Limerence at first sight

    This is an excerpt from Love Sick: Love as a Mental Illness, by Frank Tallis. Also see incurable romantics.

    In literature, examples of love at first sight abound. When Romeo sees Juliet for the first time, he cries: "O! She doth teach the torches to burn bright ... Did my heart love till now?" When Werther sees Lotte, he declares: "My entire soul was transfixed by her figure, her tone, her manner ... I delighted in her dark eyes ... how my entire soul was drawn to her young lips and fresh, bright cheeks ..." Nearly a hundred years later, the very same impressions are repeated by Turgenev, when the young protagonist of First Love, Vladimir, stumbles across the coquette, Zinaida: "I forgot everything; my eyes devoured the graceful figure, the lovely neck, the beautiful arms, the slightly disheveled fair hair under the white kerchief - and the half closed, perceptive eye, the lashes, the soft cheek beneath them ..."

    Love at first sight is so intense, it usually leaves an afterimage image - like the patterns of luminosity that linger following a glance at the sun. Dante - who on seeing the young Beatrice considered her to be the daughter of a Homeric god - described Beatrice's likeness "remaining in me always", and Turgenev's Vladimir was haunted by Zinaida: "The image of the young girl floated before me." These "flashbulb" memories - pictures that seem to have been stamped into the visual cortex - are very similar to those reported by trauma victims. Psychologists believe that such memories are particularly well preserved, remaining very vivid, because they cannot be assimilated with the rest of experience by the brain. Put very simply, the traumatic experience is so overwhelming that the usual procedures that convert experience into memory break down. "Flashbulb" memories cannot be properly integrated into the existing network of ordinary memories. Thus, they exist in an unmodified form, retaining a powerful emotional charge and being much more likely to intrude into awareness. Sometimes, trauma victims report a phenomenon known as re-experiencing. The individual actually relives the trauma in the form of an hallucinatory "flashback". It is interesting that many individuals who report a powerful experience of love at first sight are also prone to hallucinatory visions of their beloved. The first memory of love refuses to settle in the unconscious; it constantly reawakens and invades the real world like a dream.

    One of the most remarkable and detailed accounts of love at first sight can be found in the autobiography of the composer Hector Berlioz. On II September 1827, he attended the French premiere of Shakespeare's Hamlet at the Odeon in Paris. The role of Ophelia was played by a young Irish actress, Henrietta Smithson, with whom he fell instantly in love.

    The consequences were devastating. Berlioz experienced numerous symptoms that would, under any other circumstances, stances, be taken as evidence of a quite severe mental illness:

... the shock was too great, and it was a long while before I recovered from it. I became possessed by an intense, overpowering powering sense of sadness, that in my then sickly, nervous state produced a mental condition adequately to describe which would take a great physiologist. I could not sleep, I lost my spirits, my favourite studies became distasteful to me, I could not work, and I spent my time wandering aimlessly about Paris and its environs. During that long period of suffering I can only recall four occasions on which I slept, and then it was heavy, death-like sleep produced by complete physical exhaustion. These were one night when I had thrown myself down on some sheaves in a field near Ville-Juif; one day in a meadow in the neighbourhood of Sceaux; once on the snow on the banks of the frozen Seine, near Neuilly; and lastly on a table in the Cafe du Cardinal at the corner of the Boulevard des Italiens and the Rue Richelieu, where I slept for five hours, to the terror of the garcons, who thought I was dead and were afraid to come near me.

    Berlioz began to rally after his initial bout of love sickness, and decided to impress Miss Smithson by putting on a concert of his works for full orchestra and choir at the Paris Conservatoire. Although he succeeded in organising the concert (which turned out to be a very substantial undertaking), the event escaped Henrietta's notice - a disappointing (if rather predictable) outcome. Berlioz then began writing to her, but he did not get a single reply. She found Berlioz's letters disturbing, and subsequently gave her maid strict orders to stop receiving them.

    Undeterred, the next stage of Berlioz's campaign was to attract Henrietta Smithson's attention by getting his name to appear next to hers on the same play-bill. He learned that she was to perform two acts from Romeo and Juliet at the Opera Comique, so he promptly approached the theatre manager and persuaded him to include one of his overtures in the programme. Whatever Berlioz hoped to gain by executing his cunning plan was wholly negated by his subsequent loss of self-control. When he arrived for an orchestral rehearsal, the troupe of actors were just finishing theirs. Romeo was carrying Smithson - as Juliet - off the stage, and from this rather odd vantage, Henrietta looked directly into Berlioz's eyes. This was, of course, the first time that she had ever seen him. Having already expended so much energy trying to impress her, one would have thought that he would strike a romantic or dignified pose - that he would exploit the moment to the full - but this was not to be. Instead, he emitted a loud cry before dashing out into the street, wildly wringing his hands. He was unable to return for an hour.

    Although this episode appears in Berlioz's autobiography, there is some doubt as to whether it really happened. He does not tell us which of his overtures was performed, and no reviews appeared in the usual journals. Subsequently, Berlioz scholars have suggested that these events more probably reflect the content of a dream - or hallucination. If so, then they constitute a remarkable example of how love at first sight can affect the mind - even more remarkable, perhaps, than if the described events were real.

    The next day, Smithson was due to leave for Holland. By this time, Berlioz (by accident, so he claimed) had taken lodgings opposite hers on the Rue Richelieu. He had been lying on his bed until three in the afternoon, and finally rose to look out of the window. The moment he chose coincided with Smithson's departure, and he was able to witness the object of his desire getting into a carriage, bound for Amsterdam. His reaction was characteristically overwrought:

No words can describe what I suffered; even Shakespeare has never painted the horrible gnawing at the heart, the sense of utter desolation, the worthlessness of life, the torture of one's throbbing pulses, and the wild confusion of one's mind, the disgust of life, and the impossibility of suicide ... my mind was paralysed as my passion grew. I could only - suffer.

    Berlioz was utterly devastated - so much so, that we must remind ourselves that he had still not spoken a single word to Henrietta Smithson. Nor, being French, had he understood stood a single word of her Shakespearian declarations on stage. Berlioz's strong feelings were predicated entirely on her beauty.

