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Limerence is the mental state of being madly in love or intensely infatuated when reciprocation of the feeling is uncertain. This state is characterized by intrusive thoughts and idealization of the loved one (also called "crystallization"), typically with a desire for reciprocation to form a relationship. This is accompanied by feelings of ecstasy or despair, depending on whether one's feelings seem to be reciprocated or not.: "Uncertainty about LO's true reaction is an essential aspect of your own limerence." (p. 57); "Limerence's most reliable attribute, the characteristic that more than any other differentiates it from other states of attraction and affection that are also described by the phrase 'being in love,' is the intrusiveness of the preoccupation with LO." (p. 42); "... if ever the word 'object' was appropriate it was here, because to the degree that your reaction to a person is limerent, you respond to your construction of LO's qualities." (p. 33); Limerence at 100 percent may be ecstasy or it may be despair, and it may change from positive to negative at any level of intensity." (p. 44); "The goal of limerence is ... the ecstatic bliss of mutual reciprocation." (p. 120) Research on the biology of romantic love indicates that the early stage of intense romantic love (also called passionate love) resembles addiction, but academics do not currently agree on how Love addiction are defined.
The psychologist Dorothy Tennov coined the term "limerence" as an alteration of the word "amorance" without other etymologies.: "Limerence is, or was initially intended to be, a Nonce formation. The term stuck and I was stuck with it." The concept grew out of her work in the 1960s when she interviewed over 500 people on the topic of love, originally published in her book Love and Limerence.: "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." According to Tennov, "to be in a state of limerence is to feel what is usually termed 'being in love. She coined the term to disambiguate the state from other less-overwhelming emotions and to avoid the implication that people who don't experience it are incapable of love. Tennov was inspired to study romantic love after encountering people in her post as a professor who experienced severe heartbreak and personal perils. Tennov's research suggested to her that limerence is normal (although illogical), and a 2025 survey suggested that as many as 50–60% of the population had experienced it.
Limerence is a descriptive concept, rather than a diagnosis or Mental disorder; it is not in the DSM. The Polysemy nature of love words has led to semantic confusion which Tennov meant to clarify, although there is even still disagreement on how "limerence" is defined. Love research has never adopted a unified terminology or definitions. According to Tennov and others, limerence can be considered intense romantic love, falling in love, love madness,: "Tennov discovered that many who considered themselves 'madly in love' had similar descriptions of their emotions and actions. She chose the label limerence to describe an intense longing and desire for another person that is much stronger than a simple infatuation, but not the same as a long-lived love that could last a life-time. ... In 2002, Helen Fisher, PhD, in concert with other researchers, published the article 'Defining the Brain Systems of Lust, Romantic Attraction, and Attachment' in the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Considered a leading researcher ..., she and her research colleagues have identified several characteristics of a person who is 'madly in love,' or, as we put it, in limerence." intense infatuation, passionate love with obsessive elements or lovesickness. Limerence and obsessive love are similar, but obsessive love has connotations of possessive and self-defeating behavior. Limerence is also sometimes compared to and contrasted with a crush, with limerence being much more intense and impacting day-to-day functioning more: "when a crush has taken over your life".
Love and Limerence has been called the seminal work on romantic love, with Tennov's survey results and the various personal accounts recounted in the book largely marking the start of data collection on the phenomenon.
Joe Beam calls limerence the feeling of being "madly in love". Nicky Hayes describes it as "a kind of infatuated, all-absorbing passion", the type of love Dante Alighieri felt towards Beatrice or that of Romeo and Juliet. An unfulfilled, intense longing defines the state, where the individual becomes "more or less obsessed by that person and spends much of their time fantasising about them". Hayes suggests 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. Arthur Aron and Elaine Aron noted a "constant, overwhelming, and even debilitating absorption in the unrequited desire" in their characterization of limerence. Stanton Peele compares it to "severe emotional disability", with an often inappropriate love object. Frank Tallis calls it "love that does not need liking—love that may even thrive in response to rejection or contempt" and notes the "striking similarities" with addiction.
A central feature of limerence, for Tennov, was that her participants really saw the personal flaws of the object of their affection but overlooked them or found them attractive. Tennov calls this "crystallization", after a description by the French writer Stendhal. This "crystallized" object of passionate desire is what Tennov calls a "limerent object" (LO), "because to the degree that your reaction to a person is limerent, you respond to your construction of LO's qualities".
