Leaning Into Limerance
Too muchness, too soon, and a cold, wet splat of vulnerability
Penned April 18, 2025 by Penny Sue Denim
There’s a certain breathlessness when you’ve met someone. Your heart and your body say, “Yes please!” But your brain says, “What are you thinking!?!”
You turn your attention both inward and outward at once, and perhaps this is what results in the sensation that your insides have twisted into knots.
It’s not necessarily a pleasant feeling. Neither is it not. But it gets your attention.
Is it nervous energy? Is it heightened sense reception? Though nothing perceptible to anyone else has changed, everything inside has shifted. Has this shift sent your nervous system into high alert? Fight, flight, freeze. A black cat prowling in the lawn, fur stretched thin over its shoulder blades, quivering and snapping back into place like an elastic band.
Are you master of this feeling and the resulting sensations taking up residence in your body? Or is the limerence master of you?
I thought maybe I was ready to try out dating. I know it’s a bit early on, but I was nonetheless thinking about getting out there into the virtual dating scene.
Maybe I could craft a profile—talk about what I’m like and admit that I’m just scoping out the spaces. “If you’re interested, circle back later—maybe in a year—and, probably, I’d be not only ready, but I’d have learned the ropes”.
Now I feel anxious because I don’t think this is how it’s done. I’ve been on the straight and narrow most of my life. Good Girl Conditioning1 (GGC), I think they’ve been calling it. But truthfully, I’ve never really been one for the straight and narrow,—at least, not since I’ve overcome some layers of that GGC—not without testing whatever about that path is arbitrary. I’m intense and maybe I’m done apologizing for that.
Anyhow, I was pondering the dating scene.
But then one day, through no fault of my own, I ended up at the skate park; and looking up, I found myself face to face with someone interesting, endearing, and unexpected. Pure chance—our daughters the catalyst.
A little time, a little flirting, a little settling in. I’m not sure I’m well-suited for the dating game. It takes me about 25 minutes to develop a meaningful attachment. Right there, dutifully, I’ll raise a red flag on behalf of my therapist. Or is that the GGC speaking?
I’d heard the word “limerence” not long ago. A word so new, apparently, that even my spellcheck is being a jerk about it. A little looking into it and yeah, that might be what’s going on.
My daughter is making cookies. I join in and ask her how the classroom dating scene is going. “Good,” she says. Everyone’s still together. She goes on to share her “hear me out list”—a compilation, based on the TikTok trend, of her kookiest and most controversial celebrity and character crushes. Ahhh, a hear me out list. Perfect description. I don’t reveal my list of one. Not yet. But it’s an opportune moment to ask my daughters if I’m allowed to date. As the days bring us within inches of my 48th birthday and their father’s eighth month away in glory, I just want to know what they think.
“Nope!” my eldest daughter retorts.
“Why not?”
“Because you have us. Isn’t that enough?”
How that plea prompts a mother to rummage about internally to discover stored memories on the fate of widows in some ancient (and perhaps even contemporary) traditions, I can’t exactly say right now.
“In some parts of the world, at least historically, widows go through a lot!” I say. “Some are, ummm...”
“Killed?” she suggests.
“Yes. Others are sent away to something like a boarding school or an orphanage. It’s like their usefulness and their life has ended with the death of their spouse.”
That’s it. Not going to overtly draw a deep or obvious correlation. Not going to spell anything out for us.
But you get the point; I’m damn lucky. Never have I ever lived on $3.65 per day. My haul in the lottery of life. Still, in the lottery of romance, the world makes its attempts to limit my prospects.
“Isn’t it a bit early for her to be dating? It hasn’t even been a year . . .”
“Should she be dating someone outside her religious tradition?”
“Cradle robber.”
Are those whispers I hear? Or is it coming from inside? Is that the straight and narrow beckoning me? GGC on hold on the other line?
And yet, I can understand that my teenage daughter doesn’t exactly want to encounter her mother’s profile in “Are we dating the same guy?” groups on social media.
But, what to do about the limerence. . .
Of course, I listen to podcasts to gain more clarity on the distinction between limerence and plain old infatuation. I visit a website for a non-profit-in-the-making called Lord Over Limerence.2 I dig into some scripture to remind myself that my wholeness originates not in any person, but in God Himself.
I give myself space to think (synonymous with the egregious act of giving my kids too much screen time). I do some deep breathing, colour with the girls. I review the evolution of the “positive cognitions” arising from my EMDR therapy which has culminated thus far in the phrase, “I’m powerful when I’m vulnerable”. Yesterday Me did not see merit in such sentiments and consequently steeled herself against the perceived risk.
