u/neoyenale

Did I experience limerence, love at first sight, or something else entirely? (Married, 30M)

I'm a 30-year-old Italian man, married, with a baby on the way. I've been living abroad for years and recently spent about 10 days working at my company's headquarters in Milan after a long period of remote work.

While there, I met a colleague (35F) whom I'll call Tatia.

From the moment I saw her, something happened that I hadn't experienced since I was a teenager. I found her incredibly attractive, but it wasn't only physical. She was intelligent, warm, empathetic, multilingual, funny, composed, and had a kind of presence that immediately fascinated me.

At first, I barely knew her. We exchanged smiles and a few words, but I became completely preoccupied with thoughts about her. I started waking up at night thinking about her. I felt anxious, restless, euphoric, and then depressed. I found myself imagining conversations, futures, and possibilities that didn't exist.

What made it worse was the fact that I knew the experience was temporary. I would soon return home and likely never see her again.

Eventually, we had a real conversation. We talked, laughed, and connected on a human level. During a train ride, I told her that someone at the office had awakened feelings in me that I hadn't felt in years, and I admitted that person was her.

She was kind and understanding. She didn't reject me, but she also didn't reciprocate romantically. We shared a genuine moment, then moved on to other topics.

Afterward, she sent me a message saying that "it's rare to have such an interesting conversation with someone you barely know."

That message meant a lot to me.

The problem is that a month has now passed, and she's still in my head every day.

I think about her when I wake up. I think about her while working. Seeing her name in emails still triggers emotions. Sometimes I imagine moving back to Milan (which I was already considering for unrelated reasons) and wonder whether I might see her again someday.

At the same time, I recognize that I barely know her.

Part of me believes I'm in love.

Another part of me suspects that I fell in love with a projection: what she represented to me at this stage of my life.

Because this experience happened while I was also dealing with:

• approaching fatherhood,
• questions about identity,
• thoughts about moving back to Italy,
• years of remote work and routine,
• a longing to feel alive, desired, and emotionally engaