Key points

Limerence is gaining recognition in both popular discourse and academic research.

Limerence is widely experienced and characterized by an intense yearning to form a pair bond.

Despite some shared symptoms, limerence has different emotional foundations than stalking does.

In 1979, Dorothy Tennov published Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love , in which she made the case that some people fall into a distinct cognitive state in the early phase of romantic love, which she termed “limerence.”

Limerence is characterized by ecstasy and agony, by mood swings from euphoria to panicked anxiety , depending on whether the object of infatuation seems to return the limerent’s romantic interest. It’s a state of mental preoccupation, overarousal, and yearning—all focuse

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