Are you in love – or have you fallen into limerence?

Nine months after separating from her husband – and while waiting for her divorce to come through – lawyer Nina*, 47, had a one-night-stand with Julian, a 30-something married man she met at a conference.

“We didn’t have that much in common, but Julian was a good-looking guy and I was flattered,” she says. “He took my number and in the following weeks would occasionally send me a flirty text, usually when he was drunk, suggesting we meet again.” The prospect of hearing from Julian would rule Nina’s life for the next six months.

“If I received a message, I’d be walking on air, trying to read all sorts of meanings into it,” says Nina. “Then he’d go quiet again. For weeks, I wouldn’t hear anything, and then I became flat and miserable.”

Julian was the last thing Nina thought about before she went to bed: as soon as she woke up, she would look at her messages. “If there weren’t any texts, I’d check that my phone wasn’t broken,” she says. “I’d look at Julian’s Facebook and LinkedIn pages – I’m not exaggerating here – about 30 times a day. I would ignore invitations from real-life acquaintances, waiting for Julian to get in touch.”

Nina was not “in love” with Julian. Nor did she “have a crush” on him. She had fallen into a state called “limerence”.

The term “limerence” was coined by psychologist Dorothy Tenov in the 1970s. It is defined as having an intense romantic longing for another person when they don’t fully reciprocate. According to experts on the subject, the limerent person struggles to think about anything else but the “limerent object” and neglects their social life, work, and other responsibilities as a result.

It’s the stuff of Heathcliff, Jay Gatsby, and Taylor Swift songs. And in the age of social media (where there are plenty of opportunities for “one-way” passion and admiration) limerence has again become a talking point.

Marios Georgiou is a psychotherapist who is currently writing a doctorate on limerence. “Anyone suffering this feeling finds it bewildering, strange and shameful,” he says. “People on Instagram use the term because they think it’s more ‘science-y’, than infatuation, which is basically what it is.”

According to Georgiou, a smattering of limerence is normal, and most of us will have experienced the feeling. “It’s that excitement you have during the first few months of a new relationship,” he says.

Relationship expert Susan Quilliam agrees. “Limerence can describe that period when a person becomes flooded with the ‘happy hormones’ such as oxytocin and dopamine,” she says. “But the difference here is that the feeling is not reciprocated by the other party, and that it doesn’t wear off when perhaps it should.”

Limerence is different from a “crush”, which tends to be more fleeting, and not as emotionally overwhelming. Many adults experienced crushes as teens – with a friend’s older sister, or the boy on the bus. “These unrequited feelings might make sense when you are developing your ‘romantic machinery’ as a teenager, but when you are in your 30s, 40s or 50s they can be a problem,” says Georgiou.

Hence there’s a big difference between the sixth former who fantasises about her English teacher in class but forgets about him when she gets home, and the mid-lifer so obsessed with her boss, who risks ending up in an HR disciplinary hearing.

“Limerence thrives on ambiguity,” says Georgiou. “Quite often there will have been some sort of friendship or even a brief flirtation, which makes it different from a celebrity crush,” he says. “This interaction ignites in the limerent person what the experts call ‘a glimmer’.”

“The line is crossed when the obsessed person doesn’t have a choice about their continued feelings,” says Quilliam. “Their emotions are overwhelming and addictive, and continue despite the fact these feelings are causing them problems. Limerence is unrequited, so when nothing is coming back, this attention can become inappropriate. The person with limerence might also start getting symptoms such as depression, anxiety, or turn to substance abuse.”

Georgiou has seen this in his clients. “If you are suffering with limerence, your world narrows and constricts,” he says. “You feel disorientated and powerless.”

Henry*, 59, has suffered with periods of limerence throughout his life. “It started in my late teens,” he says. “I’d become obsessed with a series of girls, but it got to the point where my heart was beating so hard around them that I was literally unable to speak.”

After meeting his wife in his 20s and marrying her, Henry thought those days were behind him. “But now I’m in my late 50s, I find these feelings re-emerging towards all sorts of people: my wife’s friend, a woman who works at the local gym,” he says. “I go through periods when I literally can’t stop thinking about these particular women. One replaces the other, and I have never understood it as I’m still happy with my wife.”

People with limerence are rarely stalkers, but their behaviour can be similarly obsessive. “I’m a sensible person, a professional mother of three,” says Nina. “But during that period, I’d repeatedly google Julian’s wife in a slightly deranged way. It’s not that I ever would have approached her, or done anything to upset the family. Nor did I want him to leave his wife, particularly, but I was obsessed with Julian and my mood was totally linked to whether he’d contacted me or not. What was going on?”

The answer, says Georgiou, is that this phenomenon is less about the allure of the limerent object, but more about what is (or isn’t) going on in the sufferer’s own life. “If a person is feeling bored, or lonely, or somehow detached from society, these are strong precursors,” he says. “Many of those with limerence have an unstable sense of self during that period – maybe they are nearing retirement, or have just gone through a divorce.”

Hence, the object becomes imbued with significance; it’s as though the limerent object can ‘complete’ their admirer, that all the qualities the limerent person perceives they lack are projected on their object. “And when the sufferer is rejected again, they think: ‘Well, I’ve clearly always been unattractive and a loner, and will continue to be,” says Georgiou.

The solution is far from straightforward. “Realising you fit into this category is hard,” says Quilliam. “But this is the first step. After this, the limerent person will have to ask themselves some difficult questions. How full is their life? Perhaps they can start to evaluate it, understand what’s happening, and then try to address what is missing.”

In the end, Nina’s obsession with Julian abated naturally. “Eighteen months after my marriage ended, I started to come out of the gloom and spend time in the real world,” she says. “I don’t remember exactly when I stopped looking Julian up or expecting to hear from him. There was no ‘lightbulb moment’, but I do recall being on holiday with my sister and realising I hadn’t once checked my phone in almost a week.” Five years on, Nina is now in a healthy and reciprocal relationship with a man her age.

“Julian was definitely a weird symptom of the fallout of my marriage break-up,” she says. “Looking back, I feel very silly about it.”

Illustration by Georgina Smith