Sexes: Let's Fall in Limerence

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I can hear you asking, Ralph, why the limerent picks one person and not another. Some therapists say it's because the LO reawakens an unsolved psychic problem, and seems to offer a solution to it. The beloved, glimpsed across a crowded room, may resemble a parent, grandparent or sibling. Family Therapist Norman Paul of Boston says the beloved "tends to match someone else in your life that you've forgotten about." Tennov thinks the process is far simpler. The limerent scans the field and picks out the most attractive available lover that can reasonably be expected to return one's love.

Most cultures think of the limerent as a bit crazy, but you're in good company, Ralph. Stendhal, Héloïse and Henry VIII were limerent. Lord Byron is the best-known dropout from limerence; after the Sturm und Drang with Lady Caroline Lamb, he simmered down. Something worth thinking about, Ralph.

Still, most people probably can't do much about their limerence (or non-limerence). The problems come when a limerent hooks up with a non-limerent, and each tries to guide the other into behavior that does not come naturally. Tennov found that some non-limerents manage to con themselves into thinking they are limerent, just to please a flagrantly limerent LO. Others feel suffocated by the constant demands.

This never works, Ralph, and I must tell you flat out that I am not a limerent. In fact, I am what Tennov calls a "pseudo-limerent nonlimerent." If I were a limerent, believe me, there is no one else I'd rather limer with than you, and I mean that most sincerely. You and I are caught in a world we never made, but in the future limerents and non-limerents will identify themselves at the very start of an affair. Tennov says so right on page 263. Until then, the only thing a limerent can do, if attracted to a non-limerent, is "run like hell" from the word go, she says. Poignantly late for us, I'd say. Have lots of limerence, Ralph, and if you'll just send around a UHaul, I'll be happy to return your letters.

Sincerely, Wanda