Limerence is the mental state of being madly in love or intensely infatuated when reciprocation of the feeling is uncertain. This state is characterized by intrusive thoughts and idealization of the loved one (also called "crystallization"), typically with a desire for reciprocation to form a relationship. This is accompanied by feelings of ecstasy or despair, depending on whether one's feelings seem to be reciprocated or not. Research on the biology of romantic love indicates that the early stage of intense romantic love (also called passionate love) resembles addiction, but academics do not currently agree on how love addictions are defined. The psychologist Dorothy Tennov coined the term "limerence" as an alteration of the word "amorance" without other etymologies. The concept grew out of her work in the 1960s when she interviewed over 500 people on the topic of love, originally published in her book Love and Limerence. According to Tennov, "to be in a state of limerence is to feel what is usually termed 'being in love.'" She coined the term to disambiguate the state from other less-overwhelming emotions and to avoid the implication that people who don't experience it are incapable of love. Tennov was inspired to study romantic love after encountering people in her post as a professor who experienced severe heartbreak and personal perils. Tennov's research suggested to her that limerence is normal (although illogical), and a 2025 survey suggested that as many as 50–60% of the population had experienced it. Limerence is a descriptive concept, rather than a diagnosis or disorder; it is not in the DSM. The polysemous nature of love words has led to semantic confusion which Tennov meant to clarify, although there is even still disagreement on how "limerence" is defined. Love research has never adopted a unified terminology or definitions. According to Tennov and others, limerence can be considered intense romantic love, falling in love, love madness, intense infatuation, passionate love with obsessive elements or lovesickness. Limerence and obsessive love are similar, but obsessive love has connotations of possessive and self-defeating behavior. Limerence is also sometimes compared to and contrasted with a crush, with limerence being much more intense and impacting day-to-day functioning more: "when a crush has taken over your life". Love and Limerence has been called the seminal work on romantic love, with Tennov's survey results and the various personal accounts recounted in the book largely marking the start of data collection on the phenomenon.
Overview Dorothy Tennov's research was intended to be a scientific attempt at understanding the nature of romantic love. She identified a suite of psychological properties associated with a state she called limerence—usually termed "being in love", but distinguishable from other types of attraction patterns that the phrase "in love" might also refer to. Other authors have considered limerence to be an emotional and motivational state for focusing attention on a preferred mating partner or an attachment process. Joe Beam calls limerence the feeling of being "madly in love". Nicky Hayes describes it as "a kind of infatuated, all-absorbing passion", the type of love Dante felt towards Beatrice or that of Romeo and Juliet. An unfulfilled, intense longing defines the state, where the individual becomes "more or less obsessed by that person and spends much of their time fantasising about them". Hayes suggests it is "the unobtainable nature of the goal which makes the feeling so powerful", and occasional, intermittent reinforcement may be required to support the underlying feelings. Arthur and Elaine Aron noted a "constant, overwhelming, and even debilitating absorption in the unrequited desire" in their characterization of limerence. Stanton Peele compares it to "severe emotional disability", with an often inappropriate love object. Frank Tallis calls it "love that does not need liking—love that may even thrive in response to rejection or contempt" and notes the "striking similarities" with addiction. A central feature of limerence, for Tennov, was that her participants really saw the personal flaws of the object of their affection but overlooked them or found them attractive. Tennov calls this "crystallization", after a description by the French writer Stendhal. This "crystallized" object of passionate desire is what Tennov calls a "limerent object" (LO), "because to the degree that your reaction to a person is limerent, you respond to your construction of LO's qualities". Limerence has psychological properties akin to the concept of passionate love, but in Tennov's conception, limerence begins before an intimate relationship and before the person experiencing it knows for certain whether it is reciprocated. Limerence is frequently unrequited and turns into a lovesickness that can be difficult to escape. Tennov argues that some situational uncertainty is required for the mental preoccupation and feelings to intensify, for example: mixed messages, physical or social obstacles, or even an LO's unsuitability as a partner. Not everyone experiences limerence. Tennov estimated that 50% of women and 35% of men experience limerence based on answers to certain survey questions she administered. Another survey administered by neuroscientist and limerence blogger Tom Bellamy indicated that 64% had experienced it at least once, and 32% "found it so distressing that it was hard to enjoy life". It can be difficult for people who have not experienced limerence to understand it, and it is often derided and dismissed as some pathology, or an invention of romantic fiction. According to Tennov, limerence is not a mental illness, although it can be "highly disruptive and extremely painful", called "irrational, silly, embarrassing, and abnormal" or sometimes "the greatest happiness" depending on who is asked.
