In my second entry, I mentioned that I was in an "infatuation." Well, that was sort of a misnomer. There's a not-too-well known psychological term that would be more suitable in my situation, and that is limerence.

I mentioned that I'd start a forum thread about this, but I think I'll just keep it here. Chances are, only a handful of people will see this, but that'll suffice. So, what does this word mean? It's basically obsessive love, usually prolonged, and often causes intense longing, fantasizing, ups and downs in mood, etc. It is addictive. But there's something about my case that seems distinctive.

It was one of the first days of my 11th grade year. Most of our classes had assigned seats, some were scrambled through the year, others weren't. My 7th period class was history. There was someone in the same grade as me, assigned to the desk right in front of mine. The seating arrangement was unchanged throughout the year in that class. I started to notice that my attention was being drawn to her more than usual. It wasn't long at all before you could say I fell in love with her. I had admired other girls for their looks before, but those were short-lived, and this was different. She's almost the same age as me, only about 10 weeks younger. We were both 16 at that time. I don't mean to be idealizing, but she was pretty much the definition of what I find attractive, not just in appearance, but more importantly in personality. I spent almost the entire year admiring and often fantasizing about her, up until just about the end. Finally, I decided to open up. I wrote a little note expressing my feelings and such, and gave it to her by hand. She probably thought I was someone else at first, as she didn't really seem surprised.

She didn't feel the same way about me. It would be reasonable to infer that it was very difficult for me to take, but it wasn't. Sure, I was bitterly disappointed at first, but not what I'd call heartbroken. I have a feeling that I kind of knew along that she had no interest in me, but I wanted it too badly to accept that, so I blindly took a risk with no chance of positive outcome. Looking back now, there really wasn't any more than an iota of a chance of reciprocation. I was the one who spoke to nobody the entire time at school. What makes this distinctive is the fact that now, A little more than 2 years after the rejection and 3 years since being "smitten," I haven't lost my attraction to her. I spent the whole senior year looking at her whenever possible, not staring, but taking frequent glances. She was assigned to the same 4th period class as me, Economics in the first semester and Government in the second. It was a very short walk from my previous class, so I'd always get there sooner. I'd sit at my desk that faced the classroom door, waiting until she walked in, and my gaze would be in her general direction. I would partially conceal the smile on my face. 'Partially,' because I didn't want anyone else to notice, but always hoped that she would. She was polite, and would never ignore me in a rude eye-rolling manner, but she was adamant in avoiding accidental eye contact with me.

So, I was a naive teenager, and that's how that happened. My apologies to the moderator who inevitably has to check this whole thing for any rule violations.

Nothing to apologise for- believe me it's a fairly innocuous blog post, not bothersome in the least...

We've at least one other person who has thought about limerance, if you go into the OCD forum and search for 'limerance' you'll find a number of posts.

Well, I had a feeling it was a thorn in the side because it was a long read. Looking back, I suppose it wasn't really. Seen some forum posts that were more like 20 page college essays.

No I'd say it's about average no problemo. And for the most part, I like reading the blogs....