SEX FILES: Beware of limerence, the dangerous high of longing for someone

Love feels safe and secure, whereas limerence is driven by anxiety

Published Apr 13, 2026  •  Last updated 19 minutes ago  •  4 minute read

Journalist Amanda McCracken had dated over 100 men by the time she was in her late 30s. We’re told that dating is a numbers game, and she believed she was doing everything possible to find the loving partnership she craved, so why hadn’t anything worked out? Instead of finding love, she was stuck in a never-ending cycle of obsessive yearning, the anticipation of being desired, and the fear of rejection. On the cusp of her 40th birthday, her therapist said the words that would change everything:

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“Amanda, longing is your lover.”

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She’d been experiencing limerence — an involuntary state of intense, obsessive romantic infatuation and longing for another person, whom you’ve “illogically placed on a pedestal (flaws and all) – someone who is just out of reach but for whom you have hope a relationship could develop,” says McCracken. Neuroscientists call it “person addiction,” and for years, it was eating away at her mental health and keeping her distracted from finding lasting love.

McCracken’s new memoir, When Longing Becomes Your Lover, traces her 10-year journey through therapy, research, and personal reflection, examining how romantic fixation, perfectionism, and fear of vulnerability can undermine mental well-being and relationships.

What I didn’t expect when I started reading McCracken’s memoir was how much it would feel like a mirror. Like McCracken, I spent most of my twenties and part of my thirties stuck in what I like to call “emotional cul-de-sacs,” obsessing over idealized versions of past and present love interests, often to my own detriment. I thought I was just a hopeless romantic, when really I was stuck in a limerence loop.

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That said, limerence on its own is not bad. Rather, it’s a natural part of relationship formation. In her groundbreaking book Love and Limerence, psychologist Dorothy Tennov explains that most healthy relationships begin with an initial spark of attraction, evolve into limerence – marked by obsessive thoughts and an idealized view of the other person – and eventually mature into love, where both partners see each other’s imperfections yet remain deeply drawn to each other physically, emotionally, and/or spiritually.

It’s what happens after limerence that matters. “When limerence remains one-sided, a healthy, stable relationship doesn’t develop. Loving someone is not relying on crumbs of potential to make a meal. Love is based on trust, safety, and genuine care for the other. It doesn’t feel like yearning,” says McCracken.

When asked about the difference between love and limerence, McCracken says we can feel it in our bodies. Love feels safe and secure, whereas limerence is driven by anxiety. However, “If your nervous system confuses anxiety for excitement and excitement for love, then it’s easy to mistakenly confuse limerence for love.”

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For McCracken, limerence felt like a heady cocktail of hope (“spun by a hundred clues I’d amassed to mean more than they did”) paired with anxiety so intense it triggered gastrointestinal issues. In my case, it felt a bit like getting high on my own supply.

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I got my “hit” from thinking about an idealized version of the other person, not from the relationships themselves, which were often inconsistent and unsatisfying. I’d experience intense daydreams and fantasies, replaying old conversations and interactions, and imagining new ones – something that prevented me from being fully present in my life. This, too, is common. “Longing kept the wheels in my head turning. It took up precious real estate and blinded me from valuable relationships I already had,” says McCracken.

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Unfortunately, though, the culture of dating apps and social media creates the exact ingredients that fuel limerence. As McCracken explains, “Dating apps keep us looking for the elusive (read as “impossible”) perfect match the sites claim to have for you if you only keep trying. Social media provides us with flawless images of our crushes, which we can dive into whenever we need fuel for the fire.”

Paired with intermittent reinforcement, such as the person liking your post or sending a vague text out of the blue, this keeps your brain hooked. Much like a romantic slot machine, “it’s the anticipation that gives us the dopamine,” she says.

So, how does one exit the cul-de-sac of long-term longing? McCracken says that it starts when you hit rock bottom and realize you’re sick of your patterns. You also need to do the inner work required to feel worthy of a reciprocally loving relationship – a therapist can help with this.

Once you make the brain-body connection that love feels safe and secure, and start to associate limerence with feeling anxious and unsettled, McCracken says, “You can learn to appreciate a healthy slow-burn romance that doesn’t feel like a roller coaster.”

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