Components
The original components of limerence were:
Famous examples
Historical Stendhal, whom Love and Limerence is written in memory of, and his unrequited love for a woman named Mathilde, which inspired him to write De l'Amour—the only comprehensive approach to limerence which Tennov could find at the time of her research Dante Alighieri's unending but unrequited love for Beatrice Portinari, who was a real person, despite Dante's account being fictionalized Lady Caroline Lamb and Lord Byron, who shared an affair that Byron dropped out of, with Lamb remaining obsessed for a time afterward Heloise, the 17-year-old mistress of the 12th-century cleric-philosopher Peter Abelard, who was castrated by hoodlums ordered by Heloise's uncle, who mistakenly believed Abelard had abandoned her. Heloise's limerence for Abelard remained intense for many years after their marriage and subsequent separation, depicted in the Letters of Abelard and Heloise
Fictional Romeo and Juliet Werther, from The Sorrows of Young Werther Mr. Darcy, from Pride and Prejudice Severus Snape's love for Lily Evans, the mother of Harry Potter Joel Barish, from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Bella Swan and Edward Cullen, from the Twilight series Tom Hansen, from 500 Days of Summer
Relation to other concepts
Love Dorothy Tennov gives several reasons for inventing a term for the state denoted by limerence (usually termed "being in love"). One principle reason is to resolve ambiguities with the word "love" being used both to refer to an act (which is chosen), as well as to a state (which is endured):
Many writers on love have complained about semantic difficulties. The dictionary lists two dozen different meanings of the word "love". And how does one distinguish between love and affection, liking, fondness, caring, concern, infatuation, attraction, or desire? [...] Acknowledgment of a distinction between love as a verb, as an action taken by the individual, and love as a state is awkward. Never having fallen in love is not at all a matter of not loving, if loving is defined as caring. Furthermore, this state of "being in love" included feelings that do not properly fit with love defined as concern. (The type of love that focuses on caring for others is called compassionate love or agape.)The other principle reason given is that she encountered people who do not experience limerence. The first such person Tennov discovered was a long-time friend, Helen Payne, whose unfamiliarity with the state emerged during a conversation on an airplane flight together. Tennov writes that "describing the intricacies of romantic attachments" to Helen was "like trying to describe the color red to one blind from birth". A person not currently experiencing limerence is called "nonlimerent", but Tennov cautions that it seemed to her that there is no "nonlimerent personality" and that potentially anyone could experience limerence. Tennov says: I adopted the view that never being in this state was neither more nor less pathological than experiencing it. I wanted to be able to speak about this reliably identifiable condition without giving love's advocates the feeling something precious was being destroyed. Even more important, if using the term "love" denoted the presence of the state, there was the danger that absence of the state would receive negative connotations. Tennov addresses the issue of whether limerence is love in other passages. In one passage she clearly says that limerence is love, at least in certain cases:
In fully developed limerence, you feel additionally what is, in other contexts as well, called love—an extreme degree of feeling that you want LO to be safe, cared for, happy, and all those other positive and noble feelings [...]. That's probably why limerence is called love in all languages. [...] Surely limerence is love at its highest and most glorious peak. However, Tennov switches in tone and continues on with a fairly negative story of the pain felt by a woman reminiscing over the time she wasted pining for a man she now feels nothing towards, something which occupied her in a time when her father was still alive and her children "were adorable babies who needed their mother's attention." Tennov says this is why we distinguish limerence (this "love") from other loves. In another passage, Tennov says that while affection and fondness do not demand anything in return, the return of feelings desired in the limerent state means that "Other aspects of your life, including love, are sacrificed in behalf of the all-consuming need." and that "While limerence has been called love, it is not love."
