Flex and Frooms, Flex and Frooms. This is the Flex and Frooms catch up podcast. Have Your Flex Ever heard of the term limerens? I have, Yes. What does it mean?
I would say limerens is that obsessive state you find yourself in at the beginning of a crush, where you are just so swamped by thoughts of them and fantasies of them, and you live more in the delusion of the situation than the reality.
You are so spot on, my darling, look at that face of satisfaction that you deserve to be weary. So this I brought this up as like an urgent psa urgent for the girlies, and by girlies, I'm in every single person.
When we say girlies, we truly mean everyone.
Seriously. It's like when you say the everyman, or like God created man, God created girlie. Yes, this is what the girlies who gets obsessed with crushes. It actually has a word. It's called limerens. We have spoken about this before on our pod, but actually wanted to go more in depth because I just think that the term crush does not encapsulate an experience that adults can go through when they start seeing someone or etc.
And not every crush is limerent, and not every limerent behavior is due to a crush. Sometimes we just are delusional and obsessive, and sometimes we are just appreciative in a very extreme way.
So, yes, you can become obsessed to things that aren't romantic. But often when we talk about limerens, we're talking about romantic infatuations, often with a sexual element. So it is a state of mind which results from romantic feelings for another person and includes intrusive, melancholic thoughts, or sometimes tragic concerns for the object of one's affection, as well as the extreme desire to form or maintain a relationship and
have one's feelings reciprocated. Often, limerence is made worse when there is not reciprocated desire. It can also be defined as an involuntary state of intense desire. Oh, that's a nice way to put it, isn't it. Limerence is and I think you're going to really like this. Whoever's listening, who gets obsessed with crushes? It is an involuntary, potentially inspiring state of adoration and attachment to a limerent object.
Eg.
You're crush involving intrusive, obsessive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors from euphoria to despair, contingent on perceived emotional reciprocation. So how does that work in the modern day. It's texting. Someone texts you, they text you back, you feel euphoria, you're waiting on their text. We're going through the despair cycle. That is essentially a key part of limerence. It is characterized by internal experiences like ruminative thinking, anxiety and depression,
temporary fixation, and the disregulization dysregulation of the self. So if you are perhaps an OCD girly bit of an obsessive type, you are anxious or maybe even on the spectrum, and you sometimes find that you will go through fixations. I think you might experience this. If you're wondering how do I discern limerence verse love? Think think we really need to think of this in the early stages of dating. So the texting context, the context where you're not exclusive,
you haven't defined a relationship. Are we talking a situation? Is this going to be my future hubby, wife, life partner? Partner? In quotations because you know, we don't use that term P in the Flex and Frooms show, and one of the original philosophers who spoke about this ten of differentiates limreents and love by asserting that love involves concern for the other person's welfare and feeling yeah, whereas limerence does
not require it. So you can really be obsessed with someone and it feels like love, and you have all of these really intense emotions. We actually don't care about their welfare. You don't really care if they're happy. You just want them so badly that your judgment is clouded, otherwise known in this modern dating context as being d lulu. Yeah.
Well, I would also say, and what I've come to understand from limerens is that it's a very individual process, as in the person that you're dealing with isn't really influencing your limeren state. It kind of exists in your bubble where you decide it's going well or not going well based on whatever how you're feeling, what you want from them, whether you're happy in a different part of
your life. It all kind of puts pressure on your perception on what it is or how it is, and if you wants it or not.
I think you need to ask yourself first and foremost, and even if it isn't limberate even if you're like in the seeing stage of someone, I think you need to ask yourself what do you actually like about this process? So, of course, I think when you start dating someone, when you have a crush, it is really exciting, and part of that is like not knowing how it's going to go. So I think, like, of course that's going to be
enjoyable and bring up a lot of different emotions. But if it's actually on the whole making you unhappy, drawing you away from your life, then we need to start reassessing a is this on you to, as we say, get another hobby, or is it perhaps the way they're behaving that is making you feel or that is influencing an insecure mindset?
And I will say the difference between limerents and a craw I've read is that limerens kind of feels like an obsession despite the reality, and a crush is kind of like an attraction based on who the person is, Like I'm attracted to what they look like, I'm attracted to the way they speak, I'm attracted to how they
show up in the world. It centers them, it pedestalizes kind of them and your relationship with them, whereas limerence kind of obsesses over the fantasy and the possibility, sometimes influenced by what they've said or done, but wholly influenced by just what you want.
