Why do I become obsessed with one person for a while?

Asa said:
When I initially read this I thought it was so strange that therapists and other (regular) people don't understand what limerence is because limerence is all over romance movies. It's more common to see limerence than true love in popular romances! Then, I realized people don't recognize it because they are misinterpreting the limerence they feel as "love" because they've been taught (via society) that it is love, or at least puppy love or unrequited love.


A famous example of limerence is how Andrew Lincoln's character feels about Keira Knightley's character in "Love Actually". That movie is full of limerence, but that part of the movie is the most obvious example.
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Yes, I think the friends / therapist understood it to be unrequited love.

This is more of an obsession though. It can completely take over the person's thinking. They can lose focus on everything else. There can be extreme emotional highs if the limerent object appears to reciprocate and extreme lows when it's clear they are not interested. This can last for years.

The therapist had not heard of the term limerence. She didn't seem to think it was a problem. She wanted to focus on the anxiety and perhaps this was the right approach.
 
Artemisia said:
Sort of. I am 33 now and this sort of thing has happened often enough to make me think that there is something inside me that needs to be resolved. I know this is entirely my own doing. What is strange is that once I replace the infatuation/obsession with another person or decide to terminate it (takes a lot of time and effort), I no longer want to deal with that person and the feelings never return. It's as if I never had feelings for him. As I said, each obsession seems to last a shorter time.
The problem is that it is becoming difficult for me to focus on anything else. I am like a zombie doing work and all. Only recently have I tried to address this issue head on and to force myself to only view the person I am obsessed with in a negative light. Basically I try to focus on his negative traits as much as I can.

The way this is going I fear that I will never have a normal long-term relationship.....I want to solve the problem once and for all.
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maybe this is a kind of love?
 
I've become fascinated by people because I like their style of dress and appearance. After getting to know people beyond their appearance I often get disappointed because they're almost never how they appear.

Unfortunately you can't look at human beings and accurately determine what to do with them. People are not tables. People are not chairs. People are not desks.

I don't enjoy dealing with people at a personal level but I unfortunately have to do it because I'm a person.
 
Sloe Djinn said:
Am I missing something or is limerance just a fancy word for a crush?
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Yeah I think so. But I read limerence as obsession with negative connotations. Like s*@# is getting crazy upstairs. Creepy picture cutouts and murder plots are looming in the distance.
 
Artemisia said:
I've had this problem since my early teens. Until my early 20s, I would fixate on a film star or historical figure (usually a man, sometimes a woman) and would obsess over him and idealize him. In my early 20s I fell into limerence with one of my professors and it was torture for 5 years. I transferred the obsession to another professor with whom I then had a one year relationship. After him, I've been obsessed/limerent for a few months over the men I dated (6 in total since 2013).

It is becoming extremely difficult for me to forge a normal relationship. Every time I date, I become limerent over the person for an average of 3-4 months and then I either transfer the limerence to another person or just decide to kill it on my own. I am now in my third month of obsessing over a guy I dated three months ago (we talk weekly still) and am trying to kill this obsession as it is destroying my life and I have a hard time thinking about anything else.

Is this a common INFJ trait? Probably the best thing that has come out of this this past year is that my obsessions don't last years like they did before 2013. It is not low self-esteem either as I feel like I like myself just fine.
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Interesting, I feel it same. This problem destroyed my every potential relationship.
 
Sloe Djinn said:
Am I missing something or is limerance just a fancy word for a crush?
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It's more obsessive than a crush and people confuse it with love when they don't know the person well enough (or engage with them enough) to be in love.
 
Artemisia said:
In no particular order: softness/agreebleness, introversion, intellect, physical appearance, stability (all for male partners by the way)
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You've summoned me mistress?^^

I kinda connect to this. Now that i read the comments i think i can add some more patterns. Possibly not 100% matching but i have the feeling these things are down the same main road.

One is the need to outlive creativity. Especially in my early 20s or as teen i had so mad ideas how to impress my crush. For a good part just fantasies but now and then i went for some unusual moves. And i loved to strategize eg. how to overcome situations where her parents didnt like me.

Another situation where this kinda obsession kicks in is with the "fix-me" girl. It took me a while no notice that its not punch drunk love in these situations. Its more like a "I can fix you and i love you because then i can connect to you more deeply and i will fix you coz i can and you deserve it because i can see how beautiful you can be".

I wouldn't go as far, saying everything down this road is unhealthy. A good part is just feeling more intense than the average Bob does. But these tendencies are there and as Asa rightfully pointed out you need to be in contact with this person to verify if this may become love or just disappears like a Fata Morgana.

But in the end it happens like ~90% with women only. So in my case i definately smell a broken Dad relation and crappy male idoles during my childhood.

Personally i had these thing often as teen/20 something. But it pops up now and then. Like currently... super intense. But i somehow learned my lesson. I aproached her and said it would be cool to chat with you and here's my mail. Just write when you feel like it. It helps me a lot when i start defining borders which feels right and which leaves enough space for both parties to make a move.

hehe i still can't help myself and yea communicate direct that i am interested and i like eg what attracts me like fluffy hair. But i try to do it in a manner that allows me to say "yea thats me and if she likes me this part will be there and she needs to find out if she likes it or not" instead of "this feeling it pulls me without control and i have to do it, like being a mad artist".
 
Hey thanks for all the input in this thread. Kind of gave me some answers as to why I was treated like I was never loved in the end.
An internet thread gave me an answer all these years later. Finally.
 
It never happened to me nor any INFJ I know. INFJs actually the type of person who wants to date one person -> marry with them -> stay with them forever.

However, this behavior is so INFP, ISFP, etc. Fi user feeler type's behavior. Their Fi obsesses with people to suck their vibe until they get bored which is what OP mentioned. It's also the same for anything about anything, not just people. Though it's not romantic interest but the sum of vibe, lust, fun, etc. emotions that are deemed to be positive by the particular individual. When you really have a romantic interest in someone you never want to leave them even when they turn out to be a monster who tries to kill you — that's called love and love is stupid. But it's sexual interest if you really don't care about them and can leave them just like that. Lust never lasts but love is forever. Since I'm demisexual I never had a sexual interest in someone because it was never mutual (that's how it works for demisexual). However, because I'm demisexual I could experience pure romantic love for a few people.

For example, I only knew one ISFP and she was changing BF as how I change socks even though these guys didn't do anything wrong in particular. She was just getting bored of them but she was so obsessed with them until then. Though most of the INFPs I knew weren't like that at all.
 
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