Limerence for a former date

[GreatExpectationalized]

I met up with someone from an online dating website a few years ago, when this person appeared at the station where we had agreed to meet up, it was as though I was dumbstruck. Almost a ringing in my ears, feeling as though my limbs had become part jelly, and a wild inexplicable parade sensations coursing through my veins - a feeling of euphoria. Strangely though, coupled with tremendous self-consciousness.

I'm not normally like that on a first date, far from it. For some reason, I couldn't stop myself saying how attractive this person was (the photos had given no indication of this, they were quite “normal”. Embarrassingly, I remember saying it more than a few times. Cringe.

Despite all this, we agreed to meet up for a second date... the impact on me only worsened, except this time I had to endure those crippling sensations for several hours. I remember sitting almost hunched over, talking barely above a whisper... it was as though every once of self confidence had been sapped out of me.

Obviously, my date didn’t agree to meet me again. Several years later, this person still overwhelms me just to think about. It is as though all of your wishes and fantasies became personified in one person and you almost cannot believe it and are too dazed and over-awed and overwhelmed to function properly.

I still wonder what would have happened if this person had met the real me, if I’d been able to control my reaction better. Lots of what ifs... these memories still have a powerful impact and sadden me and have me lost in beautiful memories in turns.

How do I shake off this mad nonsensical limerence? I never even got to know this person! Has this happened to you? What causes it? How did you deal with it?

He was also, I later found out, taking drugs and I do think that some of the high I felt around him was coming from his artificially high feelings.

I think that is such a good point. We do respond to other people's chemistry and I reckon often, limerence is really just a response to powerful charisma/a person who's absolutely full of themselves (drug induced or not).

@LadyfromtheBelleEpoque

You are feeling sad, I think, because on some level you feel you have missed the chance of feeling like that because you associate it only with him (prob because it was the first time you felt it so strongly or allowed yourself to feel it - you weren’t expecting him to be so handsome, right? ) but that’s not true - it was your body that felt it. You will meet someone like that again! Of course you will. Not straight away, not everyone but get out there and stop wasting time. This is a phantom- don’t feed it real energy.

You’ve it the nail on the head.

I had never dated anyone that made me feel that way instantly. And yes, part of it has been fear that the ship has sailed and this might have been a rare person. Have had some decent time kicking myself!

One some level, I think I had been hesitant and somehow avoided dating people I felt were “hot”. Fear of rejection I think. Or perhaps barely explored suspicions they might be really into themselves (unfair I know, but I hadn’t thought about it properly).

Yes, certainly a phantom, it may have not lasted five minutes! And still don't know the person at all! It’s mad.

@NC866

It’s sexual attraction isn’t it? but without the love/like towards the person. It’s unbalanced and your body can sense it - like you can have those intense feelings if you want but you can’t then settle back into relax mode when you need to - as though relax mode e oats on a different wavelength that you are no longer on. It also puts you out of sync with yourself so you you can’t function properly - it’s the sexual equivalent of only eating chocolate - your body needs the boring veg and solids and if your head isn’t going to listen, it will make you listen by throwing your nervous system Ito overdrive.

That’s how I see it anyway. 🤣

@SarahAndQuack

I had this with a bloke I met at university. Absolutely blindsided, I turned into a gibbering idiot, etc. etc. I remember I met him for all of about five minutes then had to leave, so went home and - and this was the very early days of facebook - frantically stalked him and was gutted he had a girlfriend. And still I went on to the party where I knew he'd be later that night.

I wouldn't say I couldn't get him out of my head but I had a sort of Platonic ideal of him in my mind for ages. Many years later I was single again and moved back to the area, and his profile popped up on a dating website I was on. You know when you feel a real physical shock in your body? I felt like that. I saw almost immediately he wasn't looking for a relationship but for casual sex as he was in an open relationship (I trust you can see where this is going), and I still got in touch, cherishing my romantic dreams of a meeting where I'd sweep him off his feet and he'd realise we were perfect.