Romantic love
Dorothy Tennov sometimes considers limerence to be synonymous with "romantic love", a term with a complicated history and definition. A cultural ancestor to Tennov's concept was the literary tradition of romantic love, involving often tragic or unfulfilled love, or early depictions of limerence. Literature and poetry provided early self-reports of the kind of experience Tennov was interested in studying. Some examples of romantic love stories in this vein are Layla and Majnun, Tristan and Iseult, Dante and Beatrice (from La Vita Nuova), Romeo and Juliet and The Sorrows of Young Werther. Anakin and Padmé from Star Wars are a modern depiction. The literary genre dates back to troubadour poetry from the Middle Ages (or earlier), also known as "courtly love". Tennov credits Andreas Capellanus as describing limerence "very accurately" in The Art of Courtly Love, a book of statutes for the "proper" conduct of lovers. The work includes rules such as "A true lover is constantly and without intermission possessed by the thoughts of his beloved." and "The easy attainment of love makes it of little value; difficulty of attainment makes it prized." The work is believed to have helped spread romantic love culture throughout Europe. Romantic love in this sense is sometimes held to be socially constructed (often by critics), but Tennov argues that limerence has a biological basis. Tennov sometimes considers limerence synonymous with "falling in love", a concept which also has origins in the romantic tradition and the idea that love is tragic—evoking a connotation of physically falling over or losing consciousness. "Romantic love" originally referenced this courtly idea, but then came to have other connotations. In modern scientific literature, "romantic love" is instead often used as a synonym for "passionate love", a more general concept, also often associated with limerence. In her era, Tennov called the scientific literature "confused and contradictory". John Alan Lee has also complained about this reduction to a monolithic typology, or "one true love". Helen Fisher commented that she preferred the term "romantic love" for its meaning in society.
Passionate and companionate love
Limerence is often associated with "passionate love", with Elaine Hatfield considering them synonymous, and commenting in 2016 that they're "much the same". Many researchers have considered them synonymous. Passionate love is:
A state of intense longing for union with an other. Reciprocated love (union with the other) is associated with fulfillment and ecstasy. Unrequited love (separation) with emptiness; with anxiety, or despair. A state of profound physiological arousal. Passionate love is linked to passion, as in intense emotion: for example, joy and fulfillment, but also anguish and agony. According to Hatfield, passion is a "hodgepodge of conflicting emotions", and the original meaning "was agony—as in Christ's passion." Passionate love is contrasted with the less intense "companionate love": "the affection we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply entwined". In Love and Limerence, Dorothy Tennov also lists passionate love among her synonyms for limerence, and refers to Hatfield's early writings on the concept. Tennov's study, however, focused on the aspects of love which cause distress, and on individuals over relationships. Another problem she encountered in her research was that informants would use terms like "passionate love", "romantic love" and "being in love" to refer to mental states other than what she refers to as limerence. Informants would use the word "obsession", yet not report the intrusive thoughts necessary to limerence, only that "thoughts of the person are frequent and pleasurable". Passionate love is commonly measured with the Passionate Love Scale (PLS), originally designed to measure the same state denoted by limerence. Later research found the PLS has overly broad questions, and it actually has two general components (called factors): an obsession factor and a non-obsession factor. The PLS obsession factor has items like "Sometimes I feel I can't control my thoughts; they are obsessively on my partner." and "An existence without my partner would be dark and dismal." Limerence is comparable to passionate love with obsession:
Passionate love, "a state of intense longing for union with another" [...], also referred to as [...] "limerence" (Tennov, 1979), includes an obsessive element, characterized by intrusive thinking, uncertainty, and mood swings.The PLS non-obsession factor has items like "For me, my partner is the perfect romantic partner." and "I want my partner—physically, emotionally, and mentally." These love feelings (without obsession) can sustain over a longer period, according to newer research.