Curiously, each time I repeat the statement, “I am powerful when I’m vulnerable,” the pangs associated with this new situationship dissipate. What I am noticing is that, contrary to what I expected, vulnerability seems not to fuel the disequilibrium, but instead, to serve as its kryptonite. Viewing my vulnerability as a superpower and not as a threat is serving as a buffer against the intensity of the limerence. Knowing that I own my vulnerability and I can harness it—this helps ground me while the world spins all around.
Somehow, I end up on Substack reading a moving article about “the quiet, invisible weight men carry”. The author, gor, describes how “Somewhere between being a boy and becoming a man, you look around and realize everything you want—respect, love, attention, peace—has to be earned.”
And further, “No one sits you down and says, ‘You’re enough.’ Instead, life teaches you this weird language of transaction: do this, be that, win this, hide that. And maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll be loved.”3
And then I ask myself, “What would I do?” Not Yesterday Me, but Today Me . . .
Today Me might just try facing her limerence head on.
That’s what I might do.
I’ve tried squeezing myself, “the too much wife,” into thousands of these little transactions. I’ve tried playing along nicely because there was nothing more terrifying than the thought of terrifying others with my too muchness.
This time around, though, I know life is short. I know I have what it takes to see love through from life to death without blinking. I know I’m just that: Damn intense.
Limerence—I think—can’t survive in an alkaline environment. The kind where vulnerability is so powerfully yielded that faults are flaunted. If I’m going down, it’s going to be epic, like the Titanic. All 295 yards of my too muchness.
So, I stop thinking about whether it’s my turn to text or not.
“How will I be perceived if I initiate the conversation? Make the first move?”
“What if I’m the first to send something cute or flirty?”
“What’s the recommended thing to do? The recommended time to wait between text and response?”
“Is it crazy to forward a deep, relationship-oriented article to a guy, who may not even like reading, before the first real date?” What will he think of gor (and I) presuming to know what women don’t understand about men?4
Still, I gather the “beauty and acceptance”5 I’ve observed in him and the “peace and validation”6 I’m experiencing within; I compact it all together with my delicate hands and strong soul, like a snowball. And I lob it at him—a Substack share—not sure if he’ll identify with it or be terrified (as I am) with what I’ve just done. A vulnerable, startling, cold, wet splat to say, “I see you and I’m willing to take the risk of telling you that.”
~ ps denim
🎶 With accompaniment from My Unapologetic Playlist 🎶
The B-sides and the Besides
Companion stories from the bewilderness and/or words from others wanderers
The picnic blanket & the bluetooth speaker
Dear reader: Let’s travel the world through each other’s eyes—and let’s sit down to eat together. Whether wading through grief, exploring equity, trying on theology, navigating the modern dating scene, pressing into parenthood, or taking some other deeply human journey. What we all have in common is that we need each other.
The great thing about digital travel is that here, what you pack in, you don’t have to pack out. You’re encouraged to leave something behind. That’s what builds community.
When you click the cute little ❤️ below, unpack your thoughts in a comment, or give this little story a Restack, it’s like you picked up a souvenir just for me. You can also find me on Notes. Let’s keep exploring together.
References
Kasia Urbaniak. What is Good Girl Conditioning?
https://lordoverlimerence.org
mixtapes by gor. what women don’t understand about men.
See footnote 3.
See footnote 3.
See footnote 3.
What stayed with me is the discovery that vulnerability does not intensify the limerence, but helps loosen its hold. “I’m powerful when I’m vulnerable” becomes more than a therapeutic phrase; it becomes a way of returning to yourself.
I also loved the final image of the Substack share as a cold, wet splat of honesty: awkward, exposed, and completely alive.
This is a brave essay! “Limerence” as a word has only been used for 47 years, and was coined by a therapist to describe a very intense feeling of romantic attraction that is fueled more by idealization of the other person than by realistic perceptions or practical thinking about that individual. Your use of that technical term shows that you have done lots of homework and are serious about discovering what really is going on. You are in a tough spot, with children resisting change. Perhaps involving your children
in the discovery process might
be an effective way to vet this person and see if he is the real McCoy. Before I met her, my dear wife moved back home to
stay with her parents, partly as a test of anybody she dated. Any fellow who lost interest upon finding she lived at home thus took himself out of the running as a worthy marriage
candidate. When I arrived to pick her up, every male relative
in the neighborhood was there in the living room, so right away
I knew how important she was to her family. I think you are wise to be cautious, and your overture via Substack sounds like a very good idea. Reality is a great antidote to limerence.