    For more than two years, Berlioz heard nothing of Henrietta. During that time, he won a musical prize, wrote the Symphonie Fantastique (the movements of which romantically dramatised his infatuation for Smithson), narrowly survived being shipwrecked, met Felix Mendelssohn in Rome, and traveled around Italy - all of which failed to exorcise Smithson's memory. Indeed, on his return to Paris, he was still so obsessed with her that he took a room in her old lodging house. It was there that he learned again of her whereabouts. A servant told him that she was not only back in Paris, but she had only just vacated Berlioz's room - the night before his arrival. Berlioz suspected the operation of strange forces: "... a believer in magnetic influences, secret affinities, and mysterious promptings would certainly find in all this powerful argument in favour of his system".

    Subsequently, through a chain of acquaintances, Berlioz managed to ensure Henrietta's presence at a concert of his music, which included the Symphonie Fantastique. Apparently, as the concert progressed, she realised that Berlioz was still passionately in love with her, and her heart melted. She consented to meet him, and within a matter of months they were married. Sadly, Berlioz's expectations of conjugal bliss were never realised. The fantasy did not correspond with reality. In a relatively short space of time, Henrietta and Hector were making each other very unhappy. They argued. Henrietta started to drink heavily. She put on weight. Soon, Berlioz had stopped finding her quite so attractive. He neglected her and, in response, she became jealous - not without good reason. Berlioz became interested in younger women, and in due course he and Henrietta separated. After her death, he was forced to reflect on what he called their "dead love".

    Berlioz was not so much a representative of the Romantic movement as the embodiment of romance itself. He lived his life like a romantic hero. Yet, in the end, he had to acknowledge that his passion was essentially shallow, a temporary madness. He lamented the fact that love - supposedly the greatest of all human emotions - could not triumph over even trivial adversities and hardship. In reality, domestic drudgery, financial problems and petty bickering proved too much for love - a deeply depressing thought for a man who had subscribed so wholeheartedly to the romantic ideal.

    Yet how could it have been otherwise? Berlioz hardly knew his wife before they were married.

    The narrative of the Symphonie Fantastique concerns a young artist who takes opium in a fit of amorous despair and enters a dreamscape, haunted by visions of his beautiful beloved. This was the woman whom Berlioz really fell in love with - a fantasy figure. It was inevitable that the woman he married - the real Henrietta Smithson - would be a disappointment.

    Although Berlioz is an extreme example, his fate is shared by many. Under the influence of romantic idealism, intimate relationships have acquired enormous significance. Indeed, it is a basic tenet of romanticism that life cannot be satisfactory without someone special to love. Unfortunately, that special person might not materialise. Thus we are caught between need and reality, and if reality fails to deliver, we are perfectly capable of twisting it into shapes of our own choosing. Ordinary folk are transformed into brave knights and beautiful maidens, and everyday life is transformed as well, becoming like a film or fairy tale. Inevitably, however, reality reasserts itself. The vivid colours fade, and we find ourselves again in a monochrome world of flawed humanity, kitchen sinks, electricity bills and mortgage repayments.

    When couples attend marital therapy, it is often the case that one party will ascribe his or her dissatisfaction to some kind of change in the other: "He's not like he was when we were dating"; "She's a different person now." Typically, such assertions are used to legitimise scalding criticism: "You're no fun any more"; "You used to take much better care of yourself"; "You've lost interest in sex" - but more often than not, the recipient of such criticism hasn't really changed at all. Rather, it is the critic's perception of them that has changed. Without love's magic, fairy-tale conventions are reversed, and even the most handsome prince can find himself croaking.

    Dante was fortunate. His pseudo-religious visions of Beatrice were never tested against human imperfection. It was Berlioz's misfortune to have a wish come true. Romantic idealism rarely survives such a disaster.

Complexity of Romantic Love

    This is an excerpt from Romantic Love in Cultural Contexts, by Victor Karandashev.

    Romantic love is the complex phenomenon consisting of biological, psychological, and social-cultural components. The love includes physiological stimulation, perceptual mechanisms, and interpretative processes and is situated at the connection where the body, the cognitive, and the cultural converge. Personal experience and social regulation both play their important role. Romantic love is a combination of beliefs, ideals, attitudes, and expectations, which coexist in our conscious and unconscious minds.

    Discussions of romantic love in scholarly literature over recent decades (Berscheid 1985, 1988; Brehm 1988; Buss 1988; Caraway 1987; Davis 1985; Hatfield 1988; Hatfield and Rapson 1993; Knox 1970; Liebowitz 1983; Levinger 1988; Lindholm 1988; Money 1980; Murstein 1988; Orlinsky 1977; Shaver et al. 1988; Sternberg 1988; Tennov 1979) allowed researchers to identify the key attributes of romantic love and define it as a constellation of emotions, cognitive processes, and behaviors. These experiences of romantic love include the following set of components, the most frequently noted in the literature:

1. A cognitive preoccupation with the object of love, including vivid imagination and intrusive thinking about the beloved (or fascination). In the case of unrequited love, imagination helps to imagine reciprocation.
2. Idealization of the beloved that includes a tendency to emphasize the positive qualities and minimize, ignore, or rationalize the negative ones of a love object. It is a remarkable ability to emphasize what is truly admirable in the object of love and avoid dwelling on the negative, even to render the negative into a positive quality. As Rubin (1970) noted, romantic love is the idealization of the other within an erotic context.
3. A desire for physical and emotional merger and union with the beloved one and the longing to maintain physical proximity, physical and psychological intimacy, including physical and sexual attraction to an object of love as a potential sex partner.
4. Exclusive focus of emotion and motivation on one particular person and the unstated presupposition that love is directed toward someone whose real or idealized qualities distinguish him or her from all other people. Romantic love assumes inability to react to more than one person at a time
5. Longing for reciprocity of feelings and a desire for being exclusive with a beloved one. This is related to the fear of rejection, unsettling shyness in the presence of the object of love, and the feeling of uncertainty. An aching of the “heart” in the case of uncertainty is strong, while buoyancy when reciprocation seems certain. Buoyancy as a feeling of “walking on air” is quite typical for being in reciprocated love.
6. Acute sensitivity to any behavior that might be interpreted favorably and an ability to see hidden passion in the seeming neutral behavior of an object of love.
7. Emotional attachment and dependency: A mood is dependent on reciprocity of feeling and actions, and physical and emotional proximity to the beloved. As Brehm (1988, p. 255) noted, “happiness is coming closer to the beloved; unhappiness is falling away from the beloved.”
8. A strong empathy, caring, and concern for the beloved and wanting to satisfy his/her needs. It is not necessarily altruism in the broader sense since it may involve self-interest and personal need.
9. Reordering of life priorities and hierarchies of values and motivations; maintenance of the relationship becomes of central importance often at the expense of other concerns, interests, responsibilities, and activities in life. Intensity of feeling that leaves other concerns in the background: “The only thing that matters is how you two feel when the rest of the world goes away.”
10.  Intensification through adversity is a typical plot of love. All romantic novels are usually the stories of how love grows through adversity and how lovers come through it. Adversity of life increases the lover’s feelings up to a certain point. Sometimes, however, too much is too much, yet “the flower that blooms in adversity in the rarest and most beautiful of all.”

    The strong empirical support for many of these features of romantic love was obtained in the analysis of more than five hundred cases conducted by Tennov (1979, p. 173) in the USA. Harris (1995) in her field study conducted in Mangaia, Cook Islands, applied several of these key attributes of romantic love attempting to identify those among Mangaian lovers and argued the contention that romantic love is absent on Mangaia. More details of that study will be presented in the following chapters.

    The romantic love descriptors summarized above have the potential to bring coherence and meaning to many research findings and unite a body of empirical data into a certain framework. A definitional consensus from the love research allows studying love in cultural contexts with more precision in literary, anthropological, sociological, and psychological studies. Such a comprehensive, specific, and descriptive conceptual definition of romantic love is an important premise for a proper operational definition of romantic love for the study of love in cultural contexts for scholars of any discipline.

    Romantic vs realistic love is probably among the top controversies, which readers will encounter in the following chapters. Romantic love, being opposite of pragmatic (realistic) love, is greatly affected by the halo effect: “What is beautiful is good” (Dion et al. 1972). In particular, many passionate lovers reaching their great satisfaction in sex begin to believe that this will be the major constituent of their future relationships with a partner, so they are happily willing to continue relationships forever and even marry. This enchantment overshadows all other aspects of the partner’s personality and various realities of relationships: financial security, social status, living conditions, household chores, etc. I recall the old saying popular among young romantics in the Soviet Union: “c милым paй и в шaлaшe” (“a tent is a castle for those in love,” or “a tent is Paradise with the man you love”), which means that when you are with the one you love, you can be happy in any place, any living situation (even if less than ideal). Reality can often break such idealistic beliefs, even in the movies. Romantic love is vulnerable, and these idealized expectations can be broken by the reality of a partner’s behavior and relationships disenchanting a passionate lover. According to a motivation principle, the higher expectations lead to the higher dissatisfactions. This is why in the cultures with high value of romantic love, people are more often dissatisfied with their intimate relationships. The feelings of blue and suffering are as natural to romantic lovers as the feelings of joy from enchantment from an idealized image of partner and relationship. Romantic love is like an emotional rollercoaster, and the swings of mood from elation to suffering and back are the key characteristics of this type of love. It is not surprising since the suffering was a key descriptor of courtly love, as a precursor of romantic love, in eleventh- to twelfth-century writings. Thus, romantic lovers should be prepared not only for the joy of love, but also for its disappointments and psychological aches. As we recall many love songs, lovers actually are aware of these controversies, and still prefer to love. “To love, or not to love?”—this is a question that many ask themselves, but still continue to love; the expectations of joy from the idealized image of a partner and relationships probably outweigh the risk of suffering, which may come from the possible disenchantment from a partner, his/her behavior, and inadequate understanding of relationships. A romantic lover expects too much from a prospective partner. Some girls, for example, are looking for “a prince,” thus having heightened expectations. Some are lucky to find a good match to their dream; others maturate and become more pragmatic, adjusting their expectations to the reality, and find the best possible or good enough partner out of available candidates. Still, others are looking for “a prince” for the rest of their lives as a spinster.

    In particular, Johnson (1983) showed that people in the Western cultures usually grow up to believe in the irrational assumptions of the fairy tale script of romantic love built from literature, films, and other entertainments. He explored the cultural archetype of romantic love to uncover its psychological essence and meaning. He differentiated romantic love from sincere love—“Romantic love is not love but a complex of attitudes about love—involuntary feelings, ideals, and reactions” (p. 45).

    As Johnson (1983) explains, when we are in love, we become “entranced, mesmerized … with a mystical vision—but of something separate and distinct from [our] human selves” (p. 51). We perceive our romantic partners as idealized, godlike versions of who they are. And we feel euphoric with this vision instead of the other person. The paradox of romantic love is that “it never produces human relationships as long as it stays romantic” (p. 133) because we fall in love with our own fantastical creations instead of the other person for whom they really are.

    We implicitly assume that romance is such an essential component of a relationship that “if a direct, uncomplicated, simple relationship offers us happiness, we won’t accept it” (p. 134). However, romantic love, especially a passionate one, frequently fades, and many people do not really know how to build a sincere human relationship. They learned from fairy tales what love should be. They know that a relationship without romantic love is worthless and therefore continue to believe that their “true love” must then be out there waiting for them. When romantic love has arrived, people believe that fiery romantic love will be everlasting.

    Real love is realistic in a certain sense, and therefore, it is opposite to romantic love. The individuals make more realistic choices and decisions in love too. They see a partner with their good characteristics and shortcomings and weigh both. More realistic and modest expectations lead to lesser disenchantments and therefore to a higher likelihood of relationship satisfaction for realists and pragmatists. Modest expectations are not necessarily a bad thing. People who expect that marriage will always be joyous and that the earth will move whenever they have sex might often be disappointed.