Infatuation "Infatuation" has been considered synonymous with concepts like passionate love, "being in love" and limerence, but limerence is supposed to be more intense than a simple infatuation. Dorothy Tennov has stated that she did not use the word "infatuation" because while there is overlap, the word evokes different connotations. In one type of distinction, people use "infatuation" to express disapproval or to refer to unsatisfactory relationships, and "love" to refer to satisfactory ones. In Love and Limerence, Tennov considers "infatuation" to be pejorative, for example, being used to label teenage fantasizing about a celebrity which is actually limerence. In the triangular theory of love, by Robert Sternberg, "infatuation" refers to romantic passion without intimacy (or closeness) and without commitment, which he has stated is essentially the same as limerence.
Independent emotion systems Helen Fisher's popular theory of independent emotion systems posits that there are three primary systems involved with human reproduction, mating and parenting: lust (the sex drive, or sexual desire), attraction (passionate love, infatuation or limerence) and attachment (companionate love). These three systems regularly work in concert together but serve different purposes and can also work independently. According to Fisher, lust, attraction and attachment can occur in any order. Independent emotions theory has been critiqued as being oversimplified, but the general idea of separate systems remains useful. When limerence is a component in an affair, for example, Fisher's theory can be used to help explain this. Fisher's theory is that a person can feel deep attachment for a long-term spouse, while they're in limerence with somebody else, while they can be sexually attracted to still yet other people. Joe Beam comments that if somebody in a committed relationship ends up in limerence like this, it will pull them out of their relationship. Fisher's theory has also been used to explain "platonic" limerence (without sexual desire), because romantic love and sexual desire are functionally distinct. Tennov encountered this occasionally in her own research, finding cases of otherwise heterosexual women experiencing limerence for an older woman (compared to "hero worship"), but dismissed it as being outside her theory. Lisa Diamond argues this is possible (even in contradiction to sexual orientation) because the brain systems evolved by repurposing the systems for mother-infant bonding (a process called exaptation). According to this theory, it would not have been adaptive for a parent to only be able to bond with an opposite sex child, so the systems must have evolved independent of sexual orientation.
Attachment theory John Bowlby's concept of "attachment" refers to a system evolved to keep infants in proximity of their caregiver (or "attachment figure"). An attachment figure is a "secure base" for safety while exploring the environment, the child seeks proximity with the attachment figure when threatened, and suffers distress when separated. A prominent theory suggests this system is reused for adult pair bonds, as an exaptation or co-option, whereby a given trait takes on a new purpose. "Attachment style" refers to differences in thoughts and behaviors, relating to the concept of security vs. insecurity. This is split into components of anxiety (worrying the partner is available, attentive and responsive) and avoidance (preference not to rely on others or open up emotionally). In Helen Fisher's theory, limerence and attachment are considered different systems with different purposes. In the past, it has also been suggested that limerence could be related to the anxious attachment style. However, in their original 1987 paper about this, Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver caution they aren't implying the early phase of romance is equivalent to being attached. Other prominent authors have also argued that attachment theory cannot replace concepts like love styles or types of love. Limerence is considered a unique state which is distinct from attachment style, although people who have an anxious attachment style are more likely to have experienced it according to one survey. A 1990 study found considerable overlap of distributions between all three attachment styles and limerence (reported at similar frequencies), but the 15% of participants with an anxious attachment style scored about 10–20% higher on obsessive preoccupation and emotional dependence, and avoidants idealized more. Along with scoring highly on limerence, the anxious group also scored highly on the agape love attitude, for selfless, all-giving love.
