Is it limerence? 6 month break but still not over LO? Please help me understand

[L-F]

Btw, you're not a stalker if LO is unaware of being stalked. Which you already know.

Most (if not all) LS stalk their LOs social media at some point. We really ought to change the word on here from Stalker to Gawker.

You're a Gawker Tmblwd, like most of us on here We gawk to satisfy our needs without harming others. Hey, if it's public then it's fair game right?

[Tmblwd]

Hey, if it's public then it's fair game right?

Such a nice way to say it! Since my current LO is a celebrity I have it a lot easier, any kind of information couldn't be more public for me so I don't feel too bad about checking regularly either
In that case I'm definitely one of you, I guess that's really something most of us have in common

[JupiterTaco]

I'd be a little more worried if you were actually stalking or insistent on meeting this person. I can't add anything that hasn't already been said. I can add a funny story of my limerence with a celebrity though. He wasn't terribly well-known but he had a Facebook and no fan page. I wasn't limerent when I friended him, just years before that. Anyway I got to hear way too much of his personal life on there. It helped.

Surprisingly it's quite the opposite! I haven't met him yet and him living in another country would make it really hard to do so anyway. I do want to meet him though at one point but I'm aware that it's not my place to. I also think I would feel too guilty about it. If I ever were to have the chance, i would probably try to attend an event that would make it hard to actually interact, so it would be more of a way for me to see him irl but without any interaction from either side.

About your story, it's always nice to hear other people's experiences. Feel free to share more if you like.
I guess that's true about celebrities, we don't really know them except for what they choose to show us. I would love to hear more personal things about my LO but who knows, maybe it would help me if I heard too much as well. I'm glad it worked for you!

He was one of many transitional LOs from my high school limerence. He ended up being the inspiration of the main character of one of my fiction series that I had started in high school when I knew nothing of his personality. So in that situation I managed to channel it into something positive. But I actually worried when I was younger that he might see it and know it and get mad. Even now that we were once friends on Facebook I guess in a way it's still on my mind as something that could technically happen but I don't really care, it's just kind of a thought that's there. Last I checked, he had a GoFundMe to take a trip somewhere and I just kind of laughed to myself.

Another thing that I've talked about on here in regards to that, was that when we were friends on Facebook, I was heavy in the throes of my fourth LO whom I worked with, so I was stuck on somebody else. Nevertheless and I've talked about this here before in the past, I remember noticing that in those days I had a large friend list and people would show up at the top randomly. He was almost always there along with numerous other people who were always saying things that admitted that they were always looking at my profile. And I couldn't figure out why that was, but a part of me wondered if he was always looking at my profile and why. I couldn't have been his only fan on there but it was just kind of weird because that's when some people were pushing this idea that the people that appeared the most at the top of your friend list were the ones you either interacted with the most or who were looking at you the most (or you at them, which I was not looking at his). I'd see his constant updates but that was it. So I still have no explanation for that, but yeah the crazy can really start anywhere.

[JupiterTaco]

I also wanted to add re LF, the idea of "stalking" has kind of lost the wind in its sails since people casually talk about stalking or being a stalker because of things like this, despite all the years of progress toward anti-stalking laws and the numbers of people statistically who are actually stalked. It'll be interesting to see if things swing back the other way given the Idaho murders. Who knows if anybody took that girl seriously when she talked about having a stalker...

[Zsababy]

Perhaps instead of using painful thoughts of your LO to self-correct your behavior, you can shift to using this forum to begin to correct your behavior. That way you don't have to damage your self esteem any further and you can make progress more effectively.

There's some good input on this forum & David has some videos if you're new to the concept.

Also, regarding the celebrity thing, I'm in 2 limerance groups on Facebook and a few people have talked about celebrity limerances, as has one or two other peoplr here.

I'm happy to talk about it anytime. In fact, I can't shut up about it

[Tmblwd]

I will just answer to both of you at once. (Jupiter Taco and Zsababy, sorry for the mess!)

Jupiter Taco, thank you for sharing! I'm really happy that you were able to use all that for inspiration, it seems like a great way to deal with things. About the constant appearance on that friend thingy, I guess that's just one more of the many mysteries in life. If I had been in your situation at that time I would probably have felt the same way, I can't imagine how much you must have thought of it. I would have gone crazy trying to find an explanation.

Unfortunately I don't really know anything about the murders you mentioned so I can't really add anything to that, but it's definitely true that the word has lost most if not all of its original meaning. It's taken too lightly these days imo


Zsababy, using it for more positive things is definitely the goal! I mainly came here to see if there are other people struggling with the same (or at least similar) things. Even if I don't manage to turn it into something more positive, I'm at least trying to accept it. I'm tired of constantly hating myself because of things I feel.

Unfortunately I don't have Facebook, I would love to join these groups if I did though. Talking about it with others finally makes me feel understood even if I might not actually be limerent. If you ever feel like talking more, feel free to let me know though, I will gladly listen. Especially since I still have a lot to learn and understand

[JupiterTaco]

I will just answer to both of you at once. (Jupiter Taco and Zsababy, sorry for the mess!)

Jupiter Taco, thank you for sharing! I'm really happy that you were able to use all that for inspiration, it seems like a great way to deal with things. About the constant appearance on that friend thingy, I guess that's just one more of the many mysteries in life. If I had been in your situation at that time I would probably have felt the same way, I can't imagine how much you must have thought of it. I would have gone crazy trying to find an explanation.