Limerence has psychological properties akin to the concept of passionate love, but in Tennov's conception, limerence begins before an intimate relationship and before the person experiencing it knows for certain whether it is reciprocated.: "Limerence theory holds the following: (1) The underlying mechanism is universal. (2) The state of limerence comes into being automatically when barriers to receptivity are down and a likely person appears. As limerence takes hold, certain laws of operation apply. What happens thereafter depends on how strongly it seems that the hoped-for reciprocation will indeed occur. This is largely, though perhaps not entirely, a matter of LO's actions. Small doses of attention from LO increase the intensity of the limerence experience. (3) Reciprocation leads to euphoria, followed by a union that might be stable or unstable, and that might or might not endure." Limerence is frequently Unrequited love and turns into a lovesickness that can be difficult to escape. Tennov argues that some situational uncertainty is required for the mental preoccupation and feelings to intensify, for example: mixed messages, physical or social obstacles, or even an LO's unsuitability as a partner.
Not everyone experiences limerence. Tennov estimated that 50% of women and 35% of men experience limerence based on answers to certain survey questions she administered.; see also p. 149 Another survey administered by neuroscientist and limerence blogger Tom Bellamy indicated that 64% had experienced it at least once, and 32% "found it so distressing that it was hard to enjoy life".
It can be difficult for people who have not experienced limerence to understand it, and it is often derided and dismissed as some pathology, or an invention of romantic fiction. According to Tennov, limerence is not a mental illness, although it can be "highly disruptive and extremely painful", called "irrational, silly, embarrassing, and abnormal" or sometimes "the greatest happiness" depending on who is asked.
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.)The other principle reason given is that she encountered people who do not experience limerence. The first such person Tennov discovered was a long-time friend, Helen Payne, whose unfamiliarity with the state emerged during a conversation on an airplane flight together. Tennov writes that "describing the intricacies of romantic attachments" to Helen was "like trying to describe the color red to one blind from birth". A person not currently experiencing limerence is called "nonlimerent", but Tennov cautions that it seemed to her that there is no "nonlimerent personality" and that potentially anyone could experience limerence. Tennov says:
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 other passages. In one passage she clearly says that limerence is love, at least in certain cases:
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's probably why limerence is called love in all languages. ... Surely limerence is love at its highest and most glorious peak.
However, Tennov switches in tone and continues on with 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. 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."
The literary genre dates back to troubadour poetry from the Middle Ages (or earlier), also known as "courtly love". Tennov credits Andreas Capellanus as describing limerence "very accurately" in The Art of Courtly Love, a book of statutes for the "proper" conduct of lovers. The work includes rules such as "A true lover is constantly and without intermission possessed by the thoughts of his beloved." and "The easy attainment of love makes it of little value; difficulty of attainment makes it prized." The work is believed to have helped spread romantic love culture throughout Europe. Romantic love in this sense is sometimes held to be Social construct (often by critics), but Tennov argues that limerence has a biological basis.
Tennov sometimes considers limerence synonymous with "falling in love", a concept which also has origins in the romantic tradition and the idea that love is tragic—evoking a connotation of physically falling over or losing consciousness.
"Romantic love" originally referenced this courtly idea, but then came to have other connotations. In modern scientific literature, "romantic love" is instead often used as a synonym for "passionate love", a more general concept, also often associated with limerence. In her era, Tennov called the scientific literature "confused and contradictory". John Alan Lee has also complained about this reduction to a monolithic typology, or "one true love". Helen Fisher commented that she preferred the term "romantic love" for its meaning in society.
A state of intense longing for union with an other. Reciprocated love (union with the other) is associated with fulfillment and ecstasy. Unrequited love (separation) with emptiness; with anxiety, or despair. A state of profound physiological arousal.
Passionate love is linked to passion, as in intense emotion: for example, joy and Self-fulfillment, but also anguish and Suffering. According to Hatfield, passion is a "hodgepodge of conflicting emotions", and the original meaning " was agony—as in Christ's passion." Passionate love is contrasted with the less intense "companionate love": "the affection we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply entwined".
In Love and Limerence, Dorothy Tennov also lists passionate love among her synonyms for limerence, and refers to Hatfield's early writings on the concept. Tennov's study, however, focused on the aspects of love which cause distress, and on individuals over relationships. Another problem she encountered in her research was that informants 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. Informants would use the word "obsession", yet not report the intrusive thoughts necessary to limerence, only that "thoughts of the person are frequent and pleasurable".