    Can romantic love bring any benefits to people? Psychologically it is possible. Romantic love is better than just passionate love in terms of psychological benefits. Passionate love is possessive and assumes the attitude to a partner as an object of desire. Eros and erotic attitudes are the driving forces of a passionate lover. Therefore, the respect and esteem toward a partner is not necessary; the admiration of appearance and any other characteristics triggering sexual desire is enough. Historically, a woman was a typical object of desire in men’s dominating cultures. Sometimes women, being guided by passionate reasons, also manipulated men as objects. Passionate lovers often care little about satisfaction of a partner in the relationships, except in cases when their performance and corresponding partner’s satisfaction boost their self-esteem. “Was everything good, my darling?”—“Yes, my dear it was great!”

    Different from passionate love, the romantic love is based on mutual respect and elevation of a partner’s position. The partner is not merely an object of desire, but a person, who deserves the respect and attention to his/her mind and soul.  A romantic lover cares about partner’s personality, well-being, and real satisfaction. Agape and altruistic attitudes, in addition to Eros, are the driving forces of a romantic lover. Wanting to respect and admire their beloved one, a romantic lover elevates a partner through idealization. Such respect and admiration boosts self-esteem of a partner and brings him/her a happy satisfaction along with feeling of self-worth. Additionally, this idealization encourages a partner to be a better person than he/she currently is. Thus, the idealized image of how a romantic lover perceives a partner provides the latter a stimulus and the target for his/her self-development and self-improvement. Therefore, romantic love inspires a partner and provides him/her a self-developmental strategic perspective. Instead of the humanistic thesis “accept yourself as you are,” romantic love encourages a partner to develop him/herself and provide aspiration. As Russian writer Mikhail Prishvin (1873–1954) noted, 

The person you love in me, is, of course, better than me. But if you love me, I’ll try to be better than I am (Prishvin n.d.).

Limerence and anxious attachment

This is a general overview of how limerence and anxious attachment are sometimes conflated (starting from Tennov’s material, but continued throughout various academic literature).

On the outset, I should say that anxious attachment clearly seems to make limerence worse for people, and it's possible that anxious attachment increases how often people experience it. There are also a number of studies showing a correlation between anxious attachment and different obsession measures (1, 2, 3, 4). They're just different things.

However, there are some people (academics, even) who actually seem to think that limerence and anxious attachment are the same thing and don't understand that there's actually a whole other thing which Tennov is trying to describe. One paper even outright says this, and several others refer to that paper or allude to the theory by referring to a concept called desperate love (which is related to anxious attachment).

Brief overview of Tennov’s definition of limerence

I highly recommend reading this post first: incurable romantics.

Tennov has compared limerence to “romantic love” many times.

One of the most illuminating sessions was when Dorothy Tennov [...] described her attempts to find a suitable term for 'romantic love.' [...] 'I first used the term "amorance" then changed it back to "limerence,"' she told her audience. 'It has no roots whatsoever. It looks nice. It works well in French. Take it from me it has no etymology whatsoever.' (The Observer)

Limerence has been called “romantic love” as opposed to “real love” because to a vocal and often very articulate segment of the population it is unreal. But even when limerence is not believed in, or believed in only secretly, it still makes a good tale. (Love and Limerence, p. 161)

Writers have been philosophizing, moralizing, and eulogizing on the subject of “erotic,” “passionate,” “romantic” love (i.e., limerence) since Plato (and surely long before that). (Love and Limerence, p. 172)

Tennov appears to be using a definition of “romantic love” which relates to the literary tradition (often stories about tragic love) or love which is intense in a fantastical kind of way but impractical. (Limerence is real; she just uses these stories as a template for what she's talking about.)

Tennov has also specified that while “nonlimerents” reported obsession to her, limerence for her is defined in terms of intrusive thoughts:

Such synonyms as “being in love,” “romantic love,” “passionate love,” and “erotic love” were all used in descriptions of sexual companionate relationships by people who were later recognized as nonlimerents through their responses to key questions that referred, for example, to intrusiveness of thought. (Love and Limerence, p. 116) 

Nonlimerent lovers interviewed also used the word "obsession" to describe their reaction to a new lover, particularly during the early "courting" phase of the relationship. But this obsession seemed more like the kind of intense interest a person might have for a new hobby or possession rather than like true limerent obsession. Nonlimerent lovers do not report intrusive preoccupation, but rather that thoughts of the person are frequent and pleasurable. The only disadvantage to this "obsession" is that they might get carried away in conversation with others (much as might the owner of a new racing car). (Love and Limerence, pp. 114-115)

Later in her career, Tennov has compared limerence to love madness.

(As a side note, in the modern day, some people also compare limerence to a crush which takes over their life. There are also some people who report more unusual stuff, like not being able to stop thinking about a person and not really understanding why, yet not really identifying as "in love" at all, or platonic limerence. By comparing limerence to love madness, I'm not forgetting about these other sorts of things. Human experience has more variation than these simplified concepts usually allow for. We have to start somewhere though, by understanding Tennov's concept here.)

Tennov’s concept can be understood as the intersection of a number of things.

She basically has an overarching theory that these are all related somehow: that love madness occurs in these “romantic” situations as a result of separation, infrequent encounters, uneven reciprocation, etc. (see e.g. pp. 56-57). The component listing she gives on pp. 23-24 is basically "being lovesick". (People happily in love don't need "fleeting and transient relief", for example. Her component listing is not just "being in love".)

According to Tennov's theory (in her later writing), limerence begins before you have a relationship and before you know for certain whether the feeling is reciprocated. Tennov is concerned with falling in love in a particular way in a type of situation. There's some sort of a separation or ambiguity (uncertainty) and this creates love madness or sickness. Sometimes it turns into a relationship or sex, but usually it's more tragic. That's basically her concept.

There are actually people who say they feel "madly" in love even after 10+ years, and there are brain scans of this. However, they don't exhibit the same level of obsessive symptoms as people experiencing limerence. In her original writings, Tennov seemed to think that limerence is the only way to fall in love (or to fall in love intensely), but she was definitely wrong about that. This is kind of an issue, because it's unclear how the word is supposed to be used: does it refer to a psychological state (like "madly in love")? Or does it require this type of situation?

