the.com/limerence
a chemical hostage situation your brain mistakes for a soulmate.
means The intense, involuntary, often obsessive infatuation with another person, marked by intrusive longing and a desperate craving for reciprocation.
from A coined word, not an inherited one: the psychologist Dorothy Tennov invented "limerence" in the 1970s for her studies of romantic obsession, deliberately picking a sound with no real Latin or Greek roots so it would carry no baggage. She later admitted the syllables were essentially arbitrary — chosen to feel right rather than to mean anything — which makes limerence one of the rare emotions named by sheer invention rather than ancient root.
- coined late
- Psychologist Dorothy Tennov named it in 1979
- shelf life
- Typically burns out within 18 months to three years
- not love
- It's craving the response, not knowing the person
- brain twin
- Lights up the same circuits as OCD and addiction
- fuel source
- Uncertainty feeds it; a clear yes can kill it
dante and beatrice — dante's obsessive idealization of beatrice portinari (1274-1290s) inspired the divine comedy and defined romantic longing in literature
napoleon and josephine — napoleon's intense fixation on josephine during their separation produced hundreds of passionate letters despite her emotional distance