Passionate love is commonly measured with the Passionate Love Scale (PLS), originally designed to measure the same state denoted by limerence. Later research found the PLS has overly broad questions, and it actually has two general components (called Factor analysis): an obsession factor and a non-obsession factor. The PLS obsession factor has items like "Sometimes I feel I can't control my thoughts; they are obsessively on my partner." and "An existence without my partner would be dark and dismal." Limerence is comparable to passionate love with obsession:
Passionate love, "a state of intense longing for union with another" ..., also referred to as ... "limerence" (Tennov, 1979), includes an obsessive element, characterized by intrusive thinking, uncertainty, and mood swings.The PLS non-obsession factor has items like "For me, my partner is the perfect romantic partner." and "I want my partner—physically, emotionally, and mentally." These love feelings (without obsession) can sustain over a longer period, according to newer research.
In the triangular theory of love, by Robert Sternberg, "infatuation" refers to romantic passion without intimacy (or closeness) and without commitment, which he has stated is essentially the same as limerence.
When limerence is a component in an affair, for example, Fisher's theory can be used to help explain this. Fisher's theory is that a person can feel deep attachment for a long-term spouse, while they're in limerence with somebody else, while they can be sexually attracted to still yet other people. Joe Beam comments that if somebody in a committed relationship ends up in limerence like this, it will pull them out of their relationship.
Fisher's theory has also been used to explain "Platonic love" limerence (without sexual desire), because romantic love and sexual desire are functionally distinct. Tennov encountered this occasionally in her own research, finding cases of otherwise Heterosexuality women experiencing limerence for an older woman (compared to "hero worship"), but dismissed it as being outside her theory. Lisa Diamond argues this is possible (even in contradiction to sexual orientation) because the brain systems evolved by repurposing the systems for mother-infant bonding (a process called exaptation). According to this theory, it would not have been adaptive for a parent to only be able to bond with an opposite sex child, so the systems must have evolved independent of sexual orientation.
In Helen Fisher's theory, limerence and attachment are considered different systems with different purposes. In the past, it has also been suggested that limerence could be related to the anxious attachment style. However, in their original 1987 paper about this, Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver caution they aren't implying the early phase of romance is equivalent to being attached. Other prominent authors have also argued that attachment theory cannot replace concepts like love styles or types of love. Limerence is considered a unique state which is distinct from attachment style, although people who have an anxious attachment style are more likely to have experienced it according to one survey.
A 1990 study found considerable overlap of distributions between all three attachment styles and limerence (reported at similar frequencies), but the 15% of participants with an anxious attachment style scored about 10–20% higher on obsessive preoccupation and emotional dependence, and avoidants idealized more. Along with scoring highly on limerence, the anxious group also scored highly on the agape love attitude, for selfless, all-giving love.
A manic lover is obsessively preoccupied with the beloved. When asked to recall their childhood, a typical manic lover recalls it as unhappy, and they're usually lonely, dissatisfied adults. They're anxious to fall in love, but they're unsure of which physical type they prefer. Because they're unsure of who to fall in love with, they often fall in love with somebody quite inappropriate (a stranger, or even somebody they initially dislike) and project onto them the qualities they want but don't actually have. According to Lee, "Mania can become almost an addiction nearly impossible for the addict to end on his own initiative." Mania is often the first love style of a young person, but others may not experience it until middle age—for example, after a marriage has lost interest. According to Lee, a cycle of manic loves is often caused by a desperate need to be in love, the cause of which the manic lover must locate and remedy to break free.
Lee describes the manic lover as Jealousy, but Tennov believes that a person can be limerent and not be jealous.
Among the other love styles, mania can be closely compared to eros (erotic love, or love of beauty). Both are often considered "romantic love", both involve "falling in love", and taken together they correspond to the way the Passionate Love Scale is defined. An erotic lover is also intensely preoccupied with their beloved, but the thoughts are optimistic, while a manic lover is insecure. Unlike a manic lover, however, the erotic lover is aware of a physical type they consider ideal. As such, eros begins with a powerful initial attraction, referred to by Stendhal as "a sudden sensation of recognition and hope". The eros love style is not "blind", then. According to Lee, only manic lovers typically "crystallize" (as Stendhal described it) and ignore shortcomings and flaws in their beloved. The erotic lover also recalls their childhood as happy, and eros has been associated with secure attachment, while mania has been associated with attachment anxiety and neuroticism. A third style, manic eros, is a mixture "moving either toward a more stable eros or toward full-blown mania". Some are erotic lovers under a temporary strain (moving toward mania), while others are manic lovers with a self-confident and helping partner (moving toward eros).
According to Lee, the love style ludus (noncommittal love as a game, avoidance and juggling multiple partners, e.g. Don Juan) and mania possess a "fatal attraction" for one another. It's surprisingly common, but not a good match for happy, mutual love. According to Tennov, Don Juan was probably nonlimerent, "more interested in exploiting the feeling in others for his own sexual gratification", although nonlimerence doesn't necessitate this.