Well.

What actually happened was we had a date, where (in retrospect) I did that very polite woman thing of listening to him talk a lot. We had some perfectly ok but not amazing sex. And he is the last man I ever slept with; I met my DP fairly soon after and realised that the underwhelming sex had a not-so-casual relationship to having sex with people with penises.

I'm sure you're not about to have a Damascus conversion to later-life lesbiansim, but I really do think my experience of getting the 'one that got away' is quite representative. You think they're amazing; you build them up, but actually, if you did get to meet/ sleep with them again, you'd be disappointed and probably amused by how much you'd built up the idea in your head.

This is so reassuring, thank you.

Sorry your former date turned out to be such a bore! Excellent you didn’t loose all of your wits completely like me! Mine probably thought I had about as much wit as a goldfish.

The image in my head must be pretty monumental to have wreaked that much havoc, probably no one could live up to that.

Tell me more about what the chemistry was like with someone sans penis... and congratulations that you have found happiness!

This is so strange. I could have written this

‘ One some level, I think I had been hesitant and somehow avoided dating people I felt were “hot”. Fear of rejection I think. Or perhaps barely explored suspicions they might be really into themselves (unfair I know, but I hadn’t thought about it properly).’

I really think that if we are lacking in confidence in our own physical appearance than we mix up our feelings so much when we meet someone hot. As though their good looks can somehow even out or raise ours (in our heads). When I have felt confident physically, I pay much more attention to someone’s personality and am not so interested or impressed by looks. It is some sort of projection, I think.

With the guy I met, I think I was so flattered someone as handsome/clever/Sophisticated whatever was interested in me - perhaps if he had less red flags than I would have been sucked in, but at the same time I found it hard work. Lots of other women flirting with him, etc.

Something else I think that is interesting is that I wasn’t that in to him at first and I wasn’t looking for someone - I actually wanted to be on my own. You weren’t particularly into this guy at first when talking online - I think they can sense that and then it becomes a mission for them🤣🤣🤣🤣

I felt in absolute turmoil around him and when not around him. I think he knew the real him wasn’t up to much and instead of working on that created a fantasy for people to fall in love with and sustained that image through drugs. When I saw a picture of him years later, I no longer found him at all handsome, in fact very unattractive.

I really think you are in love with a ‘what might have been’ because you weren’t together long enough to see a real person.

Oh, the first time we met I really, really did lose my wits! Honestly, I was like a jellyfish blabbering out words.

On the reunion he was perfectly nice and I'm sure someone thinks he's lovely - it just fascinated me that I'd thought he was such a catch and the ... it all just disappeared. To the point where I really did just think, wow, that was not actually about me or my sexuality at all, was it? It was some weird chemical thing. And I strongly believe that, as others say, it had a lot to do with the chemistry he was projecting. He was so confident he was really attractive.

@LadyfromtheBelleEpoque

Ok, now I am remembering more. When I met this man I did think he was handsome. He was tall, dark haired, strong angular face but also had similar tastes in music/film/books as me - or so I thought. A couple of things seemed misaligned to me and I was right - he was the kind of guy who would talk loudly about feminism but then behave in a way that made me think he was actually quite patronising to women. He also projected a lot out - to cover up insecurity? I don’t know but I picked up on these things and felt very self conscious around him - as though he had somehow managed to project his feelings of self consciousness out on to me to carry. For example, I have a small nose - he has a very strong, Roman nose but it sat well in his long face. I have never been conscious of my nose before but he pointed out how small it was.

He was also, I later found out, taking drugs and I do think that some of the high I felt around him was coming from his artificially high feelings.

It is powerful though - I do get you but this guy was red flags everywhere - I realised that I didn’t actually like his personality - on some level I could sense he was fake and ungrounded. His insecurities came from his own laziness and I got a flash in my head of what life would be like with him and ran.

