Real life stories of reality overcoming limerance?
February 23, 2016 11:40 AM   Subscribe

I'm looking for examples of person A pining after person B for a long time. We're talking years of building this fantasy in their head about a person they couldn't have, for whatever reason. Then A finally gets with B romantically or otherwise gets to know them well, and are disappointed by the reality of who person B is or what the relationship is really like.

Maybe person B has huge flaws in their character or otherwise (ie is not faithful, etc). Maybe they get married only to end up getting divorced. Maybe person B is nothing at all like the fantasy person A had built up in their head. Or maybe person A finds a person C who treats them well and they have some big epiphany about love and spend many happy years together. The sky is the limit. Real life stories wanted, please.
posted by atinna to Human Relations (16 answers total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 
Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise?
posted by quincunx at 11:54 AM on February 23, 2016 [13 favorites]


This may not be exactly what you are looking for, especially since I am Person B and I am utterly flawless* but I think it speaks to your situation.

I had a very good friend for several years that eventually confessed that she had developed feelings for me, and I was shocked at first, but was intrigued enough to begin a romantic relationship with this person. She ended it almost immediately, as she couldn't mentally switch my position in her mind from "friend" to "boyfriend" and it was unpleasant for her to be dating a "friend". We stayed friends, but it strained the relationship and we drifted out of touch.

Years later, she ran into my younger brother by accident, they began chatting and hit it off. After checking with me to make sure it wouldn't be too awkward (it wasn't, I was already happily married) they began dating and are now married. My sister-in-law and I are now friendly and like to joke about how we have known each other longer than we have known our respective spouses.

*not really
posted by Rock Steady at 11:55 AM on February 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


Charles Dickens and Maria Beadnell? She was the model for Flora Finching in Dickens' "Little Dorrit."
posted by mmiddle at 12:17 PM on February 23, 2016


Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. That ended quite badly.
posted by Miss T.Horn at 12:46 PM on February 23, 2016 [3 favorites]




Isn't this what makes "The Great Gatsby" so tragic?

ie. the tragedy of chasing a dream (whether another person, or an ambition) that is unworthy of the breathtakingly single minded effort it cost you?

And since this is arguably true of all worldly ambitions, dreams & motivations - none can live up to our idealisation - hence the tragedy of the human condition etc.
posted by Stephanie_Says at 1:21 PM on February 23, 2016 [12 favorites]


Best answer: When I was 18, I met a 32-year-old man in my neighborhood, and we got to know each other while riding the same bus. He was cheerful and friendly, and I fell hard and fast. I spent hours, days, weeks fantasizing about him. I had a summer babysitting job and would be thrilled when the kids went to sleep just so I could devote more mental energy to my daydreams. I deliberately walked my dog past his house a zillion times, even though it was a bit out of the way.

I soon suggested that we go out, and then he was the one who fell hard and fast. (I still lived at home, and my parents just thankfully clucked their tongues and never said a word, knowing that I was going back to college soon enough. But they were probably happy that they no longer had to nag me about walking the dog.) After the first date I realized that there was a reason why he was single and not attracting any women his age. Not knowing any better, I went out with him a few more times but he was just so needy and boring that I broke it off. He reacted in a very creepy way, but thankfully only once and I never saw him again; my college friends were baffled and like "er, why exactly did you date someone like that?"

I remember being amazed at the 180-degree shift in my brain; "wow, a month ago you were obsessing over this guy, now you can't stand the sight of him!" To this day, any guy who wears a mustache like him reminds me of what an idiot I was, and I feel bad for getting a guy's hopes up (yeah yeah, emotional labor...). I guess we all have lessons that we learn once.
posted by sockerpup at 1:49 PM on February 23, 2016 [4 favorites]


Yeats and Maud Gonne? I don't know if W.B. was disappointed per se, but it certainly didn't result in a satisfying relationship IRL.
posted by 8603 at 2:14 PM on February 23, 2016


Best answer: You might be interested in a book called "Love's Executioner." I have not read it, but my understanding is that it was written by a therapist and the title is based on at least one of the stories in the book about him helping a patient let go of an unhealthy relationship.

