Are You in Love, or in Limerence?

Don’t end up like Scarlett O’Hara.

Painting © Carlyn Beccia | www.CarlynBeccia.com

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You know in the first three minutes of meeting someone if they will become a friend, foe, lover, or remain a stranger. That is the power of lust at first sight. Or what many call infatuation. In just 180 seconds, a stranger can cease to be strange.

When I met my ex-boyfriend, I took less than a minute to morph a stranger into a lover. You could have thrown a thousand roadblocks in my way, and I would have bulldozed through them.

And there were plenty of roadblocks. He was 11 years younger than me and had never seen Gone with the Wind (gasp!) He was from a very Catholic family that would never accept a divorced woman. Oh, and there was the minor inconvenience that he didn’t really want a relationship.

Fiddle-dee-dee… as Scarlett O’Hara would say. I would “think about that tomorrow.” It took eighteen months of tomorrows to finally see the truth — I had fallen in love with a mirage. Or, as Scarlett took a whole novel to realize, “I loved something I made up.”

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Limerence vs. Love

Everyone goes through an infatuation period where just the sound of our lover’s laughter can put stars in our eyes. Infatuations are often harmless and lead to deeper feelings. Problems only arise when we never mature past that infatuation period. That is when we fail to see the person behind the fantasy. That is also when a more dangerous side of infatuation can rear its beastly head — limerence.

The term limerence was coined in 1979 by psychologist Dorothy Tennov to describe obsessive love marked by extreme fantasizing. It is so extreme that you hyperfocus on your crush, and the thought of that person not returning your affection breeds more obsessive thoughts. Limerence leads to a free fall that many can’t stop for one simple reason — it is not tied to reality.

What Gone with the Wind can teach us about limerance

Author Margaret Mitchell borrowed the title Gone with the Wind from a line in Ernest Dowson’s poem, Cynara— “I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind…”

Cynara speaks of love as an incurable disease that will ultimately bring death. It’s a poem about limerence. Given the storyline in the movie, the title makes perfect sense.

In Gone with the Wind, Scarlett is obsessed with Ashley Wilkes, even though they are clearly wrong for each other. Ashley wants a simple girl, and Scarlett is anything but simple. She is all spitfire, and he is just…spit.

Scarlett does not understand she has wasted years chasing an illusion until the end of the novel when she loses Rhett Butler.

Mitchell writes, “Now she had a fumbling knowledge that, had she ever understood Ashley, she would never have loved him; had she ever understood Rhett, she would never have lost him.”

And that is the true danger in limerence. You become so myopic in your pursuit that you no longer see the person you are pursuing. Not only do you not see the person you are chasing, but you also miss out on the people who are a better catch.

Signs you are in love with the idea of someone

Although Scarlett O’Hara is an admirable character in many ways, she really screws up her love life. You don’t want to end up like her. Here are some questions to ask yourself if you think you are in danger of loving an ideal instead of a real person.

Is the wrapper better than the meat?

When reporters teased Albert Einstein for his disheveled appearance, he retorted, “It would be a sad situation if the wrapper were better than the meat wrapped inside it.”

Sometimes, we fall in love with someone’s potential more than the person. You will find yourself describing your crush by all their superficial traits. For example, I would often use words like “sexy, smart, talented, and funny” to describe my ex. I would not use words like “generous, kind, respectful, or compassionate.”

I kept telling myself he was a work in progress. And I became convinced that I could teach him how to be less selfish by just loving him selflessly. Unfortunately, you can’t fix a fixer-upper if the foundation is crumbling.

Are you refusing to judge bad behavior?

My friends kept asking, “What do you see in him? You usually date good guys…why him?” I fell into cognitive dissonance and refused to listen. In the following months, our romance unfolded like a Boschian nightmare, except with more obvious damnation symbolism.

We are taught from a young age — don’t judge others. So, coming to the determination that my ex was simply not a nice person felt like a judgment that I had no right to pass. I was taught always to see the good in people. Turn the other cheek. Kindness begets kindness.

Yeah, so that advice is crap.

Sometimes, you have to let the hammer fall. Sure, it is wrong to judge someone you don’t know. And you should always look for substance over style. But as the cliche goes, when people show you who they are, you have every right to believe them.

Are you always planning the future?

In Gone with the Wind, Scarlett is always scheming to nail Ashley. She even marries the driveling Charles Hamilton to make Ashley jealous.

You never live in the present when you are in love with the idea of someone. When caught in limerance, your eyes are always fixed on the horizon instead of the solid ground beneath your feet.

Often, you lose yourself envisioning a future without barriers. Maybe those barriers are your crush is married or in another relationship. Maybe it is a long-distance relationship that only works when you are apart. Maybe they are emotionally immature, so arguments always sow discord instead of repairing hurts.

Falling in love with an ideal is a special kind of torment. You build castles upon the weakest of scaffolds and shore up your hopes with each granite stone. But if you fail to see the real person, you are building on ruins.

Are you hiding your flaws?

From the beginning of the movie, Scarlett playacts the demure Southern Belle around Ashley. In one humorous scene, Rhett gets caught spying on a flirtation between her and Ashley. Scarlett reprimands Rhett for eavesdropping and says, “Sir, you are no gentleman.” In response, Rhett reminds her with a conspiratorial grin, “And you, Miss, are no lady.”

And he is right. Scarlett is no lady. She is unabashed, self-centered, conniving, and a shameless opportunist. Yet Rhett loves her despite these flaws because he also adores her courage and spirit.

With genuine love, the masks come down. Real love takes vulnerability. It’s messy, and it is hard work. And in that space, you can’t pretend to be anything you are not.

“But, Scarlett, did it ever occur to you that even the most deathless love could wear out?”

Are you staying past the expiration date?

We are a society that admires love won the hard way. Heathcliff brooding along the moors, waiting for Cathy to return in Wuthering Heights. Pip’s relentless pursuit of a cold-hearted Estella in Great Expectations. Or Scarlett O’Hara pining for her precious Ashley. This is why romantic ideals are often harder to give up than real people. We are more enchanted with the promise of the reward than the reward itself.

Unfortunately, the very qualities that make Scarlett O’Hara admirable — grit, determination, and steadfastness, also doom her to failure. She chases someone that if she caught, she would not want. Eventually, Rhett grows tired of pursuing Scarlett and warns her, “…did it ever occur to you that even the most deathless love could wear out?”

Scarlett not only wears her heart out chasing Ashley, but she also wears out Rhett’s heart. By the movie’s end, he just doesn’t “give a damn.”

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Carlyn Beccia is an award-winning author and illustrator of 13 books. If you enjoyed this article, please share this publication with friends. Wednesday’s article is always free. Sunday’s article is for paid subscribers only.

What do you think? Have you experienced the pain of limerance?