Song by Irving Berlin
If you think that the title is the name of a familiar song, you would be right. What is that doing here? Well,”failing in love” is regularly depicted as a mix of angst, pain, confusion, joy, euphoria, despair, and a full range of other signs and symptoms. I chose this song because it is a good example of the commonly held notion that “falling in love” is some kind of physical scourge or insanity that is at the same time unbearably sweet. Much of popular culture sees this mix of symptoms as love. It is not. It is what is commonly referred to as “falling in love”.
In case the lyrics of this famous song don’t come immediately to mind, here is the first part of it.
MALE VOICE: I hear singing and there's no one there
I smell blossoms and the trees are bare
All day long I seem to walk on air
I wonder why, I wonder why
I keep tossing in my sleep at night
And what's more I've lost my appetite
Stars that used to twinkle in the skies
Are twinkling in my eyes, I wonder why
FEMALE VOICE: You don't need analyzing
It is not so surprising
That you feel very strange but nice
Your heart goes pitter patterI
know just what's the matter
Because I've been there once or twice
Put your head on my shoulder
You need someone who's older
A rub down with a velvet glove
There is nothing you can take
To relieve that pleasant ache
You're not sick, you're just in love
I’m sure you can come up with many examples of similar songs in popular culture that speak to “falling in love.” These songs presume to describe the process of falling in love but more accurately they describe and refer to a condition known as limerence. Limerence is a condition all humans are susceptible to and suffer through at times in their lives. It is a collection of mental and physical signs and symptoms that people experience as they are drawn to someone and “fall in love.”
The idea of limerence was first formulated and identified by a researcher examining and seeking to better understand “this thing called love.” Yeah, I know. I keep slipping in snippets of song lyrics as I speak about love, lust and limerence. These three related but different human conditions are all covered under a general umbrella we call romantic love. We’ll look more deeply at all three concepts starting with limerence. A definition is called for here so I’ll fall back on a quote from Wikipedia which best captures this notion.
Limerence is a term coined c. 1977 by the psychologist Dorothy Tennov to describe an involuntary state of mind which seems to result from a romantic attraction to another person combined with an overwhelming, obsessive need to have one's feelings reciprocated. The concept grew out of Tennov's mid-1960s work, when she interviewed over 500 people on the topic of love, and was first published in her 1979 book Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love. Wikipedia
Sounds fascinating doesn’t it? Well as they say, “you ain’t heard nothing yet.” OK. I don’t know anybody who has actually said that in my presence but it seems to fit here so go with me. Limerence is a complex subject that could do with a greater examination. I think there are three general area we can examine. They are: physical symptoms, mental symptoms and general rules about the condition. We’ll get to these in future posts. Thanks for staying with me so far and forgive me for the lapse of time since my last post. I promise to do better.
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