered people who do not experience the state.[53] The first such person Tennov discovered was a long-time friend, Helen Payne, whose unfamiliarity with the state of limerence emerged during a conversation on an airplane flight together.[54] Tennov writes that "describing the intricacies of romantic attachments" to Helen was "like trying to describe the color red to one blind from birth."[55] Tennov labels such people "nonlimerents" (a person not currently experiencing limerence), but cautions that it seemed to her that there is no nonlimerent personality and that potentially anyone could experience the state of limerence.[56] Tennov says:[57]
I adopted the view that never being in this state was neither more nor less pathological than experiencing it. I wanted to be able to speak about this reliably identifiable condition without giving love's advocates the feeling something precious was being destroyed. Even more important, if using the term "love" denoted the presence of the state, there was the danger that absence of the state would receive negative connotations.
Tennov addresses the issue of whether limerence is love in several other passages.[58] In one passage she clearly says that limerence is love, at least in certain cases:[59]
In fully developed limerence, you feel additionally what is, in other contexts as well, called love—an extreme degree of feeling that you want LO to be safe, cared for, happy, and all those other positive and noble feelings that you might feel for your children, your parents, and your dearest friends. That's probably why limerence is called love in all languages. [...] Surely limerence is love at its highest and most glorious peak.
However, Tennov then switches in tone and tells a fairly negative story of the pain felt by a woman reminiscing over the time she wasted pining for a man she now feels nothing towards, something which occupied her in a time when her father was still alive and her children "were adorable babies who needed their mother's attention." Tennov says this is why we distinguish limerence (this "love") from other loves.[60]
In another passage, Tennov says that while affection and fondness do not demand anything in return, the return of feelings desired in the limerent state means that "Other aspects of your life, including love, are sacrificed in behalf of the all-consuming need." and that "While limerence has been called love, it is not love."[61]
Passionate and companionate love
[edit]Elaine Hatfield has related limerence to passionate love, considering them synonymous[3] or commenting in 2014 that they are "much the same."[62] She says "Tennov (1979) interviewed more than five hundred passionate lovers. Almost all lovers took it for granted that passionate love (which Tennov labels 'limerence') is a bittersweet experience."[3] Passionate love is:[3]
A state of intense longing for union with another. Reciprocated love (union with the other) is associated with fulfillment and ecstasy; unrequited love (separation) is associated with emptiness, anxiety, or despair (p. 9).
Many other authors also consider them synonymous,[12][14][47] for example Acevedo & Aron:[16]
Passionate love, “a state of intense longing for union with another” (Hatfield & Rapson, 1993, p. 5), also referred to as “being in love” (Meyers & Berscheid, 1997), “infatuation” (Fisher, 1998), and “limerence” (Tennov, 1979), includes an obsessive element, characterized by intrusive thinking, uncertainty, and mood swings.
Passionate love is linked to passion, as in intense emotion, for example, joy and fulfillment, but also anguish and agony.[63] Hatfield notes that the original meaning of passion "was agony—as in Christ's passion."[63] Passionate love is contrasted with companionate love, which is "the affection we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply entwined."[3] Companionate love is felt less intensely and often follows after passionate love in a relationship.[14][62]
In Love and Limerence, Tennov also considers passionate love to be among several synonyms for limerence,[64] and refers to one of Hatfield's early writings on the subject.[65] However, Tennov says that one of the guiding points of her study was to focus on the aspects of love that produced distress.[66] She has also said that one of the problems she encountered in her studies is that her interview subjects would use terms like "passionate love," "romantic love" and "being in love" to refer to mental states other than what she refers to as limerence.[67] For example, some of her nonlimerent interviewees would use the word "obsession," yet not report the intrusive thoughts necessary to limerence, only that "thoughts of the person are frequent and pleasurable."[68]
Helen Fisher has commented that while she considers limerence and passionate love to be synonymous,[23][12] she prefers the term "romantic love" (which is the most common in biology)[14] because she thinks it has meaning in society.[22] Academic literature has never universally adopted a single term for romantic love.[14]
Attachment theory
[edit]Attachment theory refers to John Bowlby's concept of an "attachment system", a system evolved to keep infants in proximity of their caregiver (or "attachment figure").[47][30][52] The person uses the attachment figure as a "secure base" to feel safe exploring the environment, seeks proximity with the attachment figure when threatened, and suffers distress when separated.[52][30] A prominent theory suggests this system is reused for adult pair bonds,[30] as an exaptation[47] or co-option,[69] whereby a given trait takes on a new purpose.
