you’re not obsessed with who they are. you’re obsessed with who you become when you imagine being near them.
here is the thing about your limerence that you haven’t quite let yourself see yet:
it was never really about them.
it was about you — the version of you that comes alive when you imagine being near them.
think about what the obsession actually feels like.
not just the longing — but the specific quality of it. because limerence isn’t a uniform experience. some people obsess about being chosen. some obsess about the life the person represents. some obsess about what the person does to their sense of self.
you might be in this third category.
the person at the centre of your limerence — your limerent object — embodies something. a quality. a way of being. a mode of self-expression that feels both deeply familiar and completely out of reach. their confidence. their creativity. their unapologetic presence in the world. their willingness to be fully, visibly themselves.
and being near them — even in fantasy — makes you feel like a version of yourself you actually desire.
that’s not coincidence. that’s the pattern.
Your limerence and the psychological function it plays
limerence, the obsessive and intrusive form of romantic attachment, is not just an emotional experience. it has a specific psychological function. and for some people, that function is identity.
the limerent object becomes a mirror — a surface onto which you project the version of yourself you haven’t yet attained. The sense of self you have been longing to become but have yet to be.
the obsession isn’t about them as a person. it’s about the identity they give you access to. being seen by them feels like permission. being chosen by them feels like proof — proof that the version of you that comes alive in the fantasy is real, and possible, and something you could actually become.
this is why celebrity limerence hits this type hardest. there’s no real person to disappoint the projection. the celebrity exists as a pure screen for your unlived expression — their artistry, their boldness, their permission to be exactly themselves without apology.
and this is why letting go of the limerence feels like losing yourself. not losing them. losing you — the expanded, expressive, fully-realised version that only seems to exist in relation to them.
Why the obsession persists
the obsession persists for a specific reason:
as long as you’re directing your longing outward — toward them — you don’t have to risk actually claiming those qualities in yourself.
because if you try, and fail, there’s no fantasy left to retreat to.
the limerence keeps the door open. it keeps the version of you alive — safely suspended in the possibility of becoming. as long as you’re obsessing over someone who embodies what you want to be, you’re not having to find out whether you can actually be it.
this is what most limerence advice misses entirely. it focuses on the attachment — the intrusive thoughts, the obsessive checking, the emotional highs and crashes — without asking what the attachment is doing. what it’s preserving. what it’s allowing you to avoid.
and for this particular pattern, what it’s preserving is the dream of a self you haven’t let yourself pursue yet.
obsessive love of this kind is grief in disguise.
it’s the grief of the qualities you learned to leave unexpressed. the version of you that got quieter as you got older, more careful, more realistic. somewhere along the way you learned that being fully yourself was risky — too bold, too much, too unlike what was wanted — and you scaled yourself back.
and then they appeared.this celebs or people in the public space – living freely in the exact way you’ve been afraid to. and something in you recognised it immediately. not envy, exactly. recognition.
that. that’s what i’ve been not letting myself have.
The question to sit with
the real question underneath this kind of limerence isn’t “why can’t i have them.”
it’s “why haven’t i given myself permission to become that myself? On my own accord?”
which is a question only you can answer.
but understanding which pattern is at the root of your specific limerence — what it’s showing you, what it’s pointing to, what it’s actually asking you to do — is the first piece of work.
i made a diagnostic that identifies your limerence archetype in five minutes.
take it before you try to “let go” of anything.