Love styles
The concept of a "love style" was invented by the sociologist John Alan Lee, to distinguish between different ways to love, or different types of love stories. Limerence is considered similar or related to the love style mania (or manic love), named after the Ancient Greek theia mania (the madness from the gods). Lee developed his mania concept from sources similar to Tennov, like Andreas Capellanus and courtly love. Both Lee and Tennov refer to "love madness", and Peele & Brodsky's Love and Addiction. A manic lover is obsessively preoccupied with the beloved. When asked to recall their childhood, a typical manic lover recalls it as unhappy, and they're usually lonely, dissatisfied adults. They're anxious to fall in love, but unsure of which physical type they prefer. Often, they fall in love with somebody quite inappropriate (a stranger, or even somebody they initially dislike) and project onto them the qualities they want but don't actually have. According to Lee, "Mania can become almost an addiction nearly impossible for the addict to end on his own initiative." Mania is often the first love style of a young person, but others may not experience it until middle age—for example, after a marriage has lost interest. According to Lee, a cycle of manic loves is often caused by a desperate need to be in love, which the manic lover must remedy to break free. Lee describes the manic lover as jealous, but Tennov believes that a person can be limerent and not be jealous. Among the other love styles, mania is closely comparable to eros (erotic love, or love of beauty); both are considered "romantic love". An erotic lover is also intensely preoccupied with their beloved, although the thoughts are more optimistic. An erotic lover has a specific ideal in mind of what they consider beautiful—love is not "blind" for eros. According to Lee, only manic lovers typically "crystallize", the way Stendhal described it, overlooking flaws in their beloved. The erotic lover also recalls their childhood as happy. Eros has been associated with secure attachment, while mania has been associated with attachment anxiety and neuroticism. A third style, manic eros, is a mixture "moving either toward a more stable eros or toward full-blown mania". Some are erotic lovers under a temporary strain (moving toward mania), while others are manic lovers with a self-confident and helping partner (moving toward eros). According to Lee, the love style ludus (noncommittal love as a game, avoidance and juggling multiple partners, e.g. Don Juan) and mania possess a "fatal attraction" for one another. It's surprisingly common, but not a good match for happy, mutual love. According to Tennov, Don Juan was probably nonlimerent, "more interested in exploiting the feeling in others for his own sexual gratification", although nonlimerence doesn't necessitate this.
Love addiction "Love addiction" is a heterogeneous construct under discussion as a potential mental disorder, but does not yet exist in any psychiatric nosology (e.g. not in the DSM). Academics do not currently agree on when love is an addiction or when it needs to be treated. In a narrow view, love could be considered addiction only when it involves abnormal processes carrying negative consequences; alternatively, a broader view is that all love might be addiction, or simply an appetite, similar to how humans are dependent on food. Authors such as Helen Fisher have also included those "who have been rejected or broken up with" as love addicts. Limerence has been included in this discussion, and likened to a love addiction. Stanton Peele, a pioneering author on love addiction, has commented on limerence, calling it a "clinical condition" which "leads people (primarily women) desperately to pursue often inappropriate love objects, frequently to fail at relationships, and to be incapable of learning from such experiences". Sharon Brehm has wondered what limerence would feel like "if there were a cultural tradition encouraging us to work with it rather than be assailed by it".
Erotomania Limerence is different from erotomania, a delusional disorder where the sufferer falsely believes their love is secretly reciprocated when it isn't, and invents ways to interpret outright rejections as unserious. A person in limerence by comparison might "grasp for hope" and misinterpret signals, or imagine reciprocation in a fantasy, but they will understand a rejection. Helen Fisher and colleagues have stated that erotomania may be a type of schizophrenia, and may not involve the same brain reward system activity as romantic love.
Evolutionary purpose
Dorothy Tennov's speculation was that limerence has an evolutionary purpose.