In Helen Fisher's popular[69] love taxonomy, limerence and attachment are considered different systems with different purposes, with limerence comparable to passionate love and attachment comparable to companionate love.[23][12] In the past, other authors have also suggested that limerence could be related to the anxious attachment style;[30][13] however, in their original 1987 paper conceptualizing romantic love as an attachment process (and relating limerence to attachment style), Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver also caution that they are not implying that the early phase of romance is equivalent to being attached. They go on to say that "Our idea, which requires further development, is that romantic love is a biological process designed by evolution to facilitate attachment between adult sexual partners who, at the time love evolved, were likely to become parents of an infant who need their reliable care."[30]
Attachment style refers to differences in attachment-related thoughts and behaviors, especially relating to the concept of security vs. insecurity.[70][30] This can be split into components of anxiety (worrying the partner is available, attentive and responsive) and avoidance (preference not to rely on others or open up emotionally).[70] The formation of attachment style is complicated,[70][71] for example it has been suggested that attachment style forms during childhood and adolescence, but twin studies have also suggested a heritable component[71] and attachment anxiety is substantially correlated with the personality trait neuroticism.[70] There is also a person-situation problem where people have different attachment styles with different partners, implying attachment style is not just a trait,[70] for example an avoidant partner could cause a secure partner to feel and act anxious.[30]
A 1990 study found that the 15% of participants who self-reported an anxious attachment style scored highly on limerence measures (especially obsessive preoccupation and emotional dependence scales), but found considerable overlap of distributions between all three attachment styles and limerence.[13]
Studies and a meta-analysis by Bianca Acevedo & Arthur Aron found that while romantic obsession is associated with relationship satisfaction in short-term relationships, it is associated with slightly decreased satisfaction over the long-term and they speculate this could be related to attachment style.[16]
Evolutionary purpose
[edit]In a 1998 essay[72] (as well as in Love and Limerence),[73] Dorothy Tennov has speculated that limerence has an evolutionary purpose.[74]
For what ultimate cause might the state of limerence be a proximate cause? In other words, why were people who became limerent successful, maybe more successful than others, in passing their genes on to succeeding generations back a few hundred thousand or million years ago when heads grew larger and fathers who left mother and child to fend for themselves were less "reproductively successful"—in the long run, that is (Morgan 1993). Did limerence evolve to cement a relationship long enough to get the offspring up and running? [...] The most consistent result of limerence is mating, not merely sexual interaction but also commitment, the establishment of a shared domicile in the form of a cozy nest built for the enjoyment of ecstasy, for reproduction, and for the rearing of children.[75]
Helen Fisher's components of romantic attraction are largely derived from Tennov's components of limerence,[23] and in a similar vein as Tennov, Fisher has theorized that this 'attraction' system evolved to facilitate mammalian mate choice.[23][12]
A 1998 paper by James Leckman & Linda Mayes presented a comparison between Tennov's limerence, early-stage parental love and obsessive-compulsive disorder.[15] Adam Bode has incorporated this analysis by Leckman & Mayes in to a theory that romantic love evolved by co-opting the brain systems for mother-infant bonding.[14][69]
Tennov has suggested that if the neurophysiological "machinery" for limerence isn't a universal among all humans, then having both phenotypes (limerent and nonlimerent) in the population might be beneficial and an evolutionarily stable strategy.[76]
Characteristics
[edit]Lovesickness
[edit]Unrequited love, frustration and craving for the love object manifest in lovesickness, a depressive and melancholic state of mind characterized by intrusive thinking.[19] Forty-two percent of Dorothy Tennov's group reported being "severely depressed about a love affair."[77] Other effects are distraction[78] and self-isolation.[79] In a 2002 interview, Tennov remarks that "For the majority of limerent subjects, the feeling is unrequited. They have a horrible time."[10]
Tennov describes being under the spell herself, saying "Before it happened, I couldn't have imagined it[.] Now, I wouldn't want to have it happen again."[4] She even encountered interviewees who described incidents of self-injury,[80] but maintains that limerence on its own is normal[81] and tragedies involve additional factors.[82]
