To ask if you’ve experienced limerence?

Yes!! My last one started when I was 40. It wasn’t really a love interest as I am happily married as were they and I didn’t want that to change I just wanted them to notice me and maybe, just maybe … like me!!

But oh boy, my sex drive!!! It went from 0 - 100 overnight. My husband thought all his Christmases had come at once!

Very peculiar!

Yep. Married colleague.... cant get over him. Don't know what it is, dont know if its worse because i can't have him. Spoke to him other day for all of 5min, went back to work was so distracted I drilled holes in the wrong place in 1 unit and forgot to drill some in another. Threw me off. Was told how happy I looked one day and all I could think was because id just had a chat with him.

Yes quite a few times. Dizzying highs but dark lows. I do love the intenseness though.

I still don't really understand what it is.

A wild passion?
Meeting the love of your life?
Pure lust?
Obsession (enough to make you leave a marriage)?
Meeting 'the one'?

If any of those are limerence then yes i've had it. It's still going on after 20 years.

This is a really interesting take, I am also autistic and can definitely see the link. My difference is it has become worse for me during peri-menopause. It's like my body is on a drive to share the last eggs out and my mind is helping by making me fixate on poor unsuspecting people!

I totally get this. I have been in the 'burn it all down' place too, and I realised it was because I was unhappy in my relationship, and I needed to leave for that reason, not for some poor bloke that has no idea the life we are living in my head!

Great thread OP!

I get very strong crushes, I don't know if they are limerance, or just normal biology and being attracted to someone I could have been in a relationship with if things were different. I suddenly notice someone, and it's not just fancying them or thinking of a bunk up, it's much more intense. It's thinking about them all the time. Dreading being in the same room but also wishing it. Hoping you weren't looking too long, that others haven't noticed. It feels like being a teenager in love, trying to analyse the signs to see if they like you back, even though you are a respectable middle aged woman. It can go on for months and then one day, gone.

Yes. At the time it felt like I was on happy drugs and I felt so alive!! They were the first thing I thought of when I woke in the morning. Everything I thought or did revolved around my crush. It really was all consuming. Every time I went shopping it was to look for clothes for when I saw them. I only saw them a few times a year but oh boy, the planning!! The right outfit, getting hair and nails done. I even got disposable contact lenses so I’d look good for the brief one hour meeting! One hour together but months of intense planning.

Not at all healthy. I knew that but no way was I going to stop because to me then they were my entire life.

My first was when I was 13. It lasted two years then just disappeared. I phoned them. Call didn’t go great then suddenly “poof!” It was gone. All my feelings for them left the second I put the phone down. It was very strange.

Usually they end because a new one is starting but my last one just fizzled and I’m finally limerence free. I thought I’d miss it as it’s such a happy drug but actually I’m enjoying not embarrassing myself by acting like a love sick teenager because no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t stop dropping them into so many conversations. Maybe menopause is why it’s stopped.

I am autistic and I think it’s linked. We have hyper fixations. For men/boys it’s often gaming/pokemon/trains but I read that girls/women are more likely to hyper focus on people.

I think I have with an ex, it doesn’t feel like a normal love more like when your a teenager and are in love with a boyband.. Total fantasy.
Im happily married and am aware it’s ridiculous.

Yes, but often when this happens the object of your desire is simply leading you a merry dance which makes the limerence worse. I know, I’ve been there. Wasted at least a year of my life.

I’m no expert (!) but @deveronvalley seems to be most accurately describing what online definitions call “Limerence”.
It I think is frightening rather than satisfying and not fun. It’s not like looking at Kit Harrington and thinking that’s beautiful and imagining what you’d say or do with them (I swear I haven’t 🤣). And it’s frightening for the recipient of the attention. It isn’t like “does he like me sexually, I know he shouldn’t, do I, I shouldn’t”. But then again, I have no idea what it’s like to have strong feelings about someone I know nothing about other than what they look like and/or say to me. But I think some people do get that way and that’s not a fun thing

Yes. I get an episode of it every few years or so. I’ve now realised that typically it happens when I’m very unhappy in some other area of my life - so it becomes an escape from reality.

