Limerence as a love style

This article is superseded by a newer article (a larger excerpt of the same draft). Read this instead: Defining limerence: harmonious, passionate and obsessive love.

Note: this is a draft excerpt from a larger article that I'm writing. In the larger article I deal with limerence as a clinical construct (what some people compare to OCD), but this is an excerpt of only the sections dealing with limerence as a way to "fall" in love—i.e. the way Dorothy Tennov deals with it in her book.

Limerence is actually adaptive?

Bellamy (2025, pp. 94–97; also Pinker, 2009, pp. 414–419, 500–501, 641, using "romantic love") argues that limerence can be explained using the handicap principle. This principle states that a real signal can only evolve if it's too expensive to fake. If a signal is too easy to fake, then fakers become so common that the real signal becomes worthless. In this view, limerence leaves a person so "insanely besotted", "like handcuffing oneself to railroad tracks" to prove one's love is truly real, signaling true commitment.

Fisher (2016, pp. 19–20, 33, 35, 41, 131–133, 138, 151, 236) believes that limerence evolved so that fathers would stay with mothers to provide them resources while pregnant and caring for an infant.

Why does limerence seem maladaptive today? Because extreme early commitment is only desirable in a certain kind of culture. Tennov was doing her research at the end of the baby boom, when marriage rates were high, when the average age of marriage was extremely low, and consequently there was a corresponding rise in divorce:

By the 1960s marriage had become nearly universal in North America and Western Europe, with 95% of all persons marrying, as people married younger, life spans lengthened, and divorce rates fell or held steady. This was a unique period in Western history when marriage provided the context for every piece of most people's lives. The norm of youthful marriage was so predominant during the 1950s that an unmarried woman as young as twenty-one might worry that she would end up an "old maid." Many men and women enjoyed the experience of courting their own mates, getting married at will, and setting up their own households; married couples were independent of extended family ties and community groups. This was even true for different socioeconomic and ethnic groups (Coontz 2005, pp. 226–228). So when instability of the love-based marriage reasserted itself in the 1970s, people were surprised.

The age of marriage rose, yet divorce rates accelerated and doubled between 1966 and 1979. (Karandashev, 2017, pp. 167–168)

This is echoed by Tennov, who attributes this to a possible rise in limerent relationships:

The nineteenth century saw a romantic revolt against marriages arranged by families, in which the talented or beautiful could be matched with the wealthy, or adjacent lands could be joined by family ties. Indeed, many of the practices which separated the sexes and thus facilitated arranged marriages could be interpreted as aids to the prevention of limerence and, especially, to the prevention of limerence-inspired decisions that disrupt the social order. That divorce should increase, as it has in this century, may be an inevitable consequence of the selection of marriage partners by limerence—not merely because the limerent eye overfocuses on the attractive features of LO, but also because the same logic that says marry where your heart leads also says divorce and remarry where your heart leads. (Tennov, 1999, p. 143)

We can imagine that as there's more and more selection pressure to pair bond as early and as desperately as possible, limerence becomes more and more valuable. (By the way, is this why limerence might be associated with an unhappy childhood?)

Based on the idea that limerence occurs when reciprocation is uncertain (Tennov, 1999, p. 44–47, 56–57; Bellamy, 2025) limerence might be adaptive when falling in love with a person who is on the fence (they might or might not reciprocate) would motivate the limerent person to engage in the legitimate courtship behaviors necessary to further pursue that potential relationship (Tennov, 1999, p. 123; Fisher et al., 2002; Fisher et al., 2006).

However, this type of commitment is not valuable in modern dating culture, where the early stage of a relationship is supposed to be as non-committal is possible, and people are marrying later and later.

Limerence as a love style

Tennov (1998, 2001, 2005) defines limerence in terms of an "algorithm" or set of laws. Limerence starts before a relationship, and may take one of four pathways, largely depending on the LO's behavior:

1. all hope of reciprocation is ended, so that limerence ends.
2. the limerent person enters a relationship with the LO, and limerence ends if reciprocation is adequate.
3. limerence is "transferred" to a different LO.
4. unrequited limerence turns into a lovesickness or addiction, probably usually when reinforcement occurs which is spurious and/or intermittent (Bellamy, 2025).

The mechanics of this are explained more in the limerence Wikipedia article.