Limerence has been related to addiction.[83][20] Helen Fisher and her co-authors draws on brain scan evidence associating romantic love with dopamine[12][24][25] and suggests that it is a "positive addiction" (i.e. not harmful) when requited and a "negative addiction" when unrequited or inappropriate.[25] Along with activation in the ventral tegmental area which produces dopamine, Fisher's fMRI scans of rejected lovers showed activation in brain areas associated with physical pain, craving and assessing one's gains and losses.[25]
Lovesickness has been pathologized in previous centuries, but is not currently in the ICD-10, ICPC or DSM-5.[19] There is also a debate over the moral implications of using modern drugs for this,[19] and there is currently no drug which is a realistic candidate.[84]
Frank Tallis has argued that all love—even normal love—is largely indistinguishable from mental illness.[85][86] Tennov's concept was not intended to be viewed as an abnormal state[87] and lovesickness is no longer recognized as a medical condition, but the symptoms of lovesickness still bear a resemblance to many entries in the DSM.[88] For example, when people fall in love, there are four core symptoms: preoccupation, episodes of melancholy, episodes of rapture and instability of mood.[89] These correspond with conventional diagnoses of obsessionality (or OCD), depression, mania (or hypomania) and manic depression.[90] Other examples are physical symptoms similar to panic attacks (pounding heart, trembling, shortness of breath and lightheadedness), excessive worry about the future which resembles generalized anxiety disorder, appetite disturbance and sensitivity about one's appearance which resembles anorexia nervosa, and the feeling that life has become a dream which resembles derealization and depersonalization.[91]
Tallis argues that love evolved to override rationality so that one finds a lover and reproduces regardless of the personal costs of bearing and raising a child.[92] He uses the example of Charles Darwin who, never being romantic, is said to have sat and made a list of reasons to marry or not to marry.[93] Being accustomed to total freedom and worrying about such things as financial austerities that would limit his expenditure on books, Darwin found his reasons not to marry greatly outweighed his reasons to marry.[94] However, shortly thereafter Darwin unexpectedly fell in love, suddenly becoming preoccupied with cozy images of married life and thus quickly converting from bachelor to husband.[95] Tallis writes:[96]
At first sight, it seems extraordinary that evolutionary forces might conspire to shape something that looks like a mental illness to ensure reproductive success. Yet, there are many reasons why love should have evolved to share with madness several features — the most notable of which is the loss of reason. Like the ancient humoral model of love sickness, evolutionary principles seem to have necessitated a blurring of the distinction between normal and abnormal states. Evolution expects us to love madly, lest we fail to love at all.
According to Tennov, "Love has been called a madness and an affliction at least since the time of the ancient Greeks and probably earlier than that."[97] Historical accounts of lovesickness attribute it, for example, to being struck by an arrow shot by Eros, to a sickness entering through the eyes (similar to the evil eye), to an excess of black bile, or to spells, potions and other magic.[19] Attempts to treat lovesickness have been made throughout history using a variety of plants, natural products, charms and rituals.[19] The first known treatise on lovesickness is Remedia Amoris, by the poet Ovid.[19]
Crystallization
[edit]Crystallization, for Tennov, is the "remarkable ability to emphasize what is truly admirable in LO and to avoid dwelling on the negative, even to respond with a compassion for the negative and render it, emotionally if not perceptually, into another positive attribute."[98][23] Tennov borrows the term from the French writer Stendhal from his 1821 treatise on love, De l'Amour, in which he describes an analogy where a tree branch is tossed into a salt mine.[99] After remaining there for several months, the tree branch (or twig) becomes covered in salt crystals which transform it "into an object of shimmering beauty."[100] In the same way, unattractive characteristics of an LO are given little to no attention so that the LO is seen in the most favorable light.[101] One of Tennov's interviewees, Lenore, says:[102]
"Yes I knew he gambled, I knew he sometimes drank too much, and I knew he didn't read a book from one year to the next. I knew and I didn't know. I knew it but I didn't incorporate it into the overall image. I dwelt on his wavy hair, the way he looked at me, the thought of his driving to work in the morning, his charm (that I believed must surely affect everyone he met), the flowers he sent, the considerations he had shown to my sister's children at the picnic last summer, the feeling I had when we were in close physical contact, the way he mixed a martini, his laugh, the hair on the back of his hand. Okay! I know it's crazy, that my list of 'positives' sounds silly, but those are the things I think of, remember, and, yes, want back again!"
