phoenixrising Posted August 9, 2008 Posted August 9, 2008 Even though I realize that many love and emotions will always remain mysterious and unexplained, I still look for reasons that so many of us obviously strong men and women become OW/OM - full well knowing this isn't best for us. The word 'limerence' was mentioned in the infidelity website, so I looked it up this a.m. ... wow. While the site below doesn't explain why we feel "limerence" (other than it is involuntary) it certainly provides the first reasonable explanation of why MM/W stay married, why they stray, why we all stay... see the bond varieties section. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerence I'd be curious to hear what you all think after reading this...
Tomcat33 Posted August 9, 2008 Posted August 9, 2008 Ok I'll bite, here's what I think of the term "limerence" Limerence is a label created in popular psychology for people who actually fall in love and experience love but they are doing so under a less than normal or ideal circumstance. It is a perfect way to create instant PR for yourself as a mental care professional, to create a new term or label for an old act that can be used as a household word. This term is ever so acceptable because it deviates from your ideal definition of love because it applies to people who ARE in love that should not. It gives people who are not on the typically accepted path of love and for those who psychoanalize them an exclusive label to play with. Also wanted to add that in some cases limerence is used to describe one sided feelings a person has in a relationship that is unrequited, well then if that's the case then it's not love is it. So if you want to call one sided love a limerence then I would be more inclined to do that rather than state that an A love is always limerence. I have seen limerence used to associate this feeling to what people have in affairs but just because one person in an affair is less free than the other to give of their time it does not make the relationship between the two one sided or unrequited in terms of feelings. Both parties may be feeling the same level of intensity for each other. Limerence could be also used to describe a long distance rel. where only one person drives for example, since they are limited to freely connect in person by definition of what limerence is that would also make it unrequited? It's much in the same way I see my other favourite nonsense lable of all time Narcissistic Personality Disorder, another modern popsych "term" given to a specific group of people who display characteristics that are innate in all of us but more prevelant in some and it's older than earth itself. In other words the term is "selfish" These modern labels are created by psychologists and what better way to go down in history than to introduce a new word for an already existing description of an old act or thing? I would like to also introduce a term I have coined. It is called: "durngat" Durngat is used to describe the types of actions or words that would be considereded malarkey or a downright falsity. In the past it has also been loosely associated to that of which comes out of a rear end of a bull. Durngat is the sexier and sophisticated version of the old term "bullshiiit". It is easier to use in day to day vocabulary because it is less offensive and most importantly it can be applied it to a whole new wave of bullshiiit that is presented under the pretext of "pshychological" terminology. Durngat is odour free but what it lacks in odour it more than makes for in presence. Limerence is durngat!
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