My fortieth birthday is a week away as I write this.
I haven’t been taking it well.
It’s not really about getting old. But the past several weeks have been filled with sadness, regret, and longing. I’ve been reflecting on all the mistakes I’ve made, all of the opportunities I’ve passed on, and all of the chances I’ve botched.
The feeling of it’s too late lays over me like a soaking-wet blanket, all ice cold and crushingly heavy.
What’s too late, exactly?
I don’t know—I haven’t gotten to the part yet. But I sure have ben torturing myself in the meantime.
One pronounced symptom of all these negative feelings has been loneliness. And whenever I feel lonely, there’s only one cure I want. It’s a cure I’m quite familiar with. It’s an old and dark friend.
It’s not drugs. Nor is it alcohol. It’s not sex, either, but we’re getting warmer.
It’s love.
But not just any kind of love. It’s romantic love.
It’s an idealized manifestation of romantic love that I crave and fantasize about. These fantasies glut themselves on all of the carefully curated Instagram posts I see of beautiful men in passionate relationships.
And then the cycle of compare and despair sets in. Hopelessness comes knocking.
So I fantasize some more. I trip into parasocial fixations.
Above all else, I fall into a state of limerence for men I don’t even know. And that’s when I’m reminded of just how toxic limerence is.
Love Bombing And Limerence
When the Gay Narcissistic Relationship ended and I found myself lost and alone in the liminal space following the Final Narcissistic Discard, my Kindle transformed into a trusted companion.
With that Kindle I read The Human-Magnet Syndrome by Ross Rosenberg.
This is a must-read book if you’re trying to figure out your life after exiting a narcissistic relationship. It’s one of the best and most helpful sources of information I read back when I was at my lowest point following the Final Narcissistic Discard.
(If you’re interested in buying the book, please do so using this link, as it helps support my website and independent writing.)
There’s a chapter in The Human-Magnet Syndrome I read over and over again to remind myself I wasn’t alone or insane: “Why We Continue To Fail Chemistry And Math.”
This is where Ross Rosenberg discussed just how powerful the attraction is between a narcissist and his or her target (Rosenberg uses the term “codependent” in his book). This attraction is so potent and all-consuming that it can easily derail a person’s life. It’s certainly knocked me off course more than once.
Back then I saw clear parallels between love bombing and limerence, leading me to believe that love bombing wasn’t a pure manipulation tactic—at least for narcissists. I say this because narcissists have their grandiose beliefs in passion and their entitlement to the perfect love story… so long as it serves them completely and they don’t have to do any work.
The recognition of limerence’s influence on love bombing spawned the first essay I ever wrote about narcissistic relationships: “Inside The Narcissist’s Head During Love Bombing And Limerence | Ross Rosenberg.”
In that essay I said the following:
Limerence is the intangible force that animates a narcissistic relationship in its early days. It causes obsessive thoughts, feelings of unbridled passion, and an addictive need for reciprocation. In Rosenberg’s own words: “chemistry is where opposite attraction begins, and limerence is where it blows up into a fireworks display.”
The initial love-obsessed—or limerent—phase of a standard passionate relationship lines up a little too well with what the idealization/love-bombing phase of a narcissistic relationship looks like. That’s because the narcissist (and the unfortunate love-bombed man or woman) are in the early days of limerence.
You’d think this knowledge and understanding would protect me against further flights of fantasy.
Unfortunately that doesn’t always happen.
Obsessed With New Love
There’s a difference between knowing something with your intellect versus feeling it with your emotions.
I’ve often known when I’m falling for people who are bad for me, or I’m developing fixations from afar to torture myself with (again, it’s always compare and despair with me). Sure, I know what’s going on and why cognitively.
But guess what?
That doesn’t make it feel any better. And oftentimes trying to explain it away just makes it feel worse because you wind up pathologizing yourself without doing anything with the feelings themselves.
While everything I write is for anyone who wants to read it, I tackle most topics from a gay man’s perspective. And this limerence thing—I can see a concentration of it among gay men, just like I can narcissistic behavior.
This issue is touched upon in The Velvet Rage by Dr. Alan Downs.
(Please buy the book using this link. It really helps support the work I do. 🥹)
Downs touches on the idea of limerence (without naming it) when he explains the difficulties and traumas gay men often experience in romance before cultivating authenticity. Many a gay man has plenty of stories about dysfunctional relationships, toxic love, and passion gone very wrong.
But it almost always starts out the same, as Downs writes:
“… Gay men become completely infatuated and obsessed with a new love.
It is beyond enjoying the excitement of a new man in their life—they become consumed with the relationship, spending virtually all of their time with the new lover and neglecting their relationships with just about anyone else…”
This section always stood out to me for how often I’ve experienced in my years of meeting new men, how quickly I fall for them, and how all-consuming it really was. I’ve also had friends who vanish without a trace when a new guy enters the picture. The intense focus is awe-inspiring.
It’s because there’s hope there, but it’s misplaced hope. Such intense and obsession infatuation is a titanic high, and no one under its spell can clearly see what’s going on. It’s hard to pump the breaks when it’s actively occurring, and I understand that.
Dating is hard for gay men. Our pool is much smaller. And the pool we’re choosing from all has the same experienced trauma, though we’re all at different stages working through it. Add on top of that lack of availability because of all the open relationships out there, the fixation of sex roles…
It’s hard. I get it—trust me. We all get it. But falling into the madness of limerence will only make the situation far worse.
Easier said than done, I know. I’m experiencing it myself, right now.
But overcoming limerence is always worth the effort.