This definition of limerence may be understood as a "love style" or type of "love story", similar to or the same as John Alan Lee's concept of the mania love style (Lee, 1973; Tallis, 2005, pp. 41–43, 93; Feeney & Noller, 1990).

How limerence compares to other types of love

To be in the state of limerence is to feel what is usually termed "being in love." (Tennov, 1999, p. 16) Experientially, it is a state of being "in love." (Tennov, 2005, p. 311) The condition is commonly referred to as "being in love", "romantic love", or "passionate love". Those terms may also refer to states other than the state identified as "limerence". (Tennov, 2005, p. 14)

Yet, Tennov does not usually attempt to explain what the other ways to be in love actually are, aside from what she identifies as "affectional bonding", but other ways have been identified by other research.

Limerence should not be contrasted with "being in love" (as if "being in limerence" and "being in love" are different things), because there actually seems to be quite a few—at least two or three—other ways to experience love feelings besides limerence. Rather, limerence is one of at least several.

To understand if limerence is different from passionate love, we have to first define "passionate love", which makes it necessary to explain all of this. (We will see that if there is any difference at all between limerence and passionate love, the difference is very pedantic.)

It could be sufficient here to consider limerence the same as Lee's mania and contrast it with Lee's typology (which was based on a scientific study—Lee, 1973; also see Karandashev, 2022 for public article), but instead I'm going to present a slightly modified version of Lee's typology which is more useful, along with some brief arguments for why this is correct.

• Limerence: involves falling madly in love or being smitten before you have a relationship, and then having to try to get into one. Limerence turns into a lovesickness or love addiction if it goes on for too long when unrequited. Salience is intensified by intermittent reinforcement from uncertainty of reciprocation (Bellamy, 2025; Sternberg, 1987; Robinson & Berridge, 2025).

• Eros: involves falling in love inside a relationship with physical attraction, sex and intimacy, all of which seem to be related to salience from oxytocin activity in reward areas (Lee, 1973; Bode & Kavanaugh, 2023; Love, 2015; Scheele et al., 2013; Acevedo et al., 2020). According to Lee (1973), typical eros lovers are in search of a physical appearance they consider ideal, but they're self-assured not to fall in love until they actually get into a relationship. Lee (1973) associates eros with love at first sight based on recalled self-reports, but research has shown this recollection might be a memory confabulation (Zsok et al., 2017). Oxytocin enhances physical attractiveness of a partner (Scheele et al., 2013).

• Self-expansion: is the idea that people have a basic drive to expand their self-concept, and that incorporating the traits of their partner is a source of romantic feelings. Self-expansion has been shown to correlate with love feelings and brain activity (Emery et al., 2025; Acevedo et al., 2011; Sheets, 2013; Tsapelas et al., 2020), so it does seem to actually be another source of attraction and "falling" in love. Falling in love with a person because they're interesting or admirable (rather than physically attractive) would be explained by self-expansion.

• Practical friendship: does not involve "falling" in love, but rather a kind of friendship love with low passion. Lee (1973) splits this into two love styles: storge and pragma, but Graham (2010) found these to be the same or related in a factor analysis. Practical friendship involves a committed sexual relationship with somebody that you're not "in love" with, because they meet some other criteria. They might be a good friend, or you think they're a good parent, or they might just have resources you want.

• Ludus: game-playing and juggling multiple partners (Lee, 1973). This is different from "hooking up" because a ludic lover has "girlfriends" or "boyfriends", but they just never like to get too close to any one person.

• Compassionate love: is love defined as concern or caring for another person (Berscheid, 2010). This is how Tennov (1999, pp. 15, 71, 130) usually defines the word "love".

Note that here I am using "eros" in a way reminiscent of Lee's eros love style. In other contexts, "eros" might refer to other things. For example, de Rougemont (1983) uses "eros" to refer to a kind of ideology of love passion, which he contrasts with "agape" for Christian love. There are few (if any) terms in the literature on love which are not at least a little bit polysemous.

Limerence, eros and self-expansion involve "falling in love" and "being in love", but note that these are not necessarily mutually exclusive either. For example, both eros and self-expansion can turn into limerence. Limerence with a powerful physical attraction is called "manic eros" in Lee's (1973) expanded typology, and self-expansion is believed by Aron & Aron (1986, p. 59) to be one cause for limerence. According to Tennov (1999, 2001), limerence can also occur inside relationships if there is inadequate reciprocation. Two studies (Feeney & Noller, 1990; Wolf, 2017) have also found association between limerence and compassionate love as measured by the agape love attitude (selfless, all-giving love). This accords with Tennov (1999, p. 120) that "In fully developed limerence, you feel additionally what is, in other contexts as well, called love—an extreme degree of feeling that you want LO to be safe, cared for, happy, and all those other positive and noble feelings".