I saw it at a friend's house years ago and I read the back cover. It forevermore changed how I saw limerance. I stopped acting like being very taken with someone was something amazing and wonderful that needed to be preserved like some rare, endangered species that held the planet together. I began taking a much more skeptical eye towards both my own Big Feels towards other people and theirs towards me.

It turns out that I am capable of crushing on many people and many people are capable of crushing on me. Limerance is nice, but it isn't really all that special. My past devoted efforts to view it as evidence of True Love and intentionally keep it alive was actively preventing me from discovering other people for whom I was capable of having Big Feels.

I like having Big Feels. But, these days, I measure the value of a relationship differently. I have become quite talented at assassinating Big Feels that exist but are based on not much of anything. I have also become convinced that, in most cases, the thing keeping limerance alive is a lack of solid information. Most people aren't all that wonderful. In most cases, getting to know them, warts and all, tends to do wonders for taking the shine off of limerance.
posted by Michele in California at 2:27 PM on February 23, 2016 [12 favorites]


Best answer: Lord Byron was kind of infatuated with his future wife, before they got married, and the marriage was horrifying and miserable and he grew to hate his wife. In the other direction, Claire Clairmont was obsessed with Byron himself for years and then was horribly disillusioned by his treatment of her; she later blamed him for their daughter's death and hated him for the rest of her life. (Then she went to Moscow and Dresden and Italy and became Catholic and Henry James wrote a novel about her, sort of. She was fascinating.) Byron's love life is generally a rich source of this kind of thing. Caroline Lamb also did the pining infatuation and then learning to loathe him thing, I believe.

For a non-Byron example, there was Charlotte Brontë's thing for her publisher, George Murray Smith. She absolutely skewers him as vain and shallow in Villette, basing the character of John Bretton on him. (If you don't mind a little fiction with your real stories, I recommend Villette; it deals with limerence and its dying in more excruciating detail than any other book I know.)
posted by Aravis76 at 2:40 PM on February 23, 2016 [6 favorites]


I pined after this guy for two years. I was so smitten with him it brought me to tears at times.

I was over the moon when we ended up traveling together (in a larger group) for two months. He and I talked every morning over coffee and it was blissful. But then we'd be out as a group at night and I'd hear more and more comments about his ex-girlfriends and women in general that were a huge turn off. He was a blatant misogynist and laughed about his status as a serial cheater. I remember being SO disillusioned, but grateful to have dodged that bullet.
posted by tippy at 3:04 PM on February 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


Best answer: Real life stories...

From about fifteen years ago. Good (man) friend in the circle fell for another (female) friend in the circle.

He was the guy who knew everyone. He didn't do any one thing, he did everything and was up for anything. He was broad in his connections, yet quite deep in his interests. He was the one inviting the crew to arthouse films and to nights out with bands that became big three or four years later.

She was the beauty queen – the ultimate hostess. She knew everyone by name, and always looked perfect – perfect hair, perfect nails, perfect outfit. She had a raucous sense of humour, and similarly, she was up for anything. For her, life was about people, be they artists, musicians, authors, architects.

To the rest of us, they didn't seem like a match at first. Yet he fell, and he fell hard. He remained composed for a year, flirting after a few drinks or lingering back with her at the end of the night. She loved the attention, and he always seemed happy to give it. In the meantime, he dated people he found interesting, but they never stuck. She dated the same guys – tall, athletic, promiscuous. She always said those boys wouldn't work out, and they never did. We never heard much about it, because he (our mate) was the first one she texted in the morning apparently. He would take her to brunch, dust her off, and they'd be on the beach introducing each other to random beautiful strangers.