Yes, wow, okay, I think something that you should think of. And I've fallen into this trap before, is what is having this intense crush serving you? So I have found in the past times in my life where I've not had enough on is when the crushes have been the most crushing set to speak. So, I've been through an experience before where like I've had a relation ship end and I could have gotten it back, but they did something for example that I was just like, I can't
go there. Then for a whole year they are a liminent object to me, even though I don't want them. They have become this kind of like like a better erge symbol and obsession. That is, it's not even about them, because then you know, I had this experience once and I caught up with them a little while later. It's like the illusion was shattered. It was all in my head. It was always this guests game, what are they thinking? Am I going to see them? Da da da da da?
And it was very interesting that it actually wasn't contingent on whether or not they liked me back, because they kind of did. Well, I knew that they did, but I in my mind had like made up that we were never going to get back together. Does that kind of make sense? So it wasn't a crush, but it was this kind of obsession. And I will say, I reckon if you are prone to OCD or obsessional thinking, I think it's very likely that you will have an
experience like this in your dating life. If you experience limitents, but you haven't experienced obsessional thinking with anxiety. That's what like in my experience, Obsessional thinking with anxiety is lack but it's something that's not fun. So at least with the crush element, you've got something fun to fantasize about. I reckon as well. Think about in your life. So let's say you're in a liminerent phase with someone, You're in a bit of a delulu moment. Think what am
I procrastinating? So I'm currently in this process of doing this really difficult thing which requires me to be really focused, which is writing the book. So tell me why I'm choosing any opportunity to be distracted. I'm getting crushes, I'm cleaning the house, like I'm doing all this stuff that's totally like making the procrastination so much worse. And then I've had to kind of reflect back and think, oh my god, did I even have a crush on that person? Did I even need to clean the house?
Like?
Did I even? It's very funny and I think, like it's very hard to do in the moment, and I can actually only do this with hindsight. But think about what are you actually procrastinating, because it's often something that is not an easy fix. And finally, think about, and I've written this down, think about if this person's behavior is encouraging your preoccupation. Are they flaky? Do they take ages to respond to texts? And then you must figure
out if this is something you're willing to tolerate. Verse how entitled are you to their time and how they spend it. This is where communication is key. Oh one final thing, girls, listening what you want to do if you have a limerent object, be where people that give you. I hate using all these day terms, but also it makes sense crumbs because if you're getting a little, even a little tiny bit of hope. It is massive fuel to the fire. It's like a firestarter. So starvation for
once is the answer in this process. A lack of any notice so like an onslaught of evidence that the limited object does not return the limerens can gradually desensitize you. So in that case, I would say, girls and boys and girlies, if you aren't sure if they.
Like you.
Talking to them, no, but like stop talking to them. Yeah, But then I feel like in the back of our little in the back of your mind, you're like, oh, maybe if I stopped talking, then they really like me. So do something like rip the bandit off and be like, all right, what are your intentions? And then if they make it clear that it's not what you want, then you can like, don't you also.
Think like the the average person is just not good with confrontation or having to justify what they feel. So like, let's say you're in a limerate state. You have a crush, You're not sure if they like you, but they've got you in this despair dopamine cycle where they give you a little crme, you get excited. They don't they don't follow up, or they don't add more, they don't give you more crumbs and you get into a despair and then you might set up a shot so they can
take it. So you might like post, they'll see and they'll acknowledge you and then give you another crime and then you're back in the cycle. So is it an option for example, if you're in this despair cycle, sorry, if you're in this limerates cycle or that's triggered by a person, if you remove yourself from the person, then they can't give you a crumb.
So what would an example be like block their number potentially.
But also I think from what you mentioned in those initial studies, Limerens has a lot just to do with you, like how you're perceiving the situation. So it's one of those well like they're not texting me because they're so intimidated, Oh my god, and they're just really nervous guys far out.
It's so that that we have this common like we have these communication channels to like, it's so crazy how you don't have a unique experience, which.
Is my favorite thing about being alive. I used to be like, no one's done life, Like I've done life.
Everybody's done it. So TikTok exists and that's the best thing about it. We're always having Listening to The Flex and Froom's daily podcast. For more, Tune Indicator on DAB or stream it on iHeartRadio.