Tennov's descriptions of affectional bonding may actually correspond to any of eros, self-expansion or practical friendship.

One of the issues with trying to define a love taxonomy like this is that the love styles in a society are always a moving target due to cultural practices (Tennov, 1999, p. 175; Karandashev, 2017; Lee, 1998). Some of the more friendship-oriented styles seem to have emerged in the 20th century, probably with the advent of modern dating and feminism (Karandashev, 2017; Giddens, 2000). Before this, people were still free to choose marriage partners in recent centuries, but courtship practices were different (Karandashev, 2017). Another example was during the Middle Ages, when eros was suppressed by the church so that marriages tended to be practical or arranged (pragma) while limerence (mania) was idealized in courtly love literature (Lee, 1974) because limerence cannot be suppressed altogether. For this kind of reason, it's even possible that a taxonomy of love styles has changed since Lee's (1973) research, or that Lee's taxonomy was not quite right because he designed his instrument (the Love Story Card Sort) based on historical writings (Lee, 1977). Hendrick & Hendrick (1993) e.g. believed the prevalence of friendship love in their study was recent.

A soft argument for the social construction of love styles (Lee, 1998) is as simple as accepting the proposition that culture restricts behavior, that behavior leads to situations, and situations cause mental states: culture→behavior→situations→mental states. This should be an easy proposition to accept. Tennov (1999, pp. 175, 263–264) clearly accepts a proposition like this. I explained earlier as well how a limerent person might be more or less likely to get into a relationship with an LO based on cultural factors.

There are actually still yet some other types of love styles (or ways to be "in love"), but those listed above are likely the most common nowadays. Hendrick & Hendrick (1993) found that Lee's mania was quite rare in a study of people inside relationships, so this suggests to me that Tennov's limerence (which usually occurs outside relationships) is the more common occurrence than mania—when mania is interpreted as a type of relationship as the Hendricks do. Lee (1975) considered mania the same as courtly love, which is actually like limerence (Tallis, 2005, p. 93). It is also possible that some cases of limerence were (mis)classified as eros by the coders in Hendrick & Hendrick, 1993.

Limerence can be understood as a kind of statistical mode (or most common case) of what falling in love outside of a relationship is like. This is evidenced by Tennov's assertions that limerence is normal and at least relatively common. Tennov (1999, 2005) interviewed 500 people and the pattern emerged as a fairly common one. It's important here that limerence is in fact intended as a love style which turns into a lovesickness that's potentially distressing and debilitating, but it's intended as the "normal" or most common case of this. Another similar (Reis & Sprecher, 2009) romantic love style is that of "obsessive love" or "obsessive love disorder", which Tennov (1999, p. 90, 2005, p. 314) contends is a limerence "augmented and distorted" by other psychiatric conditions if it's limerence at all. Tennov (2005, pp. 314, 371) claims to have no data in her database on whether limerence is related to increased violence and is not sure if a Fatal Attraction case qualifies under the definition of limerence.

I would also further add here the research on brain opioids (Bode, 2023, Machin & Dunbar, 2011) which constitute "liking" or pleasure and seem to be involved with romantic love, but very little is known about this based on the research available. Acevedo et al. (2011) found an area of the brain which they identified as a hedonic hotspot (with opiate receptors) active in fMRI scans of participants who claimed to be "madly" in love but were actually not obsessed with their partners. Brain opioids seem to me to correspond to the concept of "affection", as yet another type of love feeling.

Some people think that limerence is supposed to be distinguished from "falling in love", yet there are many ways to fall in love besides limerence. It's only that one might be preferred over another, but which one is preferred? I do not personally prefer limerence, yet according to Tennov (2005), limerence is in fact preferred by some, even being considered the "greatest happiness". Tom Bellamy claims to have married his LO, and they are still married (Bellamy, 2023).

Is "passionate love" a synonym for limerence?

As already mentioned, Tennov is complaining that "passionate love" is used both to refer to limerence, but also to some other ways of being in love. There are actually two contentions here. One is an issue of whether eros (as defined above) or self-expansion ought to be called "passionate love"; the other is an issue that "passionate love" refers both to limerence (before a relationship) and to the "infatuation" period which might occur inside a committed relationship.

