Tell me this isn't limerence
December 13, 2015 1:47 PM   Subscribe

I have been pretty sure I like this girl for a while now, and now that the issue has been raised and left unresolved, I'm in crisis mode and don't know what I'm feeling.

We're both in our first year at college, and we've been good friends from the beginning of the year. At some point much earlier in the semester I guess I considered whether I liked anyone in our friend group, and it occurred to me that maybe it was her. I told one of my friends that I thought I might have a mild crush on her, and then later freaked out because I was afraid that there would then be pressure to decide how I felt. I don't actually remember how I resolved that, but my feelings eventually evolved into a very intense crush.

So I started making more of an effort to spend time with her, etc., etc., but I didn't know how she felt, so obviously I didn't push it. Then, two weeks ago, when we were out with friends, we were much closer and cuddled much more than usual. My feelings peaked when I realized that they could be reciprocated. Over the following week, at various times she held my hand, touched my knee, engaged me in games of footsie, etc... it sounds silly, but I felt - after conferring with a friend - that these were definitely signals.

So I told her how I felt. Her response was that she didn't know how she felt and that she needed more time to consider it, but that the possibility of a relationship was to be left on the table. I told her that was fine, and we agreed to return to a sort of tension state. After this talk occurred, I felt that it had been very healthy, and I was more or less prepared to accept either outcome. The next day, we texted back and forth a ton, and I was very happy with our conversation.

This morning, however, I started panicking. I don't even really remember why. And currently I don't have any feelings about the situation but pure panic and fear. I am panicking to think that maybe these feelings were just an intense, forced obsession that are entirely incompatible with actual love and that I have now hurt my friend with.

It was a source of worry to me from the beginning that I couldn't really account for the origin of my feelings, and I sometimes kind of feel like I "made myself" like her, even though I very much hope this isn't true. What I decided is that if we did get into a relationship, I would just settle into it and it would build outward, I wouldn't impose any expectations or ideals nor would I be obsessive about it. But right now I have no idea how I feel.

My questions are as follows:
-Is this limerence, or is it potentially healthy love mixed up with acute anxiety?
-Would it be a good strategy to just trust the way that I was feeling earlier, knowing that I am in a state of complete panic currently?
-Would there be any way to build a healthy relationship out of these feelings, or do I have no choice but to just forget about it?

Thank you in advance for your help.
posted by myitkyina to Human Relations (12 answers total)
 
Response by poster: I'm sorry, I'm a mess currently - I forgot to add that, as a practicing Zen Buddhist (for whom practice was the most important life thing until certain feelings arose...), I have done my best to be mindful of the nature of everything that I am feeling for her. If I am able to work this properly, focusing on working on the relationship as it is, not expecting anything of her that comes from fantasy, could it enable a healthy relationship?
posted by myitkyina at 1:50 PM on December 13, 2015


Best answer: You are being very hard on yourself. It is normal not to know exactly how you feel about someone at this stage. In fact, there is very little way to know yet. You're both allowed to explore your feelings for each other and just see how it evolves after you become romantic, if you mutually desire that. You are not 30 years old and having doubts about someone you've lived with for 5 years. You can give yourself permission not to know the potential of this relationship, especially before you even have any information about how it feels to be together.
(And by the way, limerance is one of nature's great gifts. Many a romance has come from limerance.)
posted by flourpot at 2:01 PM on December 13, 2015 [5 favorites]


Best answer: You're in your first year of college, and you are way overthinking this. Your ideas about wanting and seeking a healthy relationship, and willingness to work on relationships are excellent, thoughtful and thoroughly commendable. Many people don't get to that point until many years later. That said, though - stop thinking. Go see what happens. Go get your heart broken. Go break hers. You'll both live, and you'll both learn from it. Maybe you'll fall in love! Maybe you won't! Maybe you'll get married and have all the babies and die happily in each others arms! Maybe you'll have an acrimonious divorce! Maybe it'll go great for a bit then fizzle out over exam pressure, or you'll both meet someone else! Just go see what happens, and try not to worry about it.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 2:04 PM on December 13, 2015 [15 favorites]


Best answer: I think usually with these panicky over the top feelings (whether positive or negative) it's good to check in with yourself about your physical self -- is it finals time and are you stressed out from that? Are you sleeping enough? Are you eating reasonable food? Are you going outside/talking to other people in person? Things can feel really artificially heightened if you get overtired or hungry or over-screentimed without realizing.

Then I would say - there's no way to know yet what will happen. You can't "get out ahead of it" by overthinking it. You're going to just have to live through it, doing your best at each turn, and trusting in yourself that you have the resources to cope and change course if needed. You're ok. Be honest with her, be kind to yourself, take it one step at a time - you'll both figure it out by spending time together.
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:05 PM on December 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


I am panicking to think that maybe these feelings were just an intense, forced obsession that are entirely incompatible with actual love and that I have now hurt my friend with.

Dude. You've never even been on a date with this woman. This is not love. It isn't even limerence. It's a crush.

Also, limerence is not a pejorative thing to be avoided. It's a completely normal stage of dating.
posted by DarlingBri at 2:21 PM on December 13, 2015 [5 favorites]


Best answer: Maybe try just sitting with your feelings for a couple of weeks.