We asked if he was ever bothered with her liaisons – with her type. He wasn't. He was waiting for that one night, in that one place, where it clicked. It was so obvious to him, and over time, it became more obvious to us to. We found ourselves bringing them along on 2x2 nights. Dates that weren't dates. Plausible deniability. We started rooting for them.

We asked her about him. She thought he played a game – that he was down to earth at the start, but then he was a player that just enjoyed the chase. Great guy to be friends with, but not one to date. I saw that was just the way she saw men. We started backing him up. The group was rallying at this point, for we were mostly couples. We wanted it to happen because he wanted it to happen. We wanted it to happen because she needed it to happen.

He met a woman he was very fond of, as were we. This woman was well-traveled, had the right balance of dirty Nikes and DKNY jeans. Her hair was neat but not perfect, and we could tell our mate was falling in love. He disappeared for a while – the way men do when one date a week turns into four dates a week. Our other friend started to become jealous – she missed the brunches and the walks on the beach. We asked if she was smitten, and she said that she was not, she simply missed the friendship.

After a few months, our man cooled off with the new woman. She went back to wherever she had come from, and he was a bit wistful. He did a lot of things on his own. He started trail running. He volunteered. He threw himself into work at his studio. He said he didn't have time to play the field anymore. The new woman has shown him something sophisticated, something with promise. Our other friend stayed up to her same old tricks. We largely fell by the wayside with him for a while, but she made the effort, and she could reach him.

Then one night, we were all out together celebrating a birthday. She came dressed up, and he certainly noticed. They left together that night. The next day, they went to brunch, only they had spent the night together talking and looking at old photos or something. They went out the next day. And the next day.

From that point, we never got one of them alone, we only got them together. They seemed very happy on the surface – to us. They laughed and we laughed, and it was as if everything had been meant to fall in place. He seemed like a man who had been on a journey, and she felt properly won. The only thing that was slightly off was that we never saw them individually. They were always together, going through the stages of love at the accelerated pace that only friends can. There was a weekend away, and then another, and then another. And then his parents. And then her parents...

And then she wanted to move home, a few hours away. Better job. Different time of life. Smaller city with better beaches. She talked to us about it, but not him. He talked to us about it, but not her. She went down to look at apartments, and he came alone. First time we'd had a great night out with the friends in a while. He broke down toward the night, not in tears but in punctuated phrases of honesty.

He loved her, but he was in love with the person he had met those years ago. The carefree person who always looked great, was never too bothered, and always had something to do and somewhere to go. The woman he always wanted more time to speak with – the conversations always ended too soon. The woman where he always knew there was more, but she wasn't to reveal herself truly, to him anyway. The woman he loved but who didn't love him. Or needed to be won. Or didn't know what she needed.

It wasn't the chase, he said, it was that he always imagined that she was like him. That there was much more below the surface, deep personal thoughts. Conversations about ethics and values. Literati and art house films. But there wasn't. And he both loved that and was disappointed. She was exactly who she proclaimed to be. There wasn't any more. There weren't deep conversations. When he had all the time in the world with her, he struggled for conversation, for she never took that next step. She wasn't curious. She glided across the surface, while he alternated between the surface and plumbing the depths.

But this is what I wanted, he said. And now we have a family, all of us together, he said. And she's happy. I keep thinking it's okay. I schedule a day at the museum to see an amazing exhibition, and then I'm disappointed because she doesn't get beyond what's in front of her. I keep thinking there's another layer, but there's not.

Half of the group disagreed. They said that comes with time. We all felt that way at one point, they said. Half the group agreed. That's the magic that needs to be there – that's the chemistry. If it's not there now, it's never going to be there.

We were all clear that he should not move with her. If she wanted to stay, that was fine, because truth be told, none of us really wanted anything to change. We didn't want to have to choose. We wanted it to work on the surface. We wanted the family together. We agreed that in time, you could learn to fall in love. After all, they looked so good together. They had the same sense of humour, and the same friends. The same goals. They worked on paper.

