I’ll try to be clear for once, to be real, to speak normally. I’m obsessed, with you, you’re always on my mind, and I’m always trying to keep up with you, to grab your attention, to have your gaze fixed upon me.

This book was supposed to be a comfortable read to soothe my brain after months of reading theory. Objectively speaking, it is a simple and easy pop-psychology book destined to lay readers, despite its well cited and researched nature. (The study is based on the findings of a large set of questionnaires and interviews). However, I did not expect that every paragraph and every phrase I read would force me back to my past romantic experiences in order to reflect upon them in light of my newly gained knowledge.

Limerence is, to put it simply, the state of “being in love.” It is distinct from love per se, and it is not sexual desire, although all three can coexist. Poets, philosophers, theologians and all sorts of intellectuals have conceived of such a phenomenon, giving it different labels throughout history, such as “romantic love,” “erotic love,” “love spark,” etc.

Tennov posits that “limerence is, above all else, a mental activity. It is an interpretation of events, rather than the events themselves.” That limerence is a mental activity, see an interpretation of real events, implies the existence of a limerent subject on the one hand, and a limerent object (LO) on the other. An entire emotional revolution could be brewing within the limerent person that may perhaps be fully unknown by LO. For limerence is not so much about LO as much as it is about the feelings and emotions one has for LO.

Limerence creates above all a desire for reciprocation within the limerent person. It is the ultimate goal and achievement of limerence. Reciprocation could be expressed in many different ways: for example, it could be sexual intercourse, a relationship, or even a fruitful confession of love. Once reciprocation is achieved, limerence arrives at its consummation, “in which the bliss of reciprocation is gradually either blended into a lasting love or replaced by less positive feelings.” However, reciprocation is not always achieved, and sometimes it is rendered uncertain or almost impossible due to circumstances: this is what we call unrequited love. Regardless, what fuels limerence is that desire for reciprocation and mutuality, and will continue as long as there is even a slimmer of hope in the mind of the limerent.

Just as all roads once led to Rome, when your limerence for someone has crystallized, all events, associations, stimuli, experience return your thoughts to LO with unnerving consistency. (Ch. 2)

One common symptom of limerence is obsession with LO. Some people dream of their LO while others daydream of them. Everything and anything could be a source of romantic reverie. Though such a phenomenon differs from one person to another depending on the degree of limerence which incessantly fluctuates.

Limerence can have positive effects on its subject and the people around them. It is commonly a motivator for self-improvement and has been throughout history the main inspiration for lots of artistic works of different kinds. However, it is not devoid of negative effects: antisocial behavior, intrusive thoughts, extreme moodiness, severe grief and sorrow following rejection, and so on. This promoted psychoanalysts, according to Tennov, to reduce limerence to a pathological, irrational state of the mind. (This claim was moreso confirmed when I discussed the book with a psychology major). To them, limerence is not “true love.” According to Maslow, for instance, “B-lovers [true lovers] are not unreasonably jealous and they are not blind. It is the other, damaging D-love [limerence] which blinds you. In true love (B-love) you are able to perceive your lover clearly and penetratingly.” Sociologist Paul Bohannan puts it as such:

“romantic love” is a condition in which your “love fantasies become ends in themselves.” You are blinded to LO’s “real” personality because you refuse to look at the facts.

There is truth in the claim that limerence is irrational. It is not love for the other based on mutual concern and affection, but it is rather love for love itself. Limerence is selfish in the sense that it disregards the person behind LO and reduces them to an abstracted ideal in the mind of the limerent. Tennov concedes to this, yet she found her respondents and informants to be quite aware of how illogical their limerent state is. She concludes that “while it is illogical, it is also normal, and therefore normal human beings can be illogical,” thus dismissing the psychoanalytical approach of pathologizing limerence.

Limerence is quite a universal experience that transcends human cultures. Yet it is not an experience shared by everyone. Tennov admits the existence of people, as her questionnaire and interviews have shown, who are nonlimerent. This raises more unanswerable questions about the nature of limerence and its origins.

In my personal opinion, and as someone who has experienced limerence, I do not believe it is pathological, despite how irrational or illogical I could have behaved at times. True, limerence is unsustainable if not transformed into true love, which is what must be sought after. That being said, I cannot view limerence as anything other than normal, just because of how ingrained it is in our culture: the music, the folkloric tales, the literature, the language, and so on. I do not seek after the feeling, nor do I wish to stay in its grasp, and yet I accept it as something normal.

I also do not agree with the author’s claim that limerence is not a cultural invention. It is so in the sense that the way it is expressed differs among human societies. Though this ought not diminish from its material existence as a “complex involuntary human reaction pattern.”

The book, while it doesn’t answer many of the mysteries behind limerence, doesn’t shy away from asking the tough questions. I was quite pleased that the author even discussed the question of sexual difference and sexuality and their role in shaping limerence.