In Helen Fisher's work (on limerence, arguably—see here), she uses the term "romantic love" to refer to the psychological state, but doesn't require a type of situation. Love research terminology is pretty confusing.

Most people on the internet today seem to me to be using the term "limerence" to refer to "romantic" love (in the sense meant by Tennov, outlined in that book chapter by Tallis), although they're unaware that the term "romantic love" was originally invented to refer to this. In this sense, limerence is impractical love, often destructive to the person experiencing it, "unreal" in the sense that some people wouldn't even believe you if you tried to explain it to them, and so on.

As a side note, I ignored "crystallization" in my diagram because it's complicated to categorize. It seems to be a normal aspect of falling in love (related to psychological state) but the degree to which a person crystallizes is probably related to how well they know the person and how well the person fits an actual ideal.

The diagram is meant to illustrate how Tennov's concept has a number of components which are separable. One question we're wondering here is whether limerence happens inside relationships. If it does, according to Tennov's descriptions, we are also wondering if it's really the same phenomenon as limerence outside relationships.

Anxious attachment as it relates to limerence

Tennov appears to have conflated her concept with the anxious attachment style, I suppose based on misunderstanding stories she heard in interviews (i.e. people who thought they were talking about limerence because of the superficial similarities, but actually weren’t). Tennov then appears to have drawn inferences about how limerence works based on these observations. This contaminated her overall theory.

For example, on pp. 136-137 she talks quite a bit about “nonlimerents” reporting their experiences in relationships with “limerent” people, but the descriptions appear to actually pertain to anxious attachment:

But nonlimerents often find themselves the unwitting causes of suffering that seems real but that they are at a loss to comprehend. A young woman described her relationship with several men:

“It seemed that I was more in love, at least at first. I would become attracted, want to spend a lot of time with them, enjoyed the process of discovering common interests, and even found myself creatively inspired by the relationship. But after a while, things would suddenly change and I would be asked where I thought the relationship was ‘going.’ This was a question that always puzzled me, because I was quite happy about where it was and didn’t feel any need for it to be more than what it was.”

In such cases (I found that there were many), the partner seemed stricken with a kind of insatiability; it seemed that no degree of attentiveness was ever sufficient.

“For example, they would call and wonder what I was doing when I really had something to do that was important to me and had nothing to do with them. They acted as if everything I did absolutely had to involve them all the time, at every turn.
“But it is not as bad as it used to be because I have learned to be very clear and definite. I recognize the signs of trouble, and when it starts, I simply leave. After a while, maybe four or five months, I can go back and things will be civil. They simply have to learn that if they want my companionship at all, they must let me breathe.”

The word “suffocation” was used repeatedly in reports by interviewees fitting the nonlimerent pattern. As one said about “in love” lovers:

“They are always being ‘hurt,’ and it’s impossible to predict what will hurt them. I’ll have a good time at a party only to be hit on the way home with something like, ‘Why did you ignore me all evening?’ Really, it’s exasperating!” 

People on Reddit, for example, say that anxious attachment is “like walking on eggshells” and “suffocation”. They say almost the exact same things.

Another story on p. 133 sounds like two people who are anxiously attached, or maybe just young and inexperienced:

“Throughout our entire relationship, it was always apparent to me, and I believe equally apparent to Emma, that one or the other of us was more in love. Sometimes she was the one; sometimes it was me. We always seemed to know who it was. It was a very unstable situation, because as soon as she seemed interested in me, my anxiety lessened, and that nervousness that I lost turned out to be a part of the love. Or so it seemed. It was dumb. I know it was dumb, but that’s the way it went, just the same, for the whole two years before we finally broke up.” 

Another story on pp. 53-54 seems to detail the relationship between an anxious attached man (or he could be secure) and an avoidant woman:

Gregory had been married to Beatrice for 25 years and had feared that she would leave him at any moment throughout almost the entire period. This uncertainty perpetuated his limerence, providing both fear—and joy.

“I lived in constant fear of divorce. The only times I even felt at all safe were when she was pregnant or had a small child. It just didn’t seem likely that she would walk out under these conditions. Not that walking out was really the issue. I’d feel uncertain and “put out” even when there was nothing I could quite put my finger on, nothing I could actually accuse her of. I would do everything I could think of to try and win her affection. I’d buy flowers, take the kids out, mow the lawn, paint the kitchen, just about anything I thought she’d like. Sometimes she’d give me a look of real appreciation; other times she’d get angry. She was unpredictable. I could never be sure of how she’d react, whether something I’d do to please her would have the right effect or its opposite.

“And it was all done very subtly, no fighting or screaming or anything crude like that. And another thing, she was always beautiful. From the day I met her until the day she died, she was the most beautiful woman on earth. And she really was. Other men thought so, too. She never got fat or let herself go, and she wore clothes with elegance. She was a real queen and she ruled my emotions for a quarter of a century. It’s completely different now with Beth. She and I are more like equals, like really good friends.

It's also interesting that Greg reports a “completely different” relationship with Beth (who we could assume has a secure attachment style, unlike Beatrice). It could be something else too, but that's how it would be interpreted through attachment theory. It makes more sense than interpreting this as limerence.

Tennov's discussion of "uncertainty" and the Romeo and Juliet effect is actually inside this section of the book (on fear of rejection), which I think is a good indication of how Tennov is drawing inferences here.

"Uncertainty" is also sometimes interpreted as intermittent reinforcement (ala this article, though it's actually originally from a paper by Sternberg). There are other ways to interpret uncertainty theory, but when Tennov is talking about it (when she invented it), she's talking about fear of rejection, anxious attachment, playing hard-to-get and the Romeo and Juliet effect. Looking at Tennov's actual text (rather than reinterpreting it) will help us understand her theory, and also help us understand why other people have different impressions when reading it. Uncertainty theory can be reinterpreted as relating to addiction mechanics, but Tennov was not aware of this in her time and her section on uncertainty doesn't appear to be talking about this. In Tennov's original text, uncertainty mostly relates to fear of rejection and separation.

