Sweet, sweet fantasy
On limerence, love and letting go
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TLDR;
My recent limerent crush
What is limerence?
Letting go of fantasy cycles
Recovery is an ever-unfolding path
Authentic imperfect connection
Fantasy versus radical imagination
Inquiries for you, dear reader
Not long ago, I spent weeks rehearsing imagined dialogues, dissecting text messages, and losing sleep over scenarios that existed primarily in my brain—all for a man who did little more than smile at me a few times across a dance floor.
My projections lifted him up like the sun as I rotated around fantasies of him being an amazing communicator, a loving provider, a king archetype…simply based on how he spoke into a mic or glanced at me a few times.
I wasn't in love, not even close. I was in limerence.
When I told friends I had a limerent crush, they got giddy, expecting some juicy rom-commy story. But limerence isn’t a type of giggly crush that makes me blush. Limerence makes me lose touch with reality. A crush gives me butterflies, limerence gives me insomnia.
What is limerence?
Limerence can turn a couple looks into a full-blown indie romance—except none of it is actually happening. It’s a psychological state where obsessive attraction, intrusive thoughts, and emotional dependency swirl together in delusion. If a crush is a spicy bachata dance between two eye-gazing partners, limerence is an interpretive solo performance on an empty stage, for an audience of one: me.
Limerence often grows out of early neglect or hyper-independence. As a recently immigrated 8-year old, I spent many hours alone in my room with Mariah Carey blaring through my boombox about her cute fantasies of loverboys. Her high notes filled emotional voids in me that my parents—bless them—couldn’t, especially when the depressive struggle for belonging in a strange new land away from community was real, and long. I became a master of soothing myself out of loneliness through music and make-believe. And now, as an adult, I sometimes find myself reaching for the same balm, even though it actually sucks ass.