Bode & Kavanaugh (2025) identified a group who seemed to fall intensely in love after their relationship began. Something important to underscore is that an infatuation period like this (which might be described as a "rollercoaster" of emotions) may function identically according to the neuroscience of limerence and uncertainty theory (Tennov, 1999; Bellamy, 2025) as far as anyone knows in this literature. Bajoghli et al. (2014) found people in this stage of their relationship were not always having a good time. Passionate love in this early stage may be related to insecurities in the relationship (Acevedo & Aron, 2009; Dugan et al., 2024; Poore, 2009; Poore et al., 2012; Bellamy, 2025). Livingston (1980) published a theory of uncertainty inside relationships which Sternberg (1987) likened to Tennov's theory of limerence.

Brief history of the modern "passionate love" idea

In 1988 Elaine Hatfield published a book chapter "Passionate and Companionate Love" in which she considers a litany of constructs synonymous under "being in love", and this more general idea became standard in academic love research (Tallis, 2005, pp. 47–48); however, this combining of all love feelings into "passionate love" is called into question by later research (Acevedo & Aron, 2009; Graham, 2010; Acevedo et al., 2011).

The issue is plainly apparent in the original text of the book chapter, to anyone familiar with this. 

In the literature, a recurring distinction is made between two types of love—passionate love (sometimes termed "puppy love," "a crush," "lovesickness," "obsessive love," "infatuation," or "being in love") versus companionate love (sometimes termed "true love") ... Researchers have labeled these two types of love in various ways—passionate versus companionate love (Hatfield & Walster, 1978), romantic versus conjugal love (Burgess, 1926), eros/mania versus storge/pragma (Lee, 1977), unreasonable versus unreasonable love (Lilar, 1965), and deficiency love versus being love (Maslow, 1954).

In this chapter, we will use the terms passionate love and companionate love to designate the two basic types. Hatfield and Walster (1978) define passionate love this way: "A state of intense longing for union with another. Reciprocated love (union with the other) is associated with fulfillment and ecstasy. Unrequited love (separation) with emptiness, anxiety, or despair. A state of profound physiological arousal" (p. 9). Companionate love is defined as "the affection we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply entwined" (p. 9). Companionate love has been described as involving friendship, understanding, and a concern for the welfare of the other (Safilios-Rothschild, 1977).

Tennov (1979) interviewed more than five hundred passionate lovers. Almost all lovers took it for granted that passionate love (which Tennov labels "limerence") is a bittersweet experience. (Hatfield, 1988, pp. 191, 197)

Something to note here is that because storge & pragma do not explicitly involve love feelings (Graham, 2010), the consideration of "eros/mania versus storge/pragma" in this text would make passionate-companionate a distinction of "being in love" versus friendship, not a distinction of infatuation versus attachment. This is a problem in love research taxonomies, because many other authors consider passionate-companionate synonymous with infatuation-attachment (e.g. Langeslag, 2024; Diamond, 2003) which is actually different. Storge/pragma may also not necessarily involve deep affection.

All these different types of love do not actually line up very neatly. Passionate-companionate love can be thought of as a classification, rather than a scientific theory. "The terms passionate and companionate are intentionally broad headings" (Tallis, 2005, p. 47).

Acevedo & Aron (2009) showed that the instrument designed by Elaine Hatfield (the Passionate Love Scale, or PLS) actually measures two distinguishable types of love feelings: obsessive and non-obsessive. Passionate love with obsession is correlated with relationship satisfaction in short-term relationships, but satisfaction decreases over a longer time-period. This obsession which turns sour inside a relationship is believed to be related to anxious attachment (Graham, 2010; Hendrick & Hendrick, 2006, pp. 156–157; Bellamy, 2025). Acevedo & Aron (2009) and Acevedo et al. (2011) also showed that love feelings without obsession can sustain long-term.

• PLS Obsession: "Sometimes I feel I can't control my thoughts; they are obsessively on ____."
• PLS Obsession: "An existence without ____ would be dark and dismal."
• PLS Obsession: "I get extremely depressed when things don't go right in my relationship with ____."
• PLS Non-obsession: "I want ____—physically, emotionally, and mentally."
• PLS Non-obsession: "For me, ____ is the perfect romantic partner."
• PLS Non-obsession: "____ can make me feel effervescent and bubbly."