Limerence would also make a person feel anxious (or uncertain, in Tennov's nomenclature), but what's interesting about the above stories is that they actually seem to not be about limerence at all. Adult attachment styles didn't exist until the 1980s, so Tennov would not have been aware of the concept.

When Tennov introduces her fear of rejection concept (pp. 48-49), she seems to be talking about being shy or overly nervous because of limerence—with the quote from Sappho and the truck driver story. This type of thing is a component of infatuation (measured by Sandra Langeslag's infatuation scale) and Helen Fisher has a theory that this has to do with increased dopamine concentrations. It's probably a different thing from anxious attachment, which Tennov also talks about in the same section. In other words, Tennov uses the term "fear of rejection" to refer to multiple things. Some of it is related to anxious attachment, some of it isn't.

I don't think Tennov is actually trying to ascribe anxious attachment to limerence. Anxious attachment, for example, is sometimes associated with self-esteem, and Tennov seems to decry the idea that limerence is caused by low self-esteem (pp. x, 185).

I started to think that Tennov actually misunderstood these stories about anxious attachment to be limerence when they aren't. (I mean, the other possibility is that anxious attachment is supposed to be a component of limerence, but it doesn't seem so based on her other writings.)

Other authors with similar writings

In Cindy Hazan & Phil Shaver’s original 1987 paper saying that adult relationships are attachments, they suggest that an avoidant partner can make a secure partner think and feel anxious. (Similar to the story with Greg and Beatrice.)

The anxious/ambivalent subjects experienced love as involving obsession, desire for reciprocation and union, emotional highs and lows, and extreme sexual attraction and jealousy. They provided a close fit to Tennov's (1979) description of limerence and Hindy and Schwarz's (1984) conception of anxious romantic attachment, suggesting that the difference between what Tennov called love and limerence is the difference between secure and anxious/ambivalent attachment.

[...]

In general, we have probably overemphasized the degree to which attachment style and attachment-related feelings are traits rather than products of unique person-situation interactions. Attachment researchers often vacillate between using the terms secure, avoidant, and anxious/ambivalent to describe relationships and using them to categorize people. We have focused here on personal continuity, but we do not wish to deny that relationships are complex, powerful phenomena with causal effects beyond those predictable from personality variables alone. A secure person trying to build a relationship with an anxious/ambivalent person might be pushed to feel and act avoidant. An avoidant person might cause a secure partner to feel and act anxious, and so on.  

John Alan Lee has also discussed similar things in relation to love styles. (See here for introduction to love styles. Limerence is the most similar to mania.)

Eros is a conception of love centered on an expectation of intense emotional and physical attraction to the beloved. [...] If the would-be erotic love is going to succeed in this lovestyle, he or she must have a high level of self-assurance. Otherwise, the lover is likely to slip into a manic lovestyle.

Ludus (lew-dus) comes to us from the Latin (play or game) and was first described by the ancient Roman poet Ovid. [...] As with eros, the player of ludus who lacks sufficient ability is likely to slip into mania.

Mania is an obsessive, possessive, over-intense, anxious approach to love. [...] The lover is in desperate need of repeated reassurances of love, but even if these reassurances are offered, the manic lover cannot believe them. (Ideologies of Lovestyle and Sexstyle, in Romantic Love and Sexual Behavior, 1998, edited by Victor De Munck, pp. 36-37)

There is one exception to the rule of proximity: mania and ludus. They are close enough on the chart, but hold very different definitions of love. If you are looking for a happy, mutual love, these two do not match. The chart, however, is not entirely misleading about these love-styles. It is surprisingly common to find relationships in which one partner is manic, the other ludic. These two loves do have a fatal attraction for each other, and a manic-ludic match is bound to be interesting, if not happy. (Love-styles, in The Psychology of Love, 1988, edited by Robert Sternberg, p. 54)

According to analysis by Karandashev, the corresponding love attitudes can be categorized as following: eros-secure, mania-anxious, ludus-avoidant. The interactions observed by Lee can also be interpreted through attachment theory. "Slipping into mania" for Lee is like a person becoming anxiously attached.

Interestingly Lee has also written that separation can force an eros lover into mania (i.e. limerence, or it could be interpreted as separation causing attachment anxiety):

After an erotic love is more fully developed it can tolerate longer periods of separation, but the lover will never lose his reliance on physical expression. [...] A person newly in love is often tempted to test his experience to prove that it is really love. Usually such tests are based on a monotypical concept of love, and are therefore frequently mistaken and disastrous. In the case of eros, testing the love by arranging a total separation of a week is likely to shift the type of love expressed by the lover into mania, while at the same time reducing the chances of a mutual erotic response from the partner. (The Colors of Love, 1977, p. 29) 

Mania and limerence are basically the same thing, but Lee's focus on anxious attachment is more pronounced than Tennov. Lee talks about anxious attachment fairly often (saying e.g. that the manic lover needs to be often reassured of being loved), but not by name because like Tennov he was writing about this in the '70s before adult attachment styles existed. Lee also associates mania with some features which Tennov denies (jealousy, possessiveness—characteristics sometimes called obsessive love).

Lee has also written that both eros and manic lovers report intense preoccupation:

In the case of the obsessive, jealous love which I eventually labeled mania, the lover's experiences were often similar to those associated with eros as I had redefined it, but there were some important differences. Both types of lovers were emotionally upset by early encounters with the beloved, but in eros the emotions were hopeful anticipation and delight, while in mania they were emotions of hesitation and self-doubt. Eros and mania also shared intense preoccupation with the beloved, but in eros the thoughts were optimistic, while manic lovers went half way to meet trouble. (The Colors of Love, 1977, pp. 89-90)

Eros is basically a "romantic" love style in that they experience passionate love (or i.e. infatuation), but they're more secure than manic lovers. They know what they're looking for and they don't fall in love too early. It sounds to me like eros lovers are people who could experience limerence (if they made a mistake) but they have a healthier attraction pattern. See here for some other differences. Typically manic lovers recall an unhappy childhood, and eros lovers recall a happy one. (Again, like I mentioned earlier, Tennov's taxonomy is too simple and she seems to have just missed that there are people who actually fall in love in a way besides limerence. Eros is regarded as a healthy love style.)