Your instinct was telling you something and perhaps the only way it could get you to listen and drown out that powerful sexual chemistry was to sabotage your chances.

What an interesting way of looking at it... like a cosmic intervention!

I think I was in that dangerous place of being utterly at someone’s feet which can potentially make you vulnerable... don’t they say infatuation can make fools of even previously grounded responsible sensible people...

Really interesting comments, did you generally in the past feel sensitive to other’s unsaid emotions?

@GreatExpectationalized

I am a mess of other people emotions. When the internet first came out it was like being inside a TV set with all the channels switched on to maximum volume for me. I feel the emotional energy of people pulling on me so much I struggle with it. I think it is a sign of being out of kilter with my physical health (I am struggling with an injury). Something is out of whack!

You might meet someone who makes you feel like that again... but why would you want to?

Far better to be with someone that you can relax and be yourself with. Plus, you’re not opening yourself up to vulnerability by putting your partner on a pedestal and potentially tolerating behaviour that you wouldn’t from a man you felt was more your equal.

I think I was in that dangerous place of being utterly at someone’s feet which can potentially make you vulnerable..

Not cosmic intervention!... your own senses telling you something wasn’t right/or that you weren’t prepared for.

@LadyfromtheBelleEpoque

This is so strange. I could have written this

‘ One some level, I think I had been hesitant and somehow avoided dating people I felt were “hot”. Fear of rejection I think. Or perhaps barely explored suspicions they might be really into themselves (unfair I know, but I hadn’t thought about it properly).’

I really think that if we are lacking in confidence in our own physical appearance than we mix up our feelings so much when we meet someone hot. As though their good looks can somehow even out or raise ours (in our heads). When I have felt confident physically, I pay much more attention to someone’s personality and am not so interested or impressed by looks. It is some sort of projection, I think.

With the guy I met, I think I was so flattered someone as handsome/clever/Sophisticated whatever was interested in me - perhaps if he had less red flags than I would have been sucked in, but at the same time I found it hard work. Lots of other women flirting with him, etc.

Something else I think that is interesting is that I wasn’t that in to him at first and I wasn’t looking for someone - I actually wanted to be on my own. You weren’t particularly into this guy at first when talking online - I think they can sense that and then it becomes a mission for them🤣🤣🤣🤣

I felt in absolute turmoil around him and when not around him. I think he knew the real him wasn’t up to much and instead of working on that created a fantasy for people to fall in love with and sustained that image through drugs. When I saw a picture of him years later, I no longer found him at all handsome, in fact very unattractive.

I really think you are in love with a ‘what might have been’ because you weren’t together long enough to see a real person.

[ Quote] I really think that if we are lacking in confidence in our own physical appearance than we mix up our feelings so much when we meet someone hot. As though their good looks can somehow even out or raise ours (in our heads). When I have felt confident physically, I pay much more attention to someone’s personality and am not so interested or impressed by looks. It is some sort of projection, I think. [/ quote]

Yes, a lot of it was rooted in my own (insecure) amazement that someone like that seemed to be interested in me, and instead of enjoying that at leisure and pleasurably, I was quietly freaking out because it was interlaced with my deepest most buried insecurities that I simply wasn’t on this other person's level. This is the supreme discomfort.

@Christonapeloton , why indeed! I very much doubt it could have been equal (because of my own luggage) and that may have well been a recipe for unhappiness. As though there wasn’t enough discomfort already!

Again, very reassuring point, thank you.

This is ridiculous.

Why @Hotzenplotz?

I've experienced the thunderbolt feeling, I was literally stopped in my tracks. My friend who was with me gave me an enormous shove because I was absolutely transfixed (as was he) - in the middle of a corridor at work! 🤣

Blimey it was the weirdest sensation - as if nothing else existed. A PP mentioned an out of body experience and it was just like that.
Very unsettling to be around him, I was all gaspy and breathy when talking to him, shaky. Literally weak at the knees! 😆 He felt the same too and it was blatantly obvious to all around that we fancied each other.