For what ultimate cause might the state of limerence be a proximate cause? In other words, why were people who became limerent successful, maybe more successful than others, in passing their genes on to succeeding generations[.] Did limerence evolve to cement a relationship long enough to get the offspring up and running? [...] The most consistent result of limerence is mating, not merely sexual interaction but also commitment, the establishment of a shared domicile in the form of a cozy nest built for the enjoyment of ecstasy, for reproduction, and for the rearing of children. According to the evolutionary theory by the anthropologist Helen Fisher, limerence is the activation of a motivation system for choosing and focusing energy on a potential mating partner. This brain system evolved for mammalian mate choice, also called "courtship attraction". In this phenomenon, a preferred mating partner is chosen based on a display of physical traits (such as a peacock's tail feathers) or other behaviors. Fisher also includes the attraction to personality traits and other characteristics in her mate choice theory for humans. Who a person falls in love with then is determined by their "love map", a largely unconscious list of traits they desire in an ideal partner. Love maps begin forming during childhood based on experiences with parents and friends, among other associations, but also change over time. In most species, courtship attraction is brief, but intense romantic love can last much longer in humans. A competing evolutionary theory to Fisher's is that courtship attraction only encompasses something like love at first sight attraction, and the obsessive thoughts and intense attraction associated with early-stage romantic love instead evolved by co-opting (or re-using) the brain systems for mother-infant bonding. In this theory, romantic love may serve the function of mate choice but the brain systems were not originally for this. The neuroscientist Tom Bellamy believes that limerence evolved as a form of high-risk "extreme pair bonding" which can be explained as a handicap signal. The handicap principle in evolutionary theory is based on a contention between honest and fake signaling. When real emotions evolve, a niche is created for sham emotions (e.g. fake facial expressions) which are less risky to express. One explanation for why honest signals can evolve without becoming worthless (because of competing fakers) is that the honest signal can evolve if it's too expensive to fake. One example in nature is the peacock's tail, an example of conspicuous consumption, a cumbersome display which consumes nutrients. Only a healthy peacock can afford it, so in that case it may have evolved because it was a handicap, and used by females of the species as an indicator of health. Limerence can be seen as a handicap signal meant to prove one's true commitment to their limerent object. Limerence might have evolved to leave the person experiencing it so insanely besotted that they would not leave for another mate, even a more valuable one. According to Helen Fisher's theory, monogamy emerged at a time when mothers needed extra food and protection (when bipedalism evolved, and then infant altriciality later), so romantic love evolved to last long enough while a mother cares for an infant. Tennov suggested that if the neural "machinery" for limerence is not a universal among all humans, then having both phenotypes (limerent and nonlimerent) in the population might be beneficial and an evolutionarily stable strategy. Limerents and nonlimerents tend not to always get along, nor have compatible relationship interests. Limerence would also be affected by culture, according to Tennov. A culture which idealizes limerence might cause the nonlimerent LO to be more tolerant (or even imitate it), whereas a culture which is hostile to limerence might cause it to be denied, hidden or suppressed.
Characteristics
Addiction
Limerence has been called an addiction. The early stage of romantic love is being compared to a behavioral addiction (i.e. addiction to a non-substance) but the "substance" involved is the loved person. A team led by Helen Fisher used fMRI to find that people who had "just fallen madly in love" showed activation in an area of the brain called the ventral tegmental area (VTA) while looking at a photograph of their beloved. The VTA is an area in the midbrain which produces dopamine and projects to other reward system areas, like the nucleus accumbens and caudate nucleus which have also been active in brain scans of romantic love. Dopamine signaling in the VTA is the origin of a phenomenon called incentive salience, also called "wanting" (in quotes). This is the property by which cues in the environment stand out to a person and become attention-grabbing and attractive, like a "motivational magnet" which pulls a person towards a particular reward. People in love are thought to experience incentive salience in response to their beloved. In addiction research, a distinction is drawn between "wanting" a reward (i.e. incentive salience, tied to mesocorticolimbic dopamine) and "liking" a reward (i.e. pleasure, tied to hedonic hotspots), aspects which are dissociable. People can be addicted to drugs and compulsively seek them out, even when taking the drug no longer results in a high or the addiction is detrimental to one's life. They can also "want" (i.e. feel compelled towards, in the sense of incentive salience) something which they do not cognitively wish for. In a similar way, people who are in love may "want" a loved person even when interactions with them are not pleasurable. For example, they may want to contact an ex-partner after a rejection, even when the experience will only be painful. It is also possible for a person to be "in love" with somebody they do not like, or who treats them poorly. Fisher's team proposes that romantic love is a "positive addiction" (i.e. not harmful) when requited and a "negative addiction" when unrequited or inappropriate. For a person in limerence that goes unrequited, the pleasurable aspects tend to diminish over time, with the person becoming lovesick and the addiction being maintained more by avoidance of the pain of separation.
