u/RentedGirlboss

As I write this I am acing one of my worst lows since the start of this entire situation. It feels as if the world has quietly removed itself from me from the shame it feels in being associated with me.

For some context, I'm recently starting to learn that I have a terible age old pattern of feeling intense platonic limerence for male friends. I understand where it comes from as male figures in my family growing up of around the same age cohort were not very kind to me so it makes sense why I glamorize and idealize a new guy that comes into my life as some sort of monolith that is going to serve as the beacon of love and support for me and give me all that my childhood self was not able to get. The best way I can describe limerence for myself is like a disease or a curse that prevents me from being able to form any form of male relations because of how I turn into this exciteable puppylike creature from the exictement I experience from becoming acquaintances with guys who match this idea of mature boyhood for me, It wouldn't be a stretch to say I look for a brother in them

So recently, I became acquaintances with this guy via some mutual friends and we moved from being acquaintances to friends pretty quickly cause we sort of clicked from our very first conversations that lasted hours. Eventually I realized the limerent patterns as i found myself journaling about him noting stuff like "wanting his head in your lap and your finger running through his hair, imagining telling him stories o all the hurt you had to bear and feel him absorb it from you, telling you how it wasn't your fault, offering up the fabric of his shirt as an absobant to your tears as he pulled you in for a hug and kissed your forehead. imagining yoursel with him on every curb of your city because even the most inconsequential places somehow become special when imagined in company with him".

As you can tell... not exactly very "i made a new riend 2 weeks ago" sort of thoughts to have... So i did the distancing thing after realizing i am still a hurt kid who has not learnt shit from past experiences and that i am clearly not ready to tackle on male friendships because my emotions are far too overwhelming and terrifying to unleash onto someone you have just met. and after doing that i saw his attempts at trying to reach out and check up on me and i cant lie i felt really bad, i felt like i was throwing something so special and kind away and it's very rare to run into a guy who i even click with to feel limerent over him so i felt like i was doing myself a great injustice by cutting off something that could be such a beautiful and intricate experience.

And then, completely out of the blue, we just happened to be online at the same time at around 1 am and planned a spontaneous plan to meet up for lunch because i had mentioned how i had recently been going through a shitty time and i suppose he just wanted to give me the room to talk about my stuff which was sweet and kind of him.

And consequentially, last night also just happened to be the night i went into depth over understanding limerence and causes of it and i was up till 6 am and even thought of cancelling the plan many times but i decided to go trhough with it for purely one reason. I felt like i was so afraid of this thing that i was so sure would destroy me and i realized this was not a stand alone event. i had ran from the last guy and then the one before him and it goes on forever and i knew i would be running away and distancing myself from the next guy as well, so i was like, fuck it lets see this through.

And today was honestly such a sweet and warm day, we met up at 11:50AM and he told his mother he will be home by 2 but the plan stretched out till 4 because i suppose we were having good conversations and a fun time . We talked a lot about like childhoods and his last relationship and coping mechanisms and during this i suppose i got comfortable and vaguley mentioned my issues with limerence and it was really implicitly implied that he was part of my cycle and i felt that it made the air a bit heavy. From my experience i have found that whenever i tell a LO (new male friend in my case) about my terrible experiences with past male relationships and friendships it sort of puts this weird pressure on them or just makes things uncomfortable in general so i was trying SO HARD to not mention that but in some ways i did and i think thats the part i feel really shit about.

before we ended the hangout i had this very awkward dialogue with him where i was like " i know today was really fun and all but like im lowkey kinda avoidant" AND I FEEL SO STUPID FOR BRING THAT UP because i think it kinda went over his head or like he was wondering why i was telling HIM that... lord knows i feel like towards the last 20 mins of the hangout i had this sadness in me because i felt like i had enjoyed a really nice day and how deep inside i was extremely incapeable of being normal about that, how when i get home im gonna have to plan out the time period where I should not talk to him for the sake of pereserving my own peace of mind.

I wish i hadn't made things awkward and i just felt bad at the end. towards the end i was like when do u think we'll meet again and he was like "oh we can meet with these mutual friends of our or plan smth with this other group" and i was like oh well i guess we'll just let fate decide.

I came home to experience such a terrible terrible crash of energy where I felt depleated of life and substance. I fell asleep and when I woke up it felt like the world had removed itself from me, I could not understand how i was breahing with just how dead every part of me felt.

I'm still very new to trying to understand this world of limerence and the idea so im posting this on here in hopes someone will recognize parts of what's been happening to me and maybe offer some advice. I also really wanna hear and discuss the scope of platonic limerence more so if you've experienced something similar, please comment below!!

Which season should I give a shot?

Is this a common symptom?

Platonic limerence feels like its tearing me limb by limb

Movies that feel like this

Shows that give this spooky sullen alive vibe