While there are exceptions, I think the worst way to try to back into a relationship is to drop a bomb on a person who had no reason to believe you had any interest and had come to think of you as a friend or acquaintance and may not be interested in doing the new thing that you want, even though they don't dislike you by any means but as a college freshman may not have the "no, sorry" skills necessary to handle this gracefully.

Now that you have done that, you need to let the dust settle before pursuing any next steps. You need to give her room to make her own decisions, and you need time to calm down.

There is no one magic behavior that will guarantee a healthy relationship or any relationship. Being a good partner is a decision you make over and over at every interaction. Not all people turn out to be a great personality fit, or in the right place in their lives to be good in a relationship, and you cannot force either yourself or her to suddenly be ready and good at it.

Hard statistical truth: this probably isn't your terminal relationship. It might be your first long relationship, but it might not. Chances are good you're going to get your heart broken eventually, and the trick is to embrace that. Very few people reach great success without failures to learn from. Let her be who she is and you just worry about being yourself and see where it goes. If it doesn't work out, you will be okay.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:25 PM on December 13, 2015


(Yes, also: love is a two-way interaction. You do not love her, you do not have her consent or enthusiastic participation for that. You like her a lot. This is a normal experience to have.)
posted by Lyn Never at 2:27 PM on December 13, 2015


Best answer: Sometimes it's helpful to have specific words to explain and categorize what you're feeling, and sometimes it isn't. This seems like a "sometimes it isn't" situation to me. Whether you like somebody for a "rational" reason or not, the first flush of liking them and realizing they like you back (enough to cuddle and play footsie, etc.) is likely to be accompanied by what you can call limerence if you'd like.

I am stick-in-the-mud enough that I would feel weird playing footsie with anybody I wasn't already dating—or married to, if I could help it—and even I am comfortable telling you that the way you figure out whether you "really" like this girl or not, and the way she figures out whether she really likes you, is by telling her you feel limerence-if-you-want-to-call-it-that and going on some dates. You already did the first one; now, provided she's into it, you do the second one.

As for whether a healthy relationship is still possible or not, please remember that the proximate causes of happy marriages are innumerable and often incredibly stupid. What brings two people together is frequently, if not mostly, completely unrelated to what keeps them together.
posted by Polycarp at 2:43 PM on December 13, 2015


Response by poster: I don't mean to threadsit, sorry:

I think the worst way to try to back into a relationship is to drop a bomb on a person who had no reason to believe you had any interest and had come to think of you as a friend or acquaintance and may not be interested in doing the new thing that you want, even though they don't dislike you by any means but as a college freshman may not have the "no, sorry" skills necessary to handle this gracefully.

Absolutely - I only raised the issue because I was told my feelings were reciprocated, and when we had this talk she told me her signals were intentional.

Dude. You've never even been on a date with this woman. This is not love. It isn't even limerence. It's a crush.
love is a two-way interaction. You do not love her, you do not have her consent or enthusiastic participation for that. You like her a lot.

I was very stressed and thus not paying close enough attention to the words I'm using... of course you're right, and I recognized this. Sorry if I implied that I was trying to force it further than it was or to categorize it apart from her feelings on it.
posted by myitkyina at 3:03 PM on December 13, 2015


Best answer: I'm going to get all heavy on you for a second because I have a very different take on this question. If you are panicking and a mess around "do I like this person enough?" in my opinion, that's worth talking to a therapist about. If this is your first time having that feeling, then maaaaybe it's no big deal, but this can also be something that undermines relationship after relationship. Not knowing your feelings, second guessing your feelings, making yourself miserable with intrusive thoughts that you were wrong about your feelings -- it's a really hard way to live and can make it really hard to sustain stable relationships.

Therapy is a great thing, and moments when you're in the kind of angst conveyed by your question are the moments when you can learn the most. There's something actively going wrong so it's the right time to do some troubleshooting. If you have access to university health resources, I'd use them to get some support to be better in touch with your feelings and to reduce your anxiety around all of this.
posted by salvia at 3:14 PM on December 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


Best answer: OP, it doesn't matter what you feel. Just feel it. It doesn't need a name. Love doesn't come at the beginning; love is what comes from knowing someone well. There's "in love" which is has a plethora of meanings from crush to desire to profound feelings of love-ish-ness. But you have no obligations to feel anything right now except excitement and like. Your friend isn't expecting you to marry her if she agrees to date you, so if you're suffering from, "OMG, what if she says YES and then I find someone I like better in 2018!) you can let that go.

1) Breathe.

2) Don't worry about attaching names to what you're feeling. If you need a name, call it "affectionate liking" or some such.

3) Focus on what things you like about her. What things you like about yourself. What things in your world you might want to share with her.

4) Focus more on school, the holidays, etc.

Remember, there's no one-size-fits-all, and there's no obligation to reach a specific level of interest in order to start a relationship beyond >0.
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 3:20 PM on December 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


Response by poster: Thank you all very much for your help. I appreciate it very much.
posted by myitkyina at 6:20 PM on December 13, 2015


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