On pages 209–210 of Love and Limerence, Tennov uses a survey question "I was (am) terrible afraid that ____ would stop loving me." (p. 212) to estimate the prevalence of limerence, which is actually similar to these questions on the PLS obsession factor. Tennov refers to this as "fear of rejection".

Now, one thing that's complicated to understand with love research instruments is that they do not line up neatly with each other. The issues are acknowledged, but I have not seen anyone give a clear explanation, so I will try to give my own as briefly as possible.

In Robert Vallerand's dualistic model of passion (Ratelle et al., 2012; Paquette et al., 2020), a person experiencing "harmonious" passion feels positive and in control, whereas a person experiencing "obsessive" passion feels a loss of control and interference with their life. Ratelle et al. (2012) extended this with a measure of harmonious and obsessive passion in relationships, for example:

• Obsessive: "My mood depends on whether I can see my partner."
• Obsessive: "I have almost obsessive feelings for my partner."
• Obsessive: "I have difficulty imagining my life without my partner."
• Harmonious: "My partner allows me to live memorable experiences."
• Harmonious: "I’m completely carried away by my relationship with my partner."
• Harmonious: "The new things that I discover within our relationship allows me to appreciate my partner even more."

We may observe that the PLS obsession factor resembles obsessive passion, and the PLS non-obsession factor resembles harmonious passion. Another similar distinction (Paquette et al., 2020; Acevedo & Aron, 2009) is between the Love Attitudes Scale subscales for mania (obsessive) and eros (harmonious). So there are several instruments with this type of distinction. Another instrument with a measure of harmonious passion is the Triangular Love Scale (TLS), but the TLS does not measure obsessive passion.

Graham (2010) found that harmonious passion (TLS passion & LAS eros) actually lined up in a factor analysis with TLS intimacy & commitment, suggesting they're all related. Also, the TLS intimacy items seem to measure the same thing as Langeslag et al.'s (2012) attachment items. Graham found LAS mania lined up on a separate obsession factor. (In Graham's study, the entire PLS lined up with harmonious passion, but Graham did not consider PLS obsession and non-obsession separately. If Graham had considered the PLS factors separately, the obsession factor would have obviously aligned with LAS mania.)

Overall, what we know here is that there are at least two things: harmonious love feelings which are related to intimacy/attachment, and obsessive or passionate love feelings which are different. However, this distinction is somewhat different from passionate-companionate love as originally posited by Hatfield (1988), because harmonious love feelings involve actual love feelings (of a particularly positive kind). One interpretation is that harmonious love is neither passionate nor companionate but rather something in between (unidentified by Hatfield in 1988); another interpretation is that harmonious love is companionate love, and companionate love can involve strong love feelings rather than friendship. This is a semantic problem which nobody has resolved yet.

These love feelings without obsession (harmonious, intimacy/attachment) are being regarded as core love feelings. Acevedo & Aron (2009) refer to this as "romantic love", although this is semantic drift because "romantic love" has other very different connotations (read Tallis, 2005, ch. 4). It's just "love" or "attachment", but it's possible that this also involves a bit of some kind of infatuation (see Langeslag et al., 2012). It could be called "harmonious love" according to Vallerand's idea.

However, with a consideration of the history and etymology of "love passion" and "passionate love", the idea of a harmonious "love passion" appears to be a misnomer.

What is "love passion", really?

Berscheid & Walster (1974, p. 359, i.e. Hatfield) say that passion is a "hodgepodge of conflicting emotions", and believe that unpleasant emotional experiences are facilitators of passion. This text (a tentative theory of passionate love) also has a review of the Romeo and Juliet effect, cited by Tennov (1999, p. 56). Hatfield & Walster (1985, pp. 58, 103–105) also believe that suffering and inconsistency intensify passion, with an early theory of intermittent reinforcement and maltreatment (essentially like trauma bonding, before it was given a name). The limerence community is aware of this idea, but unaware that Hatfield is the first one to publish a theory of it, before Tennov. (A New Look at Love is also in Tennov's bibliography.) In other words, this has been around for awhile, and it is part of passionate love theory.