I will never forget him, or the feelings I had; wouldn't have believed it could be like that if I hadn't experienced it myself.

@Horsemad, did you ever manage to spend time together, how did it all unfold, did the reality match the feeling, what do you think causes a reaction like that?

I have one too.

Met a guy when I was 16, in 1971, at a party. Not particularly my type but ended up chatting to him in the garden and after a while he asked if he could kiss me, I said OK, he did and the whole universe shook. Sat there kissing for a while and when I went to stand up my legs wouldn’t hold me.

We lived 20 miles apart so only saw each other about once a week but every time was the same....I still didn’t find him hugely physically attractive but he only had to hold my hand and every nerve end in me fired up.

After 13 months together I broke up with him because of someone’s lies...it was all very convincing at the time but years later they admitted it was all a lie. She was my ‘best friend’ at the time and I believed her. He wrote me a lovely letter telling me that he loved me ‘very deeply’ but I wrote back and said I didn’t care and we were done....

After nearly 50 years, 2 marriages and 2 long term relationships nobody has come close to the way he made me feel..I still love that guy so much. I think about him every day and think about how I wish it was him I was waking up next to. I have no photos of him but can still remember every detail of his face. Sometimes I can keep it under for a while but most of the time he’s in my head.

Through lockdown I was internet searching for photos of Festivals that I went to with him back then and found one with us both in it and although it’s blurry it’s hit me like a ton of bricks. I’m bloody 66 for heaven’s sake but I can’t stop the feelings......

EstuaryBird, how incredible you are still affected by this after all these years... just goes to show the power of these things.

I don’t want to be thinking about this much longer, I wish it had been resolved in some way... but it hasn’t, and it’s not easy to live with.

I can’t imagine what the feeling must have been like when you rediscovered that photo... and how wonderful you managed to find one!

Ok I’ll be harsh, what do you mean lost in beautiful memories? You had two dates. That’s it. There is no beautiful memories.

Secondly it was resolved, he wasn’t interested. He did meet the real you, irrelevant of how you’re behaving it was always you.

So time to stop fantasising. 💐

how incredible you are still affected by this after all these years... just goes to show the power of these things

He was her first love. It was a 13 month relationship. She was sixteen. It’s very different op.

@GreatExpectationalized

EstuaryBird, how incredible you are still affected by this after all these years... just goes to show the power of these things.

I don’t want to be thinking about this much longer, I wish it had been resolved in some way... but it hasn’t, and it’s not easy to live with.

I can’t imagine what the feeling must have been like when you rediscovered that photo... and how wonderful you managed to find one!

I really hope you do get over it and can lock it away. I never did understand the chemistry or how it could be so intense...one of life’s mysteries....anyone who’s never felt it can’t understand.

I’d looked through 100s of photos and only found it as he was carrying a very distinctive bag! I was so focused on him it was months before I realised I was in it too 😂.

Wow @EstuaryBird

‘ the whole universe shook. Sat there kissing for a while and when I went to stand up my legs wouldn’t hold me.’

Wonder if he knew the effect he had?

@Bluntness100

how incredible you are still affected by this after all these years... just goes to show the power of these things

He was her first love. It was a 13 month relationship. She was sixteen. It’s very different op.

That is true. But it’s more the intense chemistry. I would still feel that even if I’d never seen him again. Kissed many men before and since but never felt that before or since.

@Bluntness100

Living up to your name there. True, though.

I really think it is like drugs - you are intoxicated by a rush of all these intense emotions at once and your body changes to accommodate it temporarily. You are not meant to feel everything at once but rather slowly and over time - that’s where the good stuff is. Imagine being secure with someone and also feeling that - wouldn’t that be amazing?

Yes, a completely different situation Bluntness, for sure.
If you look at the thread title - limerence, that implies my approach to this thing.
I would go so far as to say EstuaryBird had the great fortune of a beautiful experience of young love.