Dear Stacy:

“I appreciate your curiosity in trying to better understand me“- I appreciate your appreciation of me, thank you!

I read your most recent post, and in this reply, I will tell you what I understand about you, and you can let me know what you think of my understanding:

You are a very intelligent, well spoken, patient, kind and gracious young woman who is absent from her own awareness.  It is as if you are not a factor in your own mind and life. As if you didn’t yet take center stage where a person belongs in one’s own life, as if you are sitting in the audience. And who is on the stage where you belong? This guy, just a guy (not a national or religious leader that lots of people focus on).

Sept 6, 2023, you started your thread with: “Hi, everyone. My boyfriend who I met on Hinge”, and you continued: “HE asked me… he… him… He..”. Fast forward 3 months and 23 days (yesterday, Dec 29) and: “He joked about… he asked me.. He had trouble… He was reluctant… then he goes into detail.. He told me… he scoffed and said”, etc.

On Sept 10, I wrote to you: “You’ve been giving him too much power over how you feel about yourself, power he didn’t earn and does not deserve: WHO is he to determine your worth?… What did he DO to have this power to determine your worth..? He is just a guy you knew nothing about a year ago. It doesn’t really matter what he thinks, what he meant when he said this or that.. except that it matters to you because you give him power that he does not deserve“.

Eight pages later, I think and feel the same as I did in the above quote.

Limerence: “the state of being infatuated or obsessed with another person, typically experienced involuntarily and characterized by a strong desire for reciprocation of one’s feelings but not primarily for a sexual relationship” (online dictionary).

“Limerence is a term that describes an infatuation or obsession with another person. It stems from romantic attraction that involuntarily develops into obsessive thoughts. You might feel unable to stop thinking about that person, spending much of your time in thoughts, fantasies, and ruminations that center around that person… Replay and rehearsal involves obsessive thinking about interactions you have had, or wish to have, with the love object… the love object is the main focus of your attention” (psych central/ ocd and obsessive thoughts about another person)

“Limerence is the desire to be desired… The experience of limerence can include… an irrationally positive evaluation of that person’s attributes… Limerence has also been tied to trauma. Early childhood abandonment or neglect may correlate to the likelihood of experiencing limerence, and it has been associated with post-traumatic stress disorder as well as obsessive-compulsive disorder (psychology today).

I don’t think we discussed limerence before (I just went through your 8-page thread and saw no mention of it), but it fits, doesn’t it?

anita