limerence

mos dan

fact music
limerence hurts innit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerence

i didn't know it was called limerence. incredible that a rational human being - for example, erm, there's this friend of mine, let's call him 'mas don' - can suffer from this. what evolutionary purpose does it serve?

to answer my own question a bit, this is good on evolution and love http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/helen_fisher_tells_us_why_we_love_cheat.html

the stuff in the ted talk and the wikipedia article about peculiar and trivial fixation on anything associated with the object of one's affections is so spot on.

so come on dissensus, who's hurting out there? more importantly, how the fuck do you ditch this shit? i preferred being dead inside. sort of.

(btw massive 'no emo')
 

massrock

Well-known member
I think one thing that happens is that you can get a kind of feedback loop that goes between bodily sensations / emotions and certain associated thoughts. You have a feeling and you associate it with the object of your desire. It can help to realise that the sensations are not identical with the particular thoughts.

Meditation - sit down quietly, breathe, observe the sensations on their own terms, simply be aware of them without attaching meaning. The associated thoughts will very likely arise as well, allow them to come and go and you should see how the sensations and thoughts are not the same thing. This will train the mind to stop irrationally making those irrational or unwanted associations.

Or maybe it's the real thing...
 

mos dan

fact music
thanks massrock! and the rest of you, you cards.

Or maybe it's the real thing...

indeed - difficult to say what the difference is really though.. what is love but an irrational and consistent fixation of this kind? theories of limerence suggest it can last a number of years.. a number of years! that's no fly-by-night crush.

btw if yall are bored do watch that ted talk by helen fisher, it's brilliant.
 

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
Helen Fisher does a lot of really interesting work.

Masturbation is whatever. The best cure for what you have would be actually getting in a relationship with the person.

Once you get to know who she really is, rather than what you imagined that she was, you'll calm down.

Men like idealize women, especially pretty ones whom they don't know at all.

Best comment on that video:

Somewhere she says some of what this means is that we can love more than one person at a time. In multiple ways - we might love one person erotically, another fraternally, etc. (agape, eros, philia...).
And, we might love multiple people in the same ways. This is good - better than jealousy and fear and hatred.
The use of the word "cheat" in the title is unfortunate, as is the concept in our culture. "Cheating" is a purely cultural assessment/constraint. There is no basis for "cheating" in our biology or natural history. We are not and never have been one of those species that mate monogamously for life (or even for one cycle of child-rearing). Diversity of mating partners contributes to biological diversity in propagating our species. And both men and women do it, it's not gender-specific.
Nuclear families are our most dysfunctional cultural mistake to date. Clans, tribes, extended families do better raising well rounded and grounded humans through multiple forms of human love.
 

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
One thing: she's sort of exaggerating about anti-depressants. Only first generation anti-depressants suppress the dopamine circuits, and even the ones that do are entirely necessary for certain treating certain illnesses. Libido suppression is already present in depressed people, so to blame anti-depressants alone for libido suppression in psych patients is--well, remains to be demonstrated. And it's usually much better than suicidal ideation, so if you have to choose between wanting to have sex everyday and wanting to kill yourself everyday, that's really a no-brainer.
 

swears

preppy-kei
theories of limerence suggest it can last a number of years.. a number of years! that's no fly-by-night crush.

I was still hung up on a girl I went out with for a few months when I was 15 until I met my current gf about 18 months ago. That's like a decade of being crushed out. It would come and go. If I was seeing someone I'd forget about her, but as soon as I was single again, she'd be the one to come back into my thoughts. I'd have married her a couple of years ago, no question, even though I've only seen her a few times since (she moved away to uni in London and stayed). We've always clicked again straight away when I have seen her by chance on nights out and stuff, but at the same time it felt magical and dreamlike. First time I saw her after she left for uni was when I visited a friend also at uni down there and we went to Trash. She was standing on the dancefloor looking bored... and I walked towards her and she smiled and nodded, like she'd seen me last week. I could hear the blood rushing in my ears, as close to a "mystical experience" as I've ever had straight.
 
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