This kind of "misperception" or "love is blind" bias[14][103] is more often referred to as "idealization,"[104] which modern research considers to be a form of positive illusions.[14][105] For example, a 1996 study found that "Individuals were happier in their relationships when they idealized their partners and their partners idealized them."[106] However, Tennov argues against the term "idealization," because she says that it implies that the image seen by the person experiencing romantic passion "is molded to fit a preformed, externally derived, or emotionally needed conception."[107] In crystallization, she says, "the actual and existing features of LO merely undergo enhancement."[108]
Tennov also notes that the bias can be an impediment to a limerent person wishing to recover from the condition, as another of her interviewees says:[109]
"I decided to make a list in block letters of everything about Elsie that I found unpleasant or annoying. It was a very long list. On the other side of the paper, I listed her good points. It was a short list. But it didn't help at all. The good points seemed so much more important, and the bad things, well, in Elsie they weren't so bad, or they were things I felt I could help her with."
Intrusive thinking and fantasy
[edit]Intrusive thinking is an oft-reported feature of romantic love.[110][14][69] Tennov wrote that "Limerence is first and foremost a condition of cognitive obsession."[111] One study found that on average people in love spent 65% of their waking hours thinking about the beloved.[110] Arthur Aron says "It is obsessive-compulsive when you're feeling it. It's the center of your life."[9] At the height of obsessive fantasy, people experiencing limerence may spend 85 to nearly 100% of their days and nights doting on the object of their love, lose ability to focus on other tasks and become easily distracted.[33]
According to Tennov, limerent fantasy is unsatisfactory unless rooted in reality, because the fantasizer may want the fantasy to seem realistic and somewhat possible.[112]
In the late 1990s, it had been speculated that being in love may lower serotonin levels in the brain, which could cause the intrusive thinking.[23][113] The serotonin hypothesis is based in part on a comparison to obsessive-compulsive disorder,[15][113] but the experimental evidence is ambiguous.[14] The experiments that have been done tested blood levels of serotonin, with the first experiment finding lowered serotonin levels, but the second experiment finding that men and women were affected differently.[14][110][113] This second experiment found that obsessive thinking was actually associated with increased serotonin levels in women.[110]
Leckman & Mayes have also drawn a parallel between preoccupation during limerence and maternal preoccupation during and after pregnancy, speculating that they share common neurobiologic systems.[15]
Fear of rejection
[edit]Tennov's conception of fear of rejection was characterized by nervous feelings and shyness around the limerent object, "worried that your own actions may bring about disaster."[114] Awkwardness, stammering, confusion and shyness predominate at the behavioral level.[115] She quotes the poet Sappho who writes "Sweat runs down in rivers, a tremor seizes [...] Lost in the love-trance."[116] One of Tennov's interviewees, a 28-year-old truck driver, said "It was like what you might call stage fright, like going up in front of an audience. [...] I was awkward as hell."[117] Fisher et al. has suggested that fear in the presence of the beloved is caused by elevated levels of dopamine.[12]
Many of the people Tennov interviewed described being normally confident, but suddenly shy when the limerent object is around, or being only in this state of fear with certain limerent objects but not others.[118]
Tennov wondered if fear of rejection even serves an evolutionary purpose, by drawing out the courtship process to ensure a greater chance of finding a compatible partner.[119]
Uncertainty and hope
[edit]Tennov suggested that limerence appears to develop and be sustained by a balance of uncertainty and hope of reciprocation.[120] She writes:
The recognition that some uncertainty must exist has been commented on and complained about by virtually everyone who has undertaken a serious study of the phenomenon of romantic love. Psychologists Ellen Bersheid and Elaine Walster discussed this common observation made, they note, by Socrates, Ovid, the Kama Sutra, and "Dear Abby," that the presentation of a hard-to-get as opposed to an immediately yielding exterior is a help in eliciting passion.[121]
The presence of barriers, what Tennov called "intensification through adversity,"[122] was crucial to the mutual limerence of Romeo and Juliet.[123] Fisher calls this intensification effect "frustration attraction,"[124][125] and suggests that attraction increases because dopamine levels increase in the brain when an expected reward is delayed.[126][12] Judson Brewer characterizes the intermittent reinforcement of receiving an occasional message from a limerent object as "gasoline poured on the fire."[20]