Limerence has been included in this discussion, and likened to a love addiction. Stanton Peele, a pioneering author on love addiction, has commented on limerence, calling it a "clinical condition" which "leads people (primarily women) desperately to pursue often inappropriate love objects, frequently to fail at relationships, and to be incapable of learning from such experiences". Sharon Brehm has wondered what limerence; Brehm calls it "passionate love" after Stendhal's conception, but refers to Tennov and states she is talking about the phenomenon Tennov refers to as "limerence". would feel like "if there were a cultural tradition encouraging us to work with it rather than be assailed by it".
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. 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.
According to the evolutionary theory by the anthropologist Helen Fisher, limerence is the activation of a motivation system for choosing and focusing energy on a potential mating partner. This brain system evolved for mammalian mate choice, also called "courtship attraction". In this phenomenon, a preferred mating partner is chosen based on a display of physical traits (such as a peacock's tail feathers) or other behaviors. Fisher also includes the attraction to personality traits and other characteristics in her mate choice theory for humans. Who a person falls in love with then is determined by their "Lovemap", a largely unconscious list of traits they desire in an ideal partner. Love maps begin forming during childhood based on experiences with parents and friends, among other associations, but also change over time. In most species, courtship attraction is brief, but intense romantic love can last much longer in humans. A competing evolutionary theory to Fisher's is that courtship attraction only encompasses something like love at first sight attraction, and the obsessive thoughts and intense attraction associated with early-stage romantic love instead evolved by Exaptation (or re-using) the brain systems for mother-infant bonding. In this theory, romantic love may serve the function of mate choice but the brain systems were not originally for this.
The neuroscientist Tom Bellamy believes that limerence evolved as a form of high-risk "extreme pair bonding" which can be explained as a handicap signal. The handicap principle in evolutionary theory is based on a contention between honest and fake signaling. When real Emotion evolve, a niche is created for sham emotions (e.g. fake facial expressions) which are less risky to express. One explanation for why honest signals can evolve without becoming worthless (because of competing fakers) is that the honest signal can evolve if it's too expensive to fake. One example in nature is the peacock's tail, an example of conspicuous consumption, a cumbersome display which consumes nutrients. Only a healthy peacock can afford it, so in that case it may have evolved because it was a handicap, and used by females of the species as an indicator of health.; Pinker had the same theory as Bellamy, that intense romantic love is a handicap signal for commitment which should be attractive to a potential partner (pp. 417–419, 641). Limerence can be seen as a handicap signal meant to prove one's true commitment to their limerent object. Limerence might have evolved to leave the person experiencing it so insanely besotted that they would not leave for another mate, even a more valuable one. According to Helen Fisher's theory, monogamy emerged at a time when mothers needed extra food and protection (when bipedalism evolved, and then infant altriciality later), so romantic love evolved to last long enough while a mother cares for an infant.; Fisher considers limerence and romantic love to be synonymous in her theory (pp. 19–20, 35).
Tennov suggested that if the neural "machinery" for limerence is not a universal among all humans, then having both (limerent and nonlimerent) in the population might be beneficial and an evolutionarily stable strategy. Limerents and nonlimerents tend not to always get along, nor have compatible relationship interests. Limerence would also be affected by culture, according to Tennov. A culture which idealizes limerence might cause the nonlimerent LO to be more tolerant (or even imitate it), whereas a culture which is hostile to limerence might cause it to be denied, hidden or suppressed.
In addiction research, a distinction is drawn between "wanting" a reward (i.e. incentive salience, tied to mesocorticolimbic dopamine) and "liking" a reward (i.e. pleasure, tied to hedonic hotspots), aspects which are dissociable. People can be addicted to drugs and compulsively seek them out, even when taking the drug no longer results in a high or the addiction is detrimental to one's life. They can also "want" (i.e. feel compelled towards, in the sense of incentive salience) something which they do not Cognition wish for. In a similar way, people who are in love may "want" a loved person even when interactions with them are not pleasurable. For example, they may want to contact an ex-partner after a rejection, even when the experience will only be painful. It is also possible for a person to be "in love" with somebody they do not like, or who treats them poorly. Fisher's team proposes that romantic love is a "positive addiction" (i.e. not harmful) when requited and a "negative addiction" when unrequited or inappropriate.