Another similar concept here is Michael Sperling’s desperate love. Sperling has said in his master’s thesis that desperate love is not the same thing as limerence. Rather, desperate love is basically the same as mania, and can be thought of as a subset of limerence.

Whether using the term desperate love, limerence, mania, or anxious attachment, the themes of insecurity, need for reciprocation, urgency and affective extremes are common throughout. Yet even with these broad similarities there are slight but important differences which have led to use of the term desperate love. For example, in addition to the illogical construction of the word, limerence is a more general concept highlighting the need for reciprocation and affective extremes without adequately stressing the insecurity and neediness of the individual. In this sense desperate love can be thought of as a subset of limerence. Anxious attachment is described more as a style of behavior than a style of love relationship. it certainly is encompassed within the constellation of behaviors characteristic of desperate love, but is not unique to desperate love. Mania, or obsessive love, is basically descriptive of the identical phenomenon as desperate love. (Discriminant Measures for Desperate Love, Master’s Thesis, Sperling, 1983) 

Desperate love is supposed to be passionate love plus anxious attachment (again, similar to mania):

Discusses desperate love as a style of relating that incorporates the behavioral and affective dimensions of passionate love with the intrapsychic dynamics of much anxiety associated with attachment and an extraordinary need for interdependence. (Sperling, 1988) 

So overall, we can see these authors think there's some sort of a relationship between lovesickness and anxious attachment.

Going back to Hazan & Shaver's original paper, we can notice the following quote: 

...the difference between what Tennov called love and limerence is the difference between secure and anxious/ambivalent attachment. 

Hazan & Shaver were originally saying that they thought limerence and anxious attachment are the same thing.

In fact, in a 1985 book chapter, they also say this:

In Love and Limerence, Tennov contrasts "love," which other writers (e.g., Berscheid & Walster, 1974; Kelley, 1983; Walster & Walster, 1978) have called "companionate love," with "limerence"—passionate or romantic love—a phenomenon so remarkable when examined in detail that Tennov felt compelled to coin a new name for it.

So Hazan & Shaver actually considered limerence to be passionate love at this point. In 1987 then, they seem to be arguing that passionate love is anxious attachment, while calling it limerence. Since they want to say that secure attachment is "love", they call anxious attachment "limerence".

When Feeney & Noller tested this theory, they found that the anxiously attached group scored highly on their custom limerence instrument, but also found considerable overlap between all attachment styles and limerence. This study basically disproved Hazan & Shaver's theory, although Feeney & Noller present their result as if it supports the theory. (See this article for the quote from their paper and more commentary.) Feeney & Noller only showed that people with an anxious attachment style feel more intense romantic love (i.e. anxious attachment enhances limerence—something like that).

Also, just for rhetorical reasons, I want to point out that in Feeney & Noller's study, the anxiously attached group also scored high on the agape measure (self-sacrificing love). However, they don't conclude that anxious attachment and agape are related.

Reciprocation theory

Tennov appears to have basically incorporated her observations of anxious attachment into her theory that 1) the “goal” of limerence is reciprocation and 2) limerence ends when reciprocation occurs.

The objective that you as a limerent persistently pursue, as is clear in the fantasy that occupies virtually your every waking moment, is a “return of feelings.” The ecstatically blissful moment, toward which your long fantasies progress and your short fantasies depict in living color, is the moment in which LO gives what you accept as clear indication that the limerent goal has been achieved. But what actions on LO’s part are required? What, truly, does “return of feeling” mean?

Uncertainty about LO’s true reaction is an essential aspect of your own limerence. Removal of the uncertainty is the goal, and because your desire is so unrelenting, so imperative, you continually search for the meanings underlying events. (Love and Limerence, p. 57)

The goal of limerence is not possession, but a kind of merging, a “oneness,” the ecstatic bliss of mutual reciprocation. (Love and Limerence, p. 120)

In a later essay, Tennov has also plainly stated that she believes limerence ends with this perceived reciprocation:

A's condition continues to be controlled by perception of LO's behavior until [...]: [...] LO reciprocates and enters into a committed and monogamous relationship with A. However, not even marriage necessarily satisfies this condition if LO, as spouse, continues to emit behaviors interpreted by A as nonlimerence. Only if the reciprocation is sustained and believable will limerence intensity diminish. In the ideal situation, it will be replaced by another type of love.

Again, this seems based on Tennov’s perception of stories which are actually describing anxious attachment. There are actually modern authors who think romantic obsession inside a relationship is related to anxious attachment (Acevedo & Aron, Graham). If that's true, it would kind of explain whatever Tennov thought she was observing. (I'm not sure at the moment if that means limerence can actually be perpetuated inside a relationship by having an anxious attachment style, or if this type of romantic obsession would be different from limerence.)

A different, more modern theory is that limerence diminishes with habituation to the loved person (Bellamy) or is related to oxytocin (Zou et al.). This explains, for example, why limerence is perpetuated by intermittent reinforcement (Tennov, Sternberg).

One thing to note here is that Tennov thinks limerence ends with mutual limerence, but this is contradicted by the story she tells on p. 133—the supposedly mutually limerent relationship perpetuating itself uncomfortably. That story bugged me for a long time until I realized Tennov is probably talking about attachment styles without realizing it sometimes.

For what it's worth, John Lee thinks a manic lover is best paired with an eros lover. This is similar to a limerent-limerent relationship with one person having a secure style and the other anxious. From what I know about attachment styles, secure-anxious is a "correct" pairing, so Lee's recommendation is in line with other authors. Tennov might have called eros nonlimerent, but it's a good partner for a limerent person.

"Modern" limerence papers

For anyone unfamiliar with this subject, there's a string of papers which were written starting in 2008, supposedly about limerence but they're trash. They're written by fringe authors outside major journals. Most of them aren't even peer-reviewed. The people writing them don't have credentials. I have some comments on the Wikipedia talk page, if anyone wants to learn more about this: starting here and downwards. These papers are basically clumsily arguing that limerence (the construct in Tennov's book—which is actually being lovesick or madly in love) is a disorder, and they attribute its properties to other things (OCD, anxious attachment).

