Tom Bellamy

That sounds like an irrational crush.

It sounds very unstable and a bit unhealthy.

And that mismatch in expectations about what love is and what people in love behave like, I think is an explanation for quite a lot of a heartache in the world because people have such different expectations of how, you know, their potential lover will behave that, you know, those misunderstandings unfortunately lead to sort of romantic folly.

Yes.

So I don't think that limerence is a mental disorder.

It can, like many other psychological states, it can get out of control.

And so you can get into limerence and it can be because of circumstances, either kind of your own personal circumstances or just the way that you and this person that you're infatuated with

behave with one another it can escalate so you can move from that sort of massive sense of elation and euphoria and excitement about being with the other person and all that kind of romantic promise and the rush the like massive natural high that's kind of like nothing else in life really and

That can progress and it can get into a state that is very like an addiction.

So you can essentially become addicted to the other person.

The natural high that you get from them is so powerful that it can progress into a habit and a compulsion and you start suffering from intrusive thoughts and the kind of involuntary cravings.

to be with them.

So it stops feeling like the wonderful early honeymoon of love and starts to feel quite psychologically distressing and hard to manage.

Yes, it is.

So what you've described there, so things like gambling addiction.

So that's termed a behavioral addiction.

And I think limerence is exactly like that.

So it's a natural reward that you become so, that you desire so strongly that it becomes irresistible.

And in fact, the neuroscience behind this is quite well understood in terms of the changes within the brain that mean that your sort of dopamine system is driving you into a state of wanting something

so powerfully that it becomes difficult to resist.