For a person in limerence that goes unrequited, the pleasurable aspects tend to diminish over time, with the person becoming lovesick and the addiction being maintained more by avoidance of the pain of separation.: "When that one person LO fails to reciprocate, the result may be long hours of sustained lovesickness that is relieved, and then only slightly, by achieving the limerence goal in imagination. There may come a time when the sufferer has had enough and wants to end the painful prepossession, when all bases for hope have been exhausted and it is time to abandon ship, only to find—and this is the madness of it—that these thoughts cannot be turned off and on at will as can most thoughts.": "Unrequited love is a synonym for unrequited limerence. It leaves a person vulnerable to an attack of lovesickness. ... It may be brought on by a person's anticipatory uncertainty about getting or not getting a reciprocal response to his/her limerence. ...The formal definition of lovesickness (Money, 1986) is as follows.
A shyness and confusion manifests out of fear of rejection when an LO is around—sometimes even in those normally confident, with the limerent person "terribly worried that their own actions may bring about disaster". A 28-year-old truck driver says it's "like what you might call stage fright .... I was awkward as hell." The physiological effects of limerence include trembling, pallor, flushing, weakness, sweating, butterflies in the stomach and a Palpitations. When Tennov asked her informants where the sensation of limerence was felt, "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".
In a 1987 survey by Shere Hite in which many participants described relationships which were clearly limerent, 69% of married women and 48% of single women "neither liked, nor trusted, being in love", and their responses indicated being in love was mostly distressing. 17% "could no longer take love seriously". Tennov describes being under the spell herself: "Before it happened, I couldn't have imagined it. Now, I wouldn't want to have it happen again." Some people even described to her incidents of self-harm, but Tennov maintains that such tragedies involve limerence "augmented and distorted" by other factors.
There's debate among academics over when love can be considered addiction, and whether addiction is really a "true" Mental disorder. Lovesickness has been pathologized in previous centuries, but is not currently in the ICD-10, ICPC or DSM-5. The lovers described by Tennov bear a particular resemblance to addicts, but limerence was not intended to denote an abnormal state. The author and clinical psychologist Frank Tallis has made the argument that all love—even normal love—is largely indistinguishable from mental illness.
The symptoms of lovesickness still bear resemblance to entries in the DSM, which now includes some addictions, and there are other entries which also resemble core symptoms of falling in love: preoccupation, episodes of melancholy, rapture and instability of mood. These correspond to conventional diagnoses of obsessionality (or OCD), depression, mania (or hypomania) and Bipolar disorder. Other examples are physical symptoms resembling (Palpitations, Tremor, shortness of breath and lightheadedness), excessive worrying about the future resembling generalized anxiety disorder, appetite disturbance and sensitivity about one's appearance resembling anorexia nervosa, and the feeling that life has become a dream resembling derealization and depersonalization.
It has been argued that falling in love is involuntary, but whether one's subsequent behavior could be considered Autonomy may depend on whether addictive love is viewed as a normal or abnormal state. Tallis argues that love evolved to override rationality so that one finds a lover to reproduce with, regardless of the personal costs of bearing and raising a child:
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 Humorism 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." Historically, lovesickness has been attributed to arrows shot by Eros, a sickness entering through the eyes (like evil eye), excess of black bile, spells, Love potion and other magic. The first known treatise on the subject is Remedia Amoris, by the poet Ovid. People have tried to treat lovesickness with a variety of natural products, charms and rituals. The Bioethics Brian Earp and his colleagues have argued that the voluntary use of anti-love drugs (made to cause a person to fall out of love) could be ethical, but there's no drug now which is a realistic candidate.
A limerent person can spend time fantasizing about future events even if they never come true, as the anticipation on its own yields dopamine. According to Tennov, limerent fantasy is unsatisfactory unless rooted in reality, because the fantasy must seem realistic enough to be somewhat possible. Fantasies can nevertheless be wildly unrealistic: one person recalled an elaborate rescue, in which he saves an LO's 5-year-old cousin from motorcycles, only to be killed by a snake in the lap of his LO as she tells him "I love you". This fantasizing along with the replaying of actual memories forms a bridge between ordinary life and the eventual hoped-for moment: consummation. Tennov says that limerent fantasy is "inescapable", something that just "happens" as opposed to something one "does".