However, uncertainty and mood changes can just be a matter of perception on the part of the limerent person, rather than there being actual obstacles.[127] A married couple that Tennov interviewed were both in limerence for each other in high school, but unaware, then met again in college but only found out about their mutual limerence in high school after being married for several years.[128] Tennov notes that there were no obstacles to their relationship, but suggests their inaccurate perceptions that each was not interested probably increased their limerence in high school.[129]
Tennov writes "It is limerence, not love, that increases when lovers are able to meet only infrequently or when there is anger between them."[130]
Physiology
[edit]The physiological effects of limerence can include trembling, pallor, flushing, a general weakness, sweating, butterflies in the stomach and a pounding heart.[131][35]
Tennov wrote that the sensation of limerence is associated primarily with the heart, even speculating that intrusive thinking results in mutual feedback where thinking of the limerent object causes an increase in heart rate, which in turn changes thought patterns.[132] She says:
When I asked interviewees in the throes of the limerent condition to tell where they felt the sensation of limerence, they pointed unerringly to the midpoint in their chest. So consistently did this occur that it would seem to be another indication that the state described is indeed limerence, not affection (described by some as located "all over," or even in "the arms" when held out in a gesture of embrace) or in sexual feelings (located, appropriately enough, in the genitals).[133]
Limerence results in sustained alertness and excess energy, with the limerent person ever ready to perceive the limerent object's subtleties and analyze their importance.[134]
Sexuality
[edit]In Tennov's conception, sexual attraction was an essential component of limerence (as a generalization), although she noted that occasionally people described attractions to her which fit the overall pattern of limerence but did not involve sexual attraction.[135] However, limerence is not the same as sexual attraction,[136][47] and sex is not the central focus of limerence.[137] When in limerence, "emotional union trumps sexual desire."[138] Tennov stresses that "the most consistent result of limerence is mating, not merely sexual interaction but also commitment, the establishment of a shared domicile."[139][140]
Psychologist Lisa Diamond has written that attractions like limerence can occur in the absence of sexual attraction, citing studies documenting such attractions, as well as referencing Fisher's work.[47] Fisher's theory of independent emotions states that there are three primary systems involved with human reproduction and mating: lust (the sex drive), attraction (i.e. passionate love, infatuation or limerence) and attachment (i.e. companionate love), and these work somewhat independently.[23][12] Diamond argues that people can feel attraction (in the sense of limerence) without sexual attraction, even in contradiction to one's sexual orientation.[47] Diamond says there is an evolutionary reason for this, which is that these brain systems evolved as an exaption of mother-infant bonding, meaning they evolved independent of sexual attraction.[47]
Tennov also drew distinctions between limerent fantasies and sexual fantasies.[141] Limerent fantasies, she says, are grounded in a possible reality, however unlikely, and actually desired to come true. However, sexual fantasies may involve entirely imaginative situations, and may not actually be desired in reality.[142] People also have more voluntary control over their sexual fantasies than their limerent ones, which occur more intrusively.[143]
Loneliness
[edit]Shaver and Hazan observed that those suffering from loneliness are more susceptible to limerence,[144] arguing that "if people have a large number of unmet social needs, and are not aware of this, then a sign that someone else might be interested is easily built up in that person's imagination into far more than the friendly social contact that it might have been. By dwelling on the memory of that social contact, the lonely person comes to magnify it into a deep emotional experience, which may be quite different from the reality of the event."[145]
Duration
[edit]Tennov estimates, based on both questionnaire and interview data, that limerence most commonly lasts between 18 months and three years with an average of two years,[146] but may be as short as mere days[147] or as long as a lifetime.[146] Duration may be related to the perception of reciprocity[147] and shorter limerence may be less intense.[146]