Lovesickness
Usually limerence is unrequited, and a horrible experience for the limerent person, even debilitating for some. Lovesickness is the resulting mental state, characterized by addictive cravings, frustration, depression, melancholy and intrusive thinking. In Dorothy Tennov's survey group, 42% reported being "severely depressed about a love affair" and 17% said they "often thought of committing suicide". Helen Fisher's fMRI scans of rejected lovers showed activation in brain areas associated with physical pain, craving and assessing one's gains and losses. A limerent person can self-isolate, or be distracted, even to the detriment of school or job performance. A shyness and confusion manifests out of fear of rejection when an LO is around—sometimes even in those normally confident, with the limerent person "terribly worried that [their] own actions may bring about disaster". A 28-year-old truck driver says it's "like what you might call stage fright [...]. I was awkward as hell." The physiological effects of limerence include trembling, pallor, flushing, weakness, sweating, butterflies in the stomach and a pounding heart. When Tennov asked her informants where the sensation of limerence was felt, "they pointed unerringly to the midpoint in their chest. So consistently did this occur that it would seem to be another indication that the state described is indeed limerence". In a 1987 survey by Shere Hite in which many participants described relationships which were clearly limerent, 69% of married women and 48% of single women "neither liked, nor trusted, being in love", and their responses indicated being in love was mostly distressing. 17% "could no longer take love seriously". Tennov describes being under the spell herself: "Before it happened, I couldn't have imagined it[.] Now, I wouldn't want to have it happen again." Some people even described to her incidents of self-harm, but Tennov maintains that such tragedies involve limerence "augmented and distorted" by other factors. There's debate among academics over when love can be considered addiction, and whether addiction is really a "true" mental illness. Lovesickness has been pathologized in previous centuries, but is not currently in the ICD-10, ICPC or DSM-5. The lovers described by Tennov bear a particular resemblance to addicts, but limerence was not intended to denote an abnormal state. The author and clinical psychologist Frank Tallis has made the argument that all love—even normal love—is largely indistinguishable from mental illness.
The symptoms of lovesickness still bear resemblance to entries in the DSM, which now includes some addictions, and there are other entries which also resemble core symptoms of falling in love: preoccupation, episodes of melancholy, rapture and instability of mood. These correspond to conventional diagnoses of obsessionality (or OCD), depression, mania (or hypomania) and manic depression. Other examples are physical symptoms resembling panic attacks (pounding heart, trembling, shortness of breath and lightheadedness), excessive worrying about the future resembling generalized anxiety disorder, appetite disturbance and sensitivity about one's appearance resembling anorexia nervosa, and the feeling that life has become a dream resembling derealization and depersonalization. It has been argued that falling in love is involuntary, but whether one's subsequent behavior could be considered autonomous may depend on whether addictive love is viewed as a normal or abnormal state. Tallis argues that love evolved to override rationality so that one finds a lover to reproduce with, regardless of the personal costs of bearing and raising a child:
At first sight, it seems extraordinary that evolutionary forces might conspire to shape something that looks like a mental illness to ensure reproductive success. Yet, there are many reasons why love should have evolved to share with madness several features—the most notable of which is the loss of reason. Like the ancient humoral model of love sickness, evolutionary principles seem to have necessitated a blurring of the distinction between normal and abnormal states. Evolution expects us to love madly, lest we fail to love at all. According to Tennov, "Love has been called a madness and an affliction at least since the time of the ancient Greeks and probably earlier than that." Historically, lovesickness has been attributed to arrows shot by Eros, a sickness entering through the eyes (like evil eye), excess of black bile, spells, potions and other magic. The first known treatise on the subject is Remedia Amoris, by the poet Ovid. People have tried to treat lovesickness with a variety of natural products, charms and rituals. The bioethicist Brian Earp and his colleagues have argued that the voluntary use of anti-love drugs (made to cause a person to fall out of love) could be ethical, but there's no drug now which is a realistic candidate.