Ellen Berscheid & Elaine Hatfield (cited by Tennov) state on the importance of fantasy:
When the lover closes his eyes and daydreams, he can summon up a flawless partner—a partner who instantaneously satisfies all his unspoken, conflicting, and fleeting desires. In fantasy he may receive unlimited reward or he may anticipate that he would receive unlimited reward were he ever to actually meet his ideal. Compared to our grandiose fantasies, the level of reward we receive in our real interactions is severely circumscribed. As a consequence, sometimes the most extreme passion is aroused by partners who exist only in imagination or partners who are barely known.One theory of obsessive thinking draws a parallel with drug addiction: the early stage of romantic love is compared to addiction, and drug addicts also exhibit obsessive thoughts about drug use. Tennov conceived of limerent fantasy (based in reality) as "intricate strategy planning". In the late 1990s, it was also speculated that falling in love lowered serotonin levels in the brain, believed to cause intrusive thoughts. This was based on a comparison to obsessive–compulsive disorder, but the experiments were ambiguous. The experiments also measured blood levels rather than in the central nervous system, making the results difficult to interpret. The first experiment found that serotonin transporter levels were lower, but a second experiment found that blood serotonin levels in men and women were affected differently. This second experiment found that obsessive thinking was actually associated with increased serotonin in women. SSRI use also seemed to not have an effect on obsessive thinking in a 2025 study.
For some people who fear intimacy or have a history of trauma, limerent fantasy might be an escape, without the threat of real intimacy.
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 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, .... 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" cognitive bias is more often referred to as "idealization", which modern research considers to be a form of positive illusions. Past authors have sometimes depicted idealization as a malady, but significant scientific evidence has shown that positive illusions actually contribute to relationship satisfaction, long-term well-being and decreased risk for relationship discontinuation. Tennov argues against the term "idealization", because she says it implies that the image seen by the person experiencing romantic passion "is molded to fit a preformed, externally derived, or emotionally needed conception". In crystallization, the term she prefers, "the actual and existing features of LO merely undergo enhancement."A limerent person may overlook red flags or incompatibilities. Crystallization can be an impediment to recovery, as one of Tennov's informants relates:
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.
Shaver & Cindy Hazan observed that lonely people are more susceptible to limerence, arguing that if people have many unmet social needs and are unaware, then a sign somebody is interested in them may become magnified into something quite unrealistic.
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 Berscheid and Elaine Hatfield 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.
Rather than being an emotion itself, romantic love is a Motivation state which elicits different emotions depending on the situation: positive feelings when things go well and negative feelings when things go awry. The "goal" according to Tennov's analysis is "oneness" with the LO, i.e. mutual reciprocation or return of feelings; a person in limerence is emotionally dependent on the perceived probability of this reciprocation. In the reward theory of attraction, an LO is seen as a Reinforcement because of the potential for a rewarding experience in their presence.
According to Tennov's theory, two elements are required for limerence to develop and intensify: hope and uncertainty. There must be at least some hope that an LO will reciprocate, but uncertainty over their true feelings is required for the preoccupation and mood changes to intensify. In some cases, uncertain reciprocation can produce mood swings which are so abrupt as to cause emotional volatility, even in generally stable people. One of Tennov's informants recalls: "When I felt Barry loved me, I was intensely in love and deliriously happy; when he seemed rejecting, I was still intensely in love, only miserable beyond words."
Limerence normally subsides when either:
In even some further cases ("and this is the madness of it", Tennov says), the lovesickness and intrusive thoughts can still remain, even after all hope is exhausted and the sufferer wants to be rid of the state. After a transition to addiction, the executive brain is sidestepped, and some reactions and behavioral Habit become essentially automatic.
The uncertainty of limerence has been interpreted as intermittent reinforcement by Robert Sternberg, keeping the brain "hooked" in. When people behave inconsistently or contrary to expectations, this can spark interest and be a fuel for passion (either ecstasy or Suffering).; Note: Hatfield has considered passionate love and limerence synonymous (Hatfield, 1988, p. 197) This relies on a mechanic of dopamine, which does not encode reward per se, but rather encodes a "reward prediction error" signal: whether a given reward is better than, equal to, or worse than expected.; also see Poore's dissertation A slot machine involves a comparable situation, where the rewards are designed to be always unpredictable so the gambler cannot understand the pattern. Unable to Habituation to the experience, for some people the exhilarating high from the unexpected wins leads to gambling addiction and compulsions. If the machine paid out on a regular interval (so that the rewards were expected), it would not be as exciting. The uncertainty of receiving an occasional message from an LO is "gasoline poured on the fire", according to Judson Brewer.
Uncertainty can also be introduced by the presence of barriers to a relationship, like parental interference or a deceived spouse. This "intensification through adversity" was crucial to the mutual limerence of Romeo and Juliet, hence this is often called "the Romeo and Juliet effect". Helen Fisher called it "frustration attraction", and believed that separation evokes panic and stress, which activates the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis. It's ironic, she says, because this can also produce dopamine, so "as the adored one slips away, the very chemicals that contribute to feelings of romance grow even more potent". According to Tennov, "It is limerence, not love, that increases when lovers are able to meet only infrequently or when there is anger between them."