Observers disagree, passionately, about the types of emotional experiences that are most likely to fuel passion. Most insist that passionate love is inexorably intertwined with joy and fulfillment. A few insist that passionate love and agony are virtually synonymous. (Indeed, the original meaning of passion was agony—as in Christ's passion.) Social psychologists would argue that both intense join and intense suffering can contribute to passion. Both intensely joyous and intensely painful experiences are physiologically arousing: reassurance, sexual pleasure, challenge, and excitement are arousing, as are anxiety, fear, frustration, jealousy, anger, and total confusion. Under the right conditions, both joy and anguish should have the potential for deepening passion. (Hatfield & Walster, 1985, p. 58)

This is more formalized by Hatfield (1988) in her component listing (similar to Tennov's) with "positive feelings when things go well"/"negative feelings when things go awry". Later, this is conceptualized as a motivational state which produces different emotions depending on the context (Aron et al., 2005; Bode & Kushnick, 2021; Langeslag, 2024).

Poore (2009) is the first author to relate this (and limerence theory) to reward prediction error (RPE), before Bellamy (2025). Very briefly, RPE is the dopamine signal indicating whether a received reward is either better, equal to, or worse than expected, rather than a reward per se (Schultz, 2000; Schultz, 2022). For reference, Poore (2009, abstract, p. x) considers "romantic passion" as "a.k.a. attachment anxiety", although I think Bellamy's (2025) analysis is more comprehensive.

Poore (2009, 2012) found that attachment security reversals of expectations cause reward prediction error signaling in the brain which is consistent with limerence theory (Bellamy, 2025). The current theory is that these attachment-reciprocal-related events intensify incentive salience ("wanting") via intermittent reinforcement of perceiving either reciprocation or not (Tennov, 1999, pp. 44–47; Tennov, 1998; Tennov, 2001; Bellamy, 2025; Robinson & Berridge, 2025). Poore's participants were not explicitly experiencing passionate love, but the experiment is important because if the result had been negative it would have likely falsified limerence theory.

Other evidence and a comprehensive theory that passionate love involves the attachment system is reviewed by Bode & Kushnick (2021) and Bode (2023). Hazan & Shaver (1987) have been saying this kind of thing for awhile, but without a formalized theory such as those synthesized by Poore (2009) or Bellamy (2025); however, according to Bellamy's (2025, pp. pp. 70–72, 86, back cover) newer analysis, limerence (passionate love) is a unique state which is different from the anxious attachment style. The tendency for anxiously-attached individuals to experience limerence (passionate love) more often (Bellamy, 2025) might be explained by different mentalizing (Fonagy, 2023) which is one possible avenue connecting attachment style to uncertainty theory.

Note that limerence seems to begin, however, for other reasons. Tennov (1999) talks about an initial focus on an LO's "admirable qualities" (p. 44), which may be physical attraction (p. 45). Berscheid & Walster (1974, p. 358) and Hatfield & Walster (1985, p. 58) discuss the importance of a rewarding fantasy, and several authors (Freud, Reik; Hatfield & Walster, 1985, p. 59) believe unhappiness and emotional deprivation is a vulnerability. Aron & Aron (1986, p. 59) believe the potential for self-expansion is a component. According to Tennov (1999, pp. 44–47), uncertain reciprocation goes on to intensify the reaction.

The idea that an "obsessive thinking system" (Bode, 2023) is related to attachment anxiety and addiction (which are related, according to the above arguments) may be a substantial improvement over the older idea of serotonin (ala Fisher et al., 2002). See Bode et al. (2025) for a modern revision of the evidence on serotonin. Bode found that SSRI use had no association with frequency of obsessive thinking. As a different theoretical basis, I would suggest Tallis (2005, p. 79), who wrote that obsessive thinking "ensures that the loved one is not forgotten" (...to prevent separation?), and additionally Tennov (1999, p. 247) wrote that fantasy (based in reality) "can be conceived as intricate strategy planning" (...for reward?). 