Intrusive thinking and fantasy
Intrusive thinking is a hallmark or cardinal trait of romantic love. Tennov wrote that "Limerence is first and foremost a condition of cognitive obsession." One study found that on average people in love spent 65% of their waking hours thinking of their beloved. Arthur Aron says "It is obsessive-compulsive when you're feeling it. It's the center of your life." At the height of obsessive fantasy, a person in limerence can spend 85 to nearly 100% of their days and nights doting in reverie, lose their ability to focus and become distracted. A limerent person can spend time fantasizing about future events even if they never come true, as the anticipation on its own yields dopamine. According to Tennov, limerent fantasy is unsatisfactory unless rooted in reality, because the fantasy must seem realistic enough to be somewhat possible. Fantasies can nevertheless be wildly unrealistic: one person recalled an elaborate rescue, in which he saves an LO's 5-year-old cousin from motorcycles, only to be killed by a snake in the lap of his LO as she tells him "I love you". This fantasizing along with the replaying of actual memories forms a bridge between ordinary life and the eventual hoped-for moment: consummation. Tennov says that limerent fantasy is "inescapable", something that just "happens" as opposed to something one "does".
Ellen Berscheid & Elaine Hatfield (cited by Tennov) state on the importance of fantasy:When the lover closes his eyes and daydreams, he can summon up a flawless partner—a partner who instantaneously satisfies all his unspoken, conflicting, and fleeting desires. In fantasy he may receive unlimited reward or he may anticipate that he would receive unlimited reward were he ever to actually meet his ideal. Compared to our grandiose fantasies, the level of reward we receive in our real interactions is severely circumscribed. As a consequence, sometimes the most extreme passion is aroused by partners who exist only in imagination or partners who are barely known.One theory of obsessive thinking draws a parallel with drug addiction: the early stage of romantic love is compared to addiction, and drug addicts also exhibit obsessive thoughts about drug use. Tennov conceived of limerent fantasy (based in reality) as "intricate strategy planning". In the late 1990s, it was also speculated that falling in love lowered serotonin levels in the brain, believed to cause intrusive thoughts. This was based on a comparison to obsessive–compulsive disorder, but the experiments were ambiguous. The experiments also measured blood levels rather than in the central nervous system, making the results difficult to interpret. The first experiment found that serotonin transporter levels were lower, but a second experiment found that blood serotonin levels in men and women were affected differently. This second experiment found that obsessive thinking was actually associated with increased serotonin in women. SSRI use also seemed to not have an effect on obsessive thinking in a 2025 study. For some people who fear intimacy or have a history of trauma, limerent fantasy might be an escape, without the threat of real intimacy.
Crystallization
Crystallization, for Tennov, is the "remarkable ability to emphasize what is truly admirable in LO and to avoid dwelling on the negative, even to respond with a compassion for the negative and render it, emotionally if not perceptually, into another positive attribute." The term comes from the French writer Stendhal's 1821 treatise on love, De l'Amour, in which he describes an analogy where a tree branch is tossed into a salt mine. After several months, the tree branch (or twig) becomes covered in salt crystals which transform it "into an object of shimmering beauty". In the same way, unattractive characteristics of an LO are given little to no attention, so that the LO is seen in the most f