Unfortunately I don't really know anything about the murders you mentioned so I can't really add anything to that, but it's definitely true that the word has lost most if not all of its original meaning. It's taken too lightly these days imo


Zsababy, using it for more positive things is definitely the goal! I mainly came here to see if there are other people struggling with the same (or at least similar) things. Even if I don't manage to turn it into something more positive, I'm at least trying to accept it. I'm tired of constantly hating myself because of things I feel.

Unfortunately I don't have Facebook, I would love to join these groups if I did though. Talking about it with others finally makes me feel understood even if I might not actually be limerent. If you ever feel like talking more, feel free to let me know though, I will gladly listen. Especially since I still have a lot to learn and understand

I didn't think about it too much, I was so focused on my coworker fourth LO who was not on Facebook (I looked and looked and looked some more ). Also he wasn't the only person I wondered about in regards to that. I remember I had another FB friend who was a stranger, who lived in the area one of my uncles and aunts lived in for awhile years ago. She was my age and she was friends with their family and had added me. Again, always at the top with the same few people...years later she added me on google plus after I scrapped my Facebook. And I wasn't even on google plus that long and I cancelled it right after that. My aunt had no idea who she was and we were all friends with her. Yeah people are weird. Anyway I was mostly interested in how the site actually worked in that regard.

[Zsababy]

Zsababy, using it for more positive things is definitely the goal! I mainly came here to see if there are other people struggling with the same (or at least similar) things. Even if I don't manage to turn it into something more positive, I'm at least trying to accept it. I'm tired of constantly hating myself because of things I feel.

Unfortunately I don't have Facebook, I would love to join these groups if I did though. Talking about it with others finally makes me feel understood even if I might not actually be limerent. If you ever feel like talking more, feel free to let me know though, I will gladly listen. Especially since I still have a lot to learn and understand

I would say that if you very frequently fantasize about someone for 5 years and the fantasies are involved & near-constant, then you are almost certainly limerant. One of the parameters is the involuntary reflex quality of the fantasies, where it's out of our control and it removes us from the present.

For me, I mostly think I'm out of the woods in terms of humiliating myself on Twitter, but if he were to do an appearance here, I don't know if I'd embarrass myself by hitting on him. I would probably just freeze and stare and act like a weirdo like I always do when my sexual attraction overwhelms me.

One thing that helps is when I do creative projects & my mind has something to chew on. My job is mindless so it brings me no challenges so I think part of the escapism is out of boredom. Plus I have accepted that I will always be limerant for *someone*, which helps me deal with the fact that the people I choose are firmly out of reach.

So I try to frame it as a pleasant distraction & not a torturous state where I can't have this person---which used to always be the case. I try to place it in that category of teenage girls screaming for the Beatles--just being horny for rock stars to the point of ridiculousness.

I think it's good to think of limerance on a continuum of severity. My goal at this point is to keep it on the low end of the continuum where I'm not doing anything stupid and it's not disrupting my ability to think productively. That last one is hard because at one point I had to go on a media diet as the news was freaking me out so hard - COVID, climate catastrophes, and democracy in danger etc- that I needed Ativan to deal with it. So that left more head space for fantasizing.

So currently, I check his Twitter daily, make comments that are generally normal-- except for the time I said he'd make some woman very happy, which was very cringey but I put a joke in there too, but I have to accept that I'm a romantically excessive & overly sentimental person & though I can do my best to rein it in, I accept that I can be a bit sappy. It was also my way of publicly saying to myself "and that woman isn't me". It was my feeble attempt at closure. It worked a little bit but I still fantasize about him constantly.

When I once deleted his photos & shut down my Twitter, I got depressed & depression is not good for bipolar. Really bad ones can make me suicidal. I didn't like that feeling, I felt like I didn't think I could do without it without going through emotional quicksand and I can't get a real therapist right now. So I went back.

I'm not manically delusional anymore where I'm going to send him my picture & say "hey sailor, what about it?" Lol Although I do maintain that people do become groupies, but I'm 57 (and he's 64) and certainly no model and that would be hella undignified, if I can use that weird phrase.

[Zsababy]

I meant hella undignified to *try* to become a groupie, not that he would actually take me up on it.

[Tmblwd]

When I once deleted his photos & shut down my Twitter, I got depressed & depression is not good for bipolar. Really bad ones can make me suicidal. I didn't like that feeling, I felt like I didn't think I could do without it without going through emotional quicksand and I can't get a real therapist right now. So I went back.

That seems all too familiar. After I noticed that I ought be going too far with the obsession I did the same. Got rid of all the pictures (at that time I had well more than two thousand pics of him saved ) and deleted my Twitter account as well. Saying it was hell is an understatement. It took a lot for me to even delete them, but realizing they were gone was a lot worse. Those 6 months were definitely some of my darkest ones too, so I eventually came crawling back and well... Let's say I'm probably back to the same amount of pictures by now but I can't say for sure. I'm too scared to sort all of them into an album to check ..

But I'm happy to hear that you are dealing with it better now! I think I will aim for the same, a pleasant distraction.

I wouldn't really call it undignified though! After all we are only appreciating what is and what could have been. So what if it's a bit weird? Many things are! Of course it's not a great idea at all but to me it's not about dignity, at least in that case. If that makes sense