Historically, "passionate love" has been used to refer to limerence. Stendhal wrote in French, using l'amour-passion (Singer, 2009, p. xxii), translated as "passion-love" (Rougemont, 1983, p. 224) or "passionate love" (Tennov, 1999, p. 29). Stendhal's writing (De l'Amour) was the first substantial work on limerence, according to Tennov (1999, p. 171). Denis de Rougemont (1983; originally 1939) was a Swiss author who wrote in French, and also translated into English as "passionate love". De Rougemont wrote about limerence, essentially with the complaint that it breaks up marriages: "And yet actually passionate love is a misfortune. In this respect manners have undergone no change for centuries, and the community still drives passionate love in nine cases out of ten to take the form of adultery." (p. 16). Passionate love, according to de Rougemont, is a kind of "love of death" requiring obstruction (cf. Tennov, 1999, p. 56): "The most serious obstruction is thus the one preferred above all. It is the one most suited to intensifying passion. At this extreme, furthermore, the wish to part assumes an emotional value greater than that of passion itself. Death, in being the goal of passion, kills it." (p. 44). De Rougemont is quoted in Love and Limerence (p. 15): "being in love ... is a state; the other [love as concern], an act, and an act is chosen, not something merely endured." Arthur Schopenhauer was translated (1958) as "passionate love" discussing suicide (p. 532), "and adultery is committed recklessly when passionate love, in other words the interest of the species, has taken possession of them" (p. 552).

I do not know enough about the history of the term to know how closely it's linked to limerence before Elaine Hatfield's writings, that is, how often it was used to refer to the kind of phenomenon I've described here versus other things. Tennov's complaint (e.g. 2005, p. 14) is that sometimes these terms refer to limerence, but sometimes they don't. What I mean to convey here is what I think is the "true" intended meaning of "love passion". Johnson (2013, pp. 147–148; originally, 1983) states that "Suffering seems to be an inseparable part of romance ... Even our word passion originally meant 'to suffer.' ... The very nature of romance seems to require that it be lived in the face of impossible odds, terrible obstacles, and inhuman adversities. Finding their romance impossible in the physical world, many of the archetypal lovers, like Romeo and Juliet, choose to die together."

The use of "passionate love" to refer to the infatuation or honeymoon period of a relationship seems to be a recent thing, possibly originating from Elaine Hatfield's passionate-companionate love theory. It seems to me that Hatfield construed passionate love as the only way to be "in love". From her writings, she was obviously writing about something like limerence. Several authors have noted the similarity (Aron & Aron, 1986, pp. 58–59; Tallis, 2005, p. 48). In other words, Hatfield understood what limerence was when she read the book. It was the other ways to be "in love" that she actually didn't know about. Some authors around this period (Fisher as well) seem to have construed limerence as "true love" because of its intensity, probably according to a romantic belief structure (see Tallis, 2005, ch. 4). Because of that, they would have assumed reciprocated love must resemble limerence when it's a "true love". The fact that harmonious love is actually different was only revealed by later research (Acevedo & Aron, 2009; Acevedo et al., 2011).

At first glance, readers might now think to themselves that "if passionate love is the result of an insecure attachment, then it must not be love"; however, consider that all romantic love according to the broadest definition is mother-infant bonding (Bode & Kushnick, 2021; Bode, 2023), and that romantic love is not necessarily dyadic, social, or interpersonal (Langeslag, 2024). A mother ought to love her baby even if it's unrequited; rather, even if a mother is rejected by her baby, perhaps the mother ought to love her baby all the more. This makes it seem that passionate and unrequited love have always been a potential way to be in love, for as long as being in love has existed. According to Pismenny (2020), romantic love is essentially amoral.

Tennov (2005, pp. 327, 337, 339, 343) considers that "Reports of first limerence occurring later in life leads to the speculation that a universal potential (proximate mechanism) exists that is not always triggered into action." and that the Westermarck effect (childhood intimacy with a person prevented adult limerence for that person) "is consistent with the idea that limerence is a human universal rather than the result of a culture 'saturated' with romantic love in its stories and songs." We can also safely assume that unrequited love is a normal human experience. One study found that 92.8% of participants reported at least one "powerful or moderate" experience of unrequited love in the past 5 years (Baumeister et al., 1993) and another study found that unrequited love was four times more frequent than equal love (Bringle et al., 2013). Jankowiak & Fischer (1992) found reports of romantic (passionate) love in 87% of cultures surveyed, and among their conditions were "accounts depicting personal anguish and longing". The authors state that the lack of reports for the remaining 13% of cultures may have been due to ethnographic oversight, rather than genuine absence. These authors refer to Tennov in their paper.

In an earlier section, I reviewed why/when limerence is adaptive according to several arguments by different authors.

For all these reasons, limerence is a natural consequence of human evolution. Limerence (passionate love) is not necessarily good (Pismenny, 2020), but it's a human universal or near-universal (Tennov, 1998, p. 78; Jankowiak & Fischer, 1992; Fisher, 1998; Fisher, 2016, pp. 20, 33–35; Fisher et al., 2016). 

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