His ex comes back, and the three of them hang out at first. And then they don't. He laughed a little to much at his ex's jokes. They got the extra coffee after dinner and talked about politics. The ex left. The couple went through the motions for a month or maybe a few. But other couples could see it. There weren't the repair attempts necessary to make it work. There wasn't the spark.

They started drifting. She started meeting men while we were all out together. Finally, she announced she was moving down the coast, and we weren't surprised. We were relieved, in a way. She left a few months later. She had a party the night before, and there the two of them sat, arm in arm laughing like old times. He stayed the night and said nothing significant happened. Rather, they said goodbye, and then she was gone.

We all kept in touch for a few years, until we didn't. The men kept in touch with him more, until he finally moved abroad. And then our partners kept in touch with her. Rather then them updated us about the other, we updated each of them. They were always convivial to each other, at weddings and the odd outing. They had that relationship of two people who'd been deeply in love, but never fell apart. Two people who never fought because they each knew that it wasn't worth fighting for. Two people who genuinely wanted the best for the other, and always had that lingering attracting, that one piece of limerence that they could always hold onto. For they had been together long enough to fall in love, but never really merged.

Fast forward fifteen years on, and they haven't changed much. She's still single. She dated the Same Type Of Man as before. Ones that she fell fast and hard for, and eventually broke her heart. The one in this city. The one in that city. The one in this city. The one in that city. She's had a wonderfully rich life, and remains the bright, beautiful person that she always was.

He's had a few great relationships, and last I heard he's in one now. After that, he led with the arthouse cinema vibe. He took it slowly, and chose carefully. As time went on, he stopped knowing everyone – even us – and focused progressively further on things where he says he found meaning, and through that has met women who've shared that depth.

Looking back, I think we all remember that time and that relationship. Back when we used to believe that opposites attract, and when we all wanted to marry our best friend – not make the person that we married our best friend. I remember so clearly pulling for him – for them – because of how he saw her. She always said that she fell in love with the way he saw her. How she could be, not how she was. Who she wanted to be, not who she was.

But ultimately, at the end of the day, she just wanted to be loved for who she was, and he wanted to love who he saw...
posted by nickrussell at 3:58 PM on February 23, 2016 [21 favorites]


Best answer: From an anon commenter:
I had an on again, off again affair in my youth. I knew this man for several years and spent some time convinced I could not live without him. We managed to have sex four whole times in all those years. It was a mostly long distance thing.

Affairs can seem just wonderful because you see each other for a limited amount of time and you are usually on your best behavior and excited for those brief interludes. Their spouse is the one who deals with their literal and metaphorical dirty laundry while you get all the big feels. And the fact that you are taking a big risk convinces you that this person must matter a helluva lot, when the reality is that if you mattered that much to each other, you would make the effort to get together as a couple instead of mooning over each other while going home to someone else.

The guy I had the affair with knew my husband was not being supportive of my desire to get back to school and get a degree. So this guy would say stuff like "IF we got together, I would support your desire to go to school. You could get your bachelor's and I could get my PHD and we could study together." The reality was his wife had put him through college for multiple degrees and she hadn't taken a lick of college since getting with him. All the college she had was from before their relationship. But I believed him and longed for the kind of marriage I imagined we would have, that neither of us had in reality.

After a few years, one day, I made friends with another guy who was honestly excited as hell to meet a woman who wanted an education. He was all "You Go, Girl!" He was attracted to me but never slept with me. He wanted to be faithful to his wife. We kept in touch for a time and he was my biggest supporter. He was my one man fan club. With his encouragement, I soon had a degree. As soon as I enrolled in school, the man I was having the on again, off again affair with began fighting with me. After I got the degree, he quit speaking to me. And then I realized what utter bullshit his claims of supportiveness were. I decided I didn't want him back. I did a few things to make myself unfindable. He couldn't find me on his own efforts, so he eventually hired a private eye. Five years after it ended, he called me, still convinced I would be his everything.

