I just got another random email from a reader about limerance today. I don’t know where people are finding the two articles I wrote about it—I guess largely from this blog (which has gone neglected—I’m sorry) and from my electronic archives from my Universities’ paper, which are hard to find (again, I’m sorry).
Point is, people from around the world have reached out to me about the topic—middle aged women, guys in their 20’s, a woman in Sweden, and a woman in Egypt (no joke). They write to me…actually I don’t know why. For advice? For support? Maybe, or maybe just to validate the crazy in their heads and to feel, for once, like they’re not alone.
But even if all these people want is a lent ear, I feel like a fraud now when I talk about limerance (which is why I haven’t written about it in months). Why? Because I’m not in it, anymore. I’m cured. I fell out of limerance, and when I did I confronted my limerent object (LO) and called him a douche bag (this is a true story) and moved on. I found a guy I love—a guy that does everything my limerent object didn’t. He picks up the phone when I call him, he emails me back, he takes me out to dinner, he watches movies with me that I want to watch…but let’s be honest, even if all he gave me was eye contact, that would be a hell of a lot more than my LO ever returned.
So that’s that: Reciprocated love cured me. But as I was talking to my boyfriend about this “I-have-writer’s-block-and-can’t-write-about-limerance-because-I’m-a-fraud” thing, he pointed out to me that maybe that’s it: Maybe I can still write about limerance, but instead of using the “No one likes me, guys are so mean, why won’t he like me, wa wa wa” angle, I can talk about how I got rid of limerance, and how those of you afflicted by it can do the same. Because I still remember how shitty it felt to want to be with someone who didn’t want to be with me. I remember the feelings of inadequacy and confusion caused when my LO would ask me out on dates and then cancel at the last minute, or hint about lunches and then inexplicably become “busy” that day, and then every day after.
The truth about limerance? Move along, sister (or dude man). Get moving and find someone else who makes you laugh, who finishes your sentences, who wants mint chocolate chip ice cream at exactly the same moment you do…with a bag of flavor blast goldfish crackers. Because he’s (she’s) out there.
The best part? With this new person, when you say “I love you”, he’ll answer “I love you, too.” Because as a recovering limerent I can affirm, hearing those four words is the best thing out there. Even better than mint chocolate ice cream topped with goldfish crackers, if you’re in to that kinda thing.
—Posted by Erin Hicks