(By the way, OCD theory actually comes from mainstream romantic love research. See here for a list of papers.)

The misunderstanding that limerence is anxious attachment continues into the literature of these modern authors. For example, in Albert Wakin’s paper, he appears to be describing anxious attachment in places:

At this point, L’s mood becomes highly dependent on LO, spanning from the extreme of ecstasy to that of depression, rendering a distinctive pattern of affective lability. L begins to feel somewhat out of control. L may wish and even intend to reduce or stop L’s thinking and behavior, or even to terminate the relationship. However, because of the involuntary nature of limerence, L is unable to successfully execute his/her intentions, thereby inducing deep feelings of powerlessness. This creates pronounced feelings of anxiety [...]. This in turn motivates L to undertake compensatory behavior [...]. Since L’s behavior is continually recalibrated, LO’s responsive feedback is correspondingly altered, resulting in more uncertainty and anxiety, ultimately perpetuating the overall cycle. L’s increasing preoccupation with and absorption in LO becomes such that L withdraws from and neglects other aspects of his/her life, resulting in his/her functioning being impaired. However, since L is unable to successfully reduce or stop his/her thinking and behavior despite the desire and intention to do so, L is confronted with deep feelings of shame and guilt. To reconcile the cognitive dissonance that involves remaining in a relationship despite evident discomfort and distress, L is likely to cope by cognitively justifying the overall experience by placing greater emphasis and importance on the relationship. This further increases the acuteness and urgency for emotional reciprocation, thereby reinitiating the entire limerent cycle and subjecting L to a type of self-entrapment.

Wakin has also stated in internet articles that limerence actually never ends, even with reciprocation:

"A man or woman suffering from limerence is in a constant state of compulsory longing for another person," Wakin tells me over the phone. "It doesn't matter if their affection is returned; nothing will satiate their need for emotional reciprocation."

He has never presented evidence for this. If this theory is based on real observations, it could be like Tennov, i.e. actually observations of anxious attachment in relationships.

Robin Banker’s theory is largely derived from the attachment theory papers by Hazan & Shaver and Feeney & Noller as well as superficial comparisons between limerence and anxious attachment. (Also comparisons with “perfectionism”—basically narcissism—see here.) However, she ignores the fact that Feeney & Noller found limerence across all attachment styles. Banker lays down her argument on pp. 52-54 of her paper (pp. 60-62 of the pdf) if you want to read it. Her entire paper is just her making stuff up without evidence.

Willmott & Bentley refer to Sperling as if desperate love is comparable to limerence:

Limerence may also be associated with attachment disorders, as recognised by Sperling (1985) in his description of Desperate Love (akin to Limerence), with the potential role of early caregiver attachments highlighted regarding some positive, but mostly negative experiences (Willmott & Bentley, 2012).

Willmott & Bentley also seem to not understand what the psychological state of limerence denotes, as they describe it this way:

The [limerence] themes primarily regard experiences of ruminative thinking, free floating anxiety and depression temporarily fixated and the disintegration of the self. These themes are further linked to an inclination to reintegrate unresolved past life(s) experiences and to progress to a state of greater authenticity (i.e., being truer to one's inner self). A paradigm shift is identified in the realization that both a real and idealized Limerent Object are involved which may relate to attachment anxieties.

They might have presupposed that limerence is related to anxious attachment, so they describe it in terms of rumination and attachment anxiety. However, limerence is so much more than that. One of Tom Bellamy's readers says "I feel like I'm going crazy". Here's a story from Reddit which I think is useful. It's unclear how Willmott & Bentley's description relates to a story like that.

Bradbury et al. is also under a misconception that desperate love is the same thing as limerence:

Limerence has also been defined as an attachment disorder (Sperling 1985) and a separation anxiety disorder (5th ed.; DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association 2013) (Willmott and Bentley 2015).

Bradbury even falsely attributes this claim that limerence is an “attachment disorder” to Sperling. All of these people just make things up like this. Recall that Sperling says that desperate love and limerence are actually different things in his paper (the one Bradbury cites). Sperling specifically says that limerence doesn’t have the same qualities of “insecurity and neediness of the individual” he attributes to desperate love.

I suppose that none of these authors has ever experienced love madness to understand what state limerence is actually supposed to denote. Their material is almost entirely based on superficial semantic comparisons (like "this sounds similar to that"), usually in reference to Tennov's material, and almost never in relation to real cases.

Lynn Willmott's paper isn't a scientific study. There's no hypothesis testing or experiment. The worst part about her paper is that she never actually asked her subjects what attachment style they have, whether they actually had childhood trauma or what their relationship was with their parents.

There is some real research on attachment styles (linked at the beginning of the article) and even on childhood trauma (from John Lee's research, because he asked people if their childhood was happy or not). These limerence papers are just bad papers.

For good measure, here are also some examples of contemporary internet authors who seem to think limerence is related to anxious attachment:

[...] having an anxious attachment style or expecting another person to fill the inner void caused in childhood, may increase the likelihood of experiencing limerence.

Importantly, limerence is not caused by the LO – it’s caused by the limerent’s anxiety and insecurities. (Simply Psychology)

Limerence is distinct from love as it tends to includes idealising the object of affection (the “limerent object”), experiencing intrusive thoughts about them, and an intense desire for reciprocation, which are not primary elements of secure love. When delving into this complex emotional state, we find intricate layers of emotions and motivations, including attachment issues. (North Brisbane Psychologists)

In relationships, someone with an anxious attachment style experiences preoccupation with the relationship and their partner, is emotionally dependent, and has low self-esteem. They base their self-esteem on the approval and acceptance of others, which creates a strong fear of rejection and failure to please their partner. This is very similar to the profile of limerence and, thus, in many cases, it’s likely that limerence stems from an anxious attachment style. (Attachment Project) 

As outlined here, however, this problem even dates back to Tennov’s original material.