But I had long since gotten over him. The stark contrast between his lying, manipulative claims of supportiveness and the genuine enthusiasm of a friend who thought I was hot, but never actually slept with me, had opened my eyes. I could no longer believe that we were star crossed lovers and the rest of the world was just getting in our way. I saw him in rather unflattering terms, as a liar and manipulator and small minded person.

Limerence is often based on superficial impressions and a whole lot of filling in the blanks with what you want to believe. It often does not survive the test of reality. You can give it that test at any point. Just ask yourself what they are really doing for you. If the answer is "Not much", then the big feels are probably based on a fantasy.

Over the years, he had made some life changes in order to be able to keep in touch with me, but they fell short of what it would take to actually get with me. I no longer accept "The check is in the mail." while mooning over some guy. I ask myself "What is he doing for me in the here and now?" He doesn't have to be married to me or even sleeping with me to be playing a positive role in my life.

Limerence is very often a balloon full of hot air and empty promises. It often is based on saying nice things in place of doing nice things.

Talk is cheap.
posted by restless_nomad at 4:34 PM on February 23, 2016 [9 favorites]


Elvis Presley and Priscilla. She met him when she was 14 and was completely fascinated with him, then moved to Tennessee and eventually moved in with him before marriage, but they supposedly never had penetrative sex. Elvis had many affairs while single (so was clearly very interested in women) and Priscilla probably expected a full sexual relationship with him after they were officially wed. They finally married 8 years after meeting. However, after they were married Priscilla almost immediately got pregnant and their sex life dwindled to almost nothing ("almost" depending on who you ask), and it was a huge factor in her subsequent affair and their divorce.
posted by chainsofreedom at 5:23 PM on February 23, 2016


W. B. Yeats was so obsessed with Maud Gonne that he proposed to her, and was rejected, multiple times while she was single; proposed to her again, and was rejected, after her husband died; proposed then to Maud's daughter Yseult, who was half Yeats's age and who rejected him; then three weeks later married yet another woman, while still sulking over Yseult.

Yeats and Gonne were old lifelong friends, but they were never together long-term, so the limerance may or may not have worn off. Regardless, Yeats's multiple proposals make it easy to be glad for Gonne's sake that she never married him, and glad for Yeats's sake because she thought his angst made his poetry better; much of Yeats's beautiful poetry is suuuuuper bitter about being friendzoned by unspecified female persons.
posted by nicebookrack at 8:10 PM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


I don't want to get too specific, but sometimes the person B knows that the reality of who they are has too many flaws to maintain a relationship with a fine and wonderful person like person A, and that if they were to actually attempt a relationship with A that it would founder under the weight of B's flaws. So B might choose to enjoy A's attraction to them by spinning it out as long as possible with some small flirtations here and there, since they know A would soon not want anything to do with them if they were to actually be in a relationship.

Eventually A realizes that they've seen B's relationships implode repeatedly, hears enough from B's friends about how much of a jerk B is, notices that B has some flaws that people who haven't known them as long don't see, etc. Then A realizes that A has created some pretty good stuff in their own life over time, and that B has done no work on themselves in that time and has more obvious character flaws than in the past, despite how awesome B seemed back then.

A has a lot of awesome stuff going on, and decides that maybe a person C will come along sometime who will be sufficiently awesome to be a good partner for A, but in the meantime A isn't going to settle for someone like the person B has become -- or maybe that's who B always was, and A has just become so much happier in life with loyal friends, family, travel, work, activities and so many things A has worked for that they don't feel B would add anything to their life by being a part of it.

B still flirts with A at parties a bit. B is having a harder time starting relationships now that people have seen more of their flaws, and would probably jump at the chance to get with A if A was interested. But A isn't interested. Too bad for B.
posted by yohko at 3:11 PM on February 26, 2016


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