One can attempt to extinguish limerence by removing any hope that an LO will reciprocate. An individual who is the object of unwanted limerent attraction should give the clearest possible rejection, rather than something ambiguous such as "I like you as a friend, but...".
A 2025 study of the largest cross-cultural survey of currently in-love people (who were also in relationships) categorized 29.42% of their sample as "intense" romantic lovers, and 28.57% of those fell in love before their relationship. (That is, only 8.4% of the study were both intensely in love and also fell in love before their relationship. The majority of intense lovers fell in love after their relationship started, with one month after being the average.)
Normally then, limerence diminishes inside a relationship, with reciprocity. Desire fades because of a habituation effect on dopamine activity: as a reward is more easily and predictably obtained, the dopamine release in response to reward cues decreases.: "The fundamental explanation for the phenomenon of getting tired of the other seems to be less a theory than an established fact: The nervous system habituates to all stimuli (Peeke & Herz, 1973). ... Habituation reverses when one is no longer exposed to the repeating stimuli ('absence makes the heart grow fonder'). An ongoing relationship almost by definition is repetitious in some ways, and therefore eventually subject to habituation. ... Explaining habituation in learning terms, Miller and Siegal (1972) say love deintensifies as the reinforcement becomes predictable." Research also suggests that oxytocin activity might inhibit the more excessive effects of addiction, with oxytocin from the attachment system being more active in reciprocated, well-functioning relationships compared to unrequited situations. In some cases, however, just getting into a relationship by itself may still not be enough for limerence to diminish, if reciprocation is insufficient. According to Tennov, reciprocation must be "sustained and believable", else limerence can continue inside a relationship if the partner (LO) behaves in a nonlimerent way. Limerence and uncertainty theory have also been interpreted in terms of attachment anxiety, worsening the symptoms. This can be caused both by an anxious attachment style or a situation where (for example) an avoidant partner can make a normally secure person feel and act anxious (as in the person–situation debate). One man interviewed by Tennov described being caught in one-sided limerence with his wife "in constant fear of divorce" for 25 years (until she died); later, however, he found a different partner whom he did not have this reaction to. Under the attachment view, passion wanes as a relationship becomes more secure (as uncertainty is reduced).
The Passionate Love Scale obsession factor (compared to limerence) has been Correlation with relationship satisfaction in short-term relationships; however, studies have also found that as romantic obsession continues inside a relationship over a longer time, the correlation is with decreased satisfaction. This is speculated to be due to low self-esteem and insecure or anxious attachment. Other studies have found that anxious attachment mediated the relationship between neuroticism and its related love styles, and the mania love attitude (which has been related to limerence) mediated the relationship between neuroticism and relationship satisfaction.
In some cases, limerence can be extinguished quite quickly after a relationship is established, because with more routine contact the participants begin to notice things they don't like about each other. A reminiscent concept from triangular theory of love is "fatuous love" (passion, with commitment, without intimacy): as in new passionate lovers who commit to Marriage without really knowing each other. Usually this fatuous passion fades and turns into just an unhappy commitment by itself, called "empty love". The Philosophy Bertrand Russell is quoted by Tennov in her discussion of uncertainty, quipping that "when a man has no difficulty in obtaining a woman, his feeling towards her does not take the form of romantic love", but Russell goes on to say that "I think it is good—that romantic love should form the motive for a marriage, but it should be understood that the kind of love which will enable a marriage to remain happy and to fulfil its social purpose is not romantic but is something more intimate, affectionate, and realistic. In romantic love the beloved object is not seen accurately, but through a glamorous mist".
According to Tennov, ideally limerence will be replaced by another type of love. In this way, feelings may evolve: "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. The more stable type of love which is usually the characteristic of long-term relationships is commonly called companionate love, storge or attachment. An fMRI experiment of people who were in happy, long-term relationships (10 years or more) but professed to still be "madly" in love found brain activations in dopamine-rich reward areas (interpreted as "wanting" or "desire for union"), but also activity in the Globus pallidus, a site for opioid receptors identified as a hedonic hotspot ("liking"). Unlike people who were newly in love, these participants also did not show activity in areas associated with anxiety and fear, and reported far less obsessional features.
Tennov's estimate of 18 months to 3 years is sometimes used as the normal duration of romantic love. The other common estimate, 12–18 months, comes from Donatella Marazziti's experiment comparing serotonin transporter levels of people in love with OCD patients. In this experiment, subjects who had fallen in love within the past 6 months (who were in a relationship) were measured to have serotonin transporter levels which were different from controls, levels which returned to normal after 12–18 months.