It eventually fades, usually after about a year. It’s absolute hell while it’s ongoing - although it does have some positive side effects for me like rapid weight loss.

My last episode of it really terrified me. I genuinely nearly put a bomb under my whole life because of an insane infatuation with a man I’d met in person once (and frankly, a very average man - I created a whole fantasy persona for him). I’m now working to address the root causes because I can’t risk that happening again.

If you’re interested there’s a psychologist on Instagram called Sasha Blossom who posts quite a lot about limerance.

Only over completely unobtainable people.
John Taylor (Duran Duran), Peter Murphy (Bauhaus), David Sylvian (Japan) in my early teens
Ian McKellen when I was about 15 (yes, I was fully aware he is gay)
Peter Garrett when I was about 19. It's faded but I still think hes hot.
Wesley Snipes as Blade (in my 20s)

Im nearly 60 now. Happily married.

Yes, now for two years, it’s intrusive thoughts really, obsessive thoughts, it really feels like a mental illness, the person in my head I’m obsessing over is not even that close to how they are in real life, it’s a completely idealised version of them. I still look forward to seeing them as it’s the closest I can get to the one in my head. We are both married, it’s not a real crush. It’s many hours a day of obsessive thoughts, really can get in the way of real life sometimes. I thought I’d shaken it with non contact for a while but then I started seeing him around a bit more often coincidentally and the fantasy version came back. Absolutely sick of it now and it’s quite upsetting, just like an addiction. It started with the real life one showing a bit of kindness to me, nothing extraordinary really but I really latched on, he has no idea, probably thinks I’m a bit aloof really!

No. I apparently have a weird brain. When I love someone, everyone else (of romantic potential) becomes irrelevant. I am surrounded by men in my working life and I’ve never, even once, in more than 2 decades been tempted, despite a fairly large amount of propositions (I’m not special in anyway, but a lot of men will try to shag anything!)
That’s me though and I know an awful lot of people who have suffered from limerence. Some ignored it, worked through it, it passed. Some blew up their whole lives for it and are now, invariably, alone and regretful.

Most of you are describing unrequited love not limerence!

I know exactly what a crush is and what limerence is.

My point is, I think a lot of MNetters either don't, or they prefer the word limerence because they think it sounds more grown up than 'crush'.

In the same way some people will claim to have anxiety when they're actually just anxious about something.

Going through it now it's awful and consuming

A crush is a pleasant experience, like having a crush on Mr Darcy from P&P and watching it 10 times.

Limerence is unwanted, intrusive and upsetting

Not myself, but looking back I think someone else had it for me.
We were friends and shared a drunken kiss at a party. I woke up to see congratulations messages, and found out she'd publicly announced that we were in a relationship.

I tried to talk to her, to explain that it was just a drunken kiss from my side, but she became extremely upset. After that she found any and every excuse to see me, and bombarded me with reasons we should be together and how much she loved me.

Months later I told her I was in a relationship, and she took it extremely badly - I had to call her family to get her as she was talking about SH.

I cut ties because I thought it was the best thing to do for both of us, but it was truly awful to go through as we were such good friends beforehand.

Yes, for a work colleague. I believe it was mutual (but never asked). It was very distressing and I ended up leaving the job as a result, and it only went away after a year or so.

Yep. Lasted for years. Them one day it was as if the clouds parted and the sun shine down and I finally accepted he was never going to feel about me the way I felt about him. And just like that, it stopped. I look back and realised I had a lucky escape.

Limerence is so overused on Mumsnet.

It's like women see the word 'crush' as too juvenile so they call it limerence instead.

In the same way they'll call a boyfriend of a few months their partner.