0
Share on bsky
We’ve all been there: the initial attraction.
The intense feelings. The infatuation. Daydreaming about the object of our desire. Maybe even at times feeling obsessive, even intrusive.
You’ve never felt such strong feelings. It’s meant to be. You can see a future. A perfectly mapped out future. It’s like a Hallmark card, with all its picture-perfect beauty. It’s definitely love, right?
What about those thoughts? You know the ones. They are hot, sexy, and maybe even stir physical sensations and arousal in your body. You imagine what their body looks like with their clothes peeled off. What their body heat feels like close to yours. You feel physically drawn to them. You want to touch them. Kiss them. F*ck them. It’s palpable. It’s the start of love, yes?
No, no it’s not.
With the influx of dating and relationship coaches—with no actual training or credentials—it’s easy to see why people are confused. And let’s not forget all the rom-coms, with their boy meets girl, happy ever after, I’ve known you for two weeks but let’s spend the rest of our lives together. Or maybe it’s those movies where they are “hard to get,” but the pursuer just keeps chasing and pursuing, until the wall of resistance has crumbled and they finally get what they want, because that’s healthy, right?
“You’ll know as soon as you meet them that they are the one, as your chemistry will be off the chart.”
” A 10/10 relationship is about having sex a minimum of three times a week.”
“Sex on the first date is a sign your relationship is strong because your attraction is so high.”
“Don’t take no for an answer; they’ll eventually come around.”
“If you feel so strongly, they too will be feeling it.”
These are couple of the nonsensical things I’ve heard and they could not be more wrong, or so far removed from a healthy connection. This is not love; it’s lust and/or limerence.
Love grows. It takes time. Love is something that happens when we get to know someone’s heart and soul. It’s not chemistry. It’s not good sex. It’s not attraction. It’s not obsession. It’s not chaotic and confusing. It doesn’t cause you anxiety. It’s not mixed messages. It’s not playing hard to get. It’s not repeatedly pursuing after you’ve been told no multiple times. It’s not all about the physical body and the desire to f*ck someone. It’s not desperately trying to fill some void. It’s not fear of being alone.
Not discounting chemistry, attraction, desire, and good sex, but these things alone are not love. They are lust, where our focus is on the physical and we really just want to get down and dirty. They are limerence, where we’ve created a story in our head about our object of desire. We want this person and believe they want us with the same fervency. And we obsess and chase, like it’s an Olympic sport.
Fun facts: lust is often fleeting. Once we’ve had our roll around the sack, it’s gone. Of course it can absolutely grow into a meaningful loving relationship, but it often doesn’t. As evidenced by the “one night stand” and the “hook up” cultures. Or the toxic dating apps that appear to be a dumpster fire of damaged people damaging other people.
Limerence, the desire to be desired, can last for months, even a couple of years, but it usually comes crashing down because the story you’ve created isn’t real. The story you’ve created is an unrealistic view of what’s really happening. It often takes place in affairs and can also be one-sided and usually befalls those who have an anxious attachment style and didn’t have their childhood needs met. Desperately seeking, always seeking from others, what they cannot give themselves. Any positive reciprocation from the object of desire will have them in a state of elation. It’s unhealthy. It’s sad.
Lust and limerence really do not come close to love.
Love is far deeper than this. Love is looking past the physical attraction and getting to know who a person is. It’s having shared values. It’s friendship on fire, and even when that fire begins to fizzle, as it inevitably does throughout relationships because of illness, stress, young children, loss, grief and a myriad of other painful experiences, the friendship is still intact and there’s a yearning to get the fire back.
It’s mutual respect. It’s loyalty and honesty. It’s being in the trenches, together. It’s trust. It’s deep vulnerability because without vulnerability you cannot reach the depths of trust with each other that is required for true love. It’s commitment. It’s at times raw and messy. It’s disagreements and healthy arguments. It’s boundaries and privacy, because we all deserve an element of privacy. It’s partnership. It’s self-awareness. It’s communication. It’s shared responsibilities. It’s being there when your partner is sick. It’s forgoing sex when your partner may be too unwell for physical intimacy, or just doesn’t feel like it, because believe it or not, sometimes, humans don’t feel like sex. It’s understanding that sex is only a part of your relationship, not the whole of your relationship.
Let’s stop confusing lust and limerence with love.
Let’s stop listening to people who have an ulterior motive for saying the things they say, like selling their courses. Selling their ideologies, no matter how dysfunctional those ideologies may be. Let’s stop romanticising obsession and chasing someone at all costs. Let’s stop believing the initial stages of chemistry and our physical attraction to others is more than lust and the desire to sleep with them when we don’t even know who they are as people.
Let’s stop thinking sex is love or that good sex is a precursor for a good relationship—many a person has managed to bind themselves to a toxic lover because the sex was good, especially women. Oxytocin, that pesky love hormone, can lead us down a path that we wish we never walked.
Let’s start understanding attachment theory, our childhood wounding, our energy, and our belief systems so we are better able to understand why we do the things we do and why we attract what we attract. And so we are better equipped at navigating healthy relationships.
Let’s spend some time alone to get to know ourselves and what we really want.
Let’s ground ourselves in reality and not fantasy. Let’s love, trust, and believe in ourselves enough to have discernment.
I, like many, adore a good love story. I’ve seen them, and I’ve been a willing participant in them. They can be beautiful, but they are not a rom-com, and we need to start being realistic with our expectations. I have also seen far too many unhealthy, toxic, and even dangerous relationships. One-sided relationships. Abusive relationships. Relationships that appear happy but behind closed doors are a disaster. Affairs. Repeated cheating. Controlling partners. Unwarranted excessive jealousy. People staying together for the kids. Miserable relationships that should end but because so many people fear being alone, they stay together, destroying each other in the process and potentially destroying their children’s beliefs around what love is.
I’ve known real love. Deep love. I’ve also experienced lust, that strong attraction and desire to someone. I’ve fantasised; I think we all have if we are honest. And I’ve been in a relationship where we were mutually obsessed with each other and couldn’t stop thinking of one another to the point of it distracting us from life. Lust, limerence, or love? Probably all three.
The truth is there are too many selling the idea of love, packaged up as lust and limerence, and it really needs to stop. It’s destructive. We are going to have the next generation of people having no idea what true love is. Hell, we have that now and it’s tragic.
Lust and limerence are fleeting and superficial, but love, done the right way, can last a lifetime and reach a depth that can leave you winded by the sheer force in which it hits your soul. Lust and limerence can never reach these depths and will always leave you wanting and chasing more.
~
This account does not have permission to comment on Elephant Journal.
Contact support with questions.