In a technique called cognitive reappraisal, one focuses on positive or negative aspects of their beloved, the relationship, or imagined future scenarios:
Preliminary results from a 2024 study of online limerence communities conducted by Langeslag found that negative reappraisal decreased limerence for the study participants. A therapist named Brandy Wyant has also had her limerent clients list reasons their LO is not perfect, or reasons they and their LO are not compatible. Love regulation doesn't switch feelings on or off immediately, so Langeslag recommends writing a list of things once a day as an example.
The neuroscientist Tom Bellamy is recommending what he calls the "daymare" strategy: if a person in limerence finds themselves lost in a romantic daydream, they should "spoil the rewards" by changing the end of the story into a nightmare. Ruining reward-seeking habits like this is recommended as a kind of "deprogramming" to "accelerate the overwriting of memories linking LO to reward".
Based on the addiction theory of romantic love, Helen Fisher and colleagues recommend that rejected lovers remove all reminders of their beloved, such as letters or photos, and avoid contact with the rejecting partner. Reminders can cause cravings which prolong recovery. They also suggest that positive contact with friends could reduce cravings. Rejected lovers should stay busy to distract themselves, and engage in self-expanding activities. Setting a "no contact" rule during recovery can facilitate self-care and time to reflect on the situation.
However, if limerence is being sustained by a fantasy (making the reward more potent), then getting to know the person for real can also be the fastest way to get over them.
The concepts of limerence, romantic love, passionate love (and so on) have been compared to OCD since 1998, according to a theory invented by other authors. This was partly based on a theoretical comparison between preoccupation features, like worries about a family member being harmed and a need for things to be "just right". This is also sometimes paired with a theory involving the neurotransmitter serotonin, but experimental evidence for that is ambiguous. A 2025 study found no association between SSRI use and obsessive thinking about a loved one or the intensity of romantic love. Neuroscientist blogger Tom Bellamy has argued that limerence is distinct from OCD on the basis of psychological and neurobiological differences. OCD is characterized by compulsions to perform rituals that ease some type of fear, whereas limerence initially starts with a period of joy and only reaches a stage of anxiety when a pair bond cannot be formed.
Helen Fisher has 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." Fisher is one of the original authors to compare limerence to OCD, and has proposed that romantic love is a "natural addiction" which can be either positive or negative depending on the situation. Fisher stated again in 2024 that she does not think there is any difference between limerence and romantic love. Sandra Langeslag commented in 2026 that limerence is a form of passionate love or infatuation.
In 2017, Wakin has stated that he feels that brain scans of limerence would help establish it as "something unlike everything that has been diagnosed already", but brain scans have been described by Fisher's team since as far back as 2002. In Fisher et al.'s original brain scan experiments, all participants spent more than 85% of their waking hours thinking about their loved one. Wakin also claims that a person experiencing limerence can never be satiated, even if their feelings are reciprocated. Tennov found many cases of nonlimerent people who described their limerent partners being "stricken with a kind of insatiability", and that "no degree of attentiveness was ever sufficient". According to Tennov's theory, the intensity of limerence diminishes with reciprocity, and it's prolonged inside a relationship when the LO behaves in a nonlimerent way. Other mainstream authors have stated that obsession inside a relationship when it's a problem could be related to self-esteem and an insecure attachment style.
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 that "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." Tennov states that her studies suggest limerence is normal,: "What my studies suggest is what while it is illogical, it is also normal, and therefore normal human beings can be illogical. For some this seems a difficult idea to accept." that it's too often interpreted as "mental illness", and that even those who experienced limerence of a distressing variety were "fully functioning, rational, emotionally stable, normal, nonneurotic, nonpathological members of society", "characterized as responsible and quite sane". Tragedies such as violence, she says, involve limerence when it's "augmented and distorted" by other conditions.: "Data is not available relating limerence to increased jealousy or violence. It is my guess, but only that, that very intense sexual jealousies may occur outside the limerent state. Famous fictional cases do not conform to the expected pattern, e.g. Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Hollywood's Fatal Attraction. But limerence combined with psychopathology may produce results that escaped inclusion in the data base."
In a 2005 Q&A, Tennov was asked if limerence could ever lead to a situation like the movie Fatal Attraction (which has been called "obsessive love"), but Tennov replied that the movie seemed to depict a caricature. Limerence and stalking are separate phenomena with different causes. Most romantic stalkers are an Breakup, Erotomania, have a personality disorder, are limited or Social skills incompetent. One writer who investigated the phenomenon of limerence videos on TikTok in 2024 wrote that it seemed to her that the many videos created by the relationship coaches there were actually about Cyberstalking rather than having anything at all to do with limerence.
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