According to a HuffPost opinion blog by David Sack, an addiction psychiatrist, limerence lasts longer than romantic love, but is shorter than a committed partnership.[148] However, Tennov and others considered limerence as a synonym with romantic love[8][9][10][12][14] and others in peer-reviewed material consider Tennov's estimate to be the normal duration of romantic love.[14][26] Still others suggest that "the biogenetic sourcing of limerence determines its limitation, ordinarily, to a two-year span".[149]
Tennov notes that feelings may evolve over the duration of a relationship: "Those whose limerence was replaced by affectional bonding with the same partner might say, 'We were very much in love when we married; today we love each other very much'".[150] The distinction is comparable to that drawn by ethologists "between the pair-forming and pair-maintaining functions of sexual activity",[151] just as "the attachment of the attachment theorists is very similar to the emotional reciprocation longed for in Tennov's limerence".[152]
Controversy
[edit]In 2008, Albert Wakin, a professor who knew Tennov at the University of Bridgeport but did not assist in her research, and Duyen Vo, a graduate student, suggested that limerence is similar to obsessive-compulsive disorder and substance use disorder. They presented work on this to the American Association of Behavioral and Social Sciences, but suggested that much more research is needed before it could be suggested to the APA that limerence be included in the DSM. They began conducting an unpublished study and reported to USA Today that about 25% or 30% of their participants had experienced a limerent relationship as they defined it.[9]
While a comparison between romantic love and OCD has been a general hypothesis since 1998,[15] experimental evidence for a connection with serotonin is ambiguous.[14]
Helen Fisher commented on Wakin & Vo in 2008, stating that limerence is romantic love and that "They are associating the negative aspects of it with the term, and that can be a disorder."[9] Fisher proposed that romantic love is a "natural addiction" which can be either positive or negative depending on the situation.[25] Fisher stated again in 2024 that she does not think there is any difference between limerence and romantic love.[22]
In the 1999 preface to her revised edition of Love and Limerence, Dorothy Tennov describes limerence as an aspect of basic human nature and remarks "Reaction to limerence theory depends partly on acquaintance with the evidence for it and partly on personal experience. People who have not experienced limerence are baffled by descriptions of it and are often resistant to the evidence that it exists. To such outside observers, limerence seems pathological."[46]
Tennov states that limerence is normal[153] and reports that even those of her interviewees who experienced obsessive, distressing, unrequited limerence were "fully functioning, rational, emotionally stable, normal, nonneurotic, nonpathological members of society" and "could be characterized as responsible and quite sane". She suggests that limerence is too often interpreted as "mental illness" in psychiatry. Tragedies such as violence, she says, involve limerence when it is "augmented and distorted" by other conditions, which she contrasts with "pure limerence".[154]
In a 2005 Q&A, Tennov is asked if limerence can ever lead to a situation such as depicted in the movie Fatal Attraction, but Tennov replies that the movie character seemed to her to be a caricature.[155]
See also
[edit]- Broken heart – Intense stress or pain one feels at experiencing longing
- Crystallization (love) – The "falling in love" process
- Eros (concept) – Ancient Greek philosophical concept of sensual or passionate love
- Erotomania – Romantic delusional disorder
- Infatuation – Intense but shallow attraction
- Love addiction – Pathological passion-related behavior involving the feeling of being in love
- Lovesickness – Negative feelings from experiencing unrequited love or loss of love
- New relationship energy – State of mind during new relationship
- Obsessive love disorder – Excessive desire to possess and protect another person
- Passionate and companionate love – Two types of love in romantic relationships
- Puppy love – Feelings of love, romance, or infatuation felt by young people
- Relationship obsessive–compulsive disorder – Form of obsessive–compulsive disorder focusing on close or intimate relationships
- Unrequited love – Love that is not reciprocated by the receiver
References
[edit]- ^ a b "Will limerence take the place of love?". The Observer. 11 September 1977.
One of the most illuminating sessions was when Dorothy Tennov [...] described her attempts to find a suitable term for 'romantic love.' [...] 'I first used the term "amorance" then changed it back to "limerence,"' she told her audience. 'It has no roots whatsoever. It looks nice. It works well in French. Take it from me it has no etymology whatsoever.'
- ^ Tennov, Dorothy (1999). Love and Limerence: the Experience of Being in Love. Scarborough House. ISBN 978-0-8128-6286-7. Archived from the original on 27 March 2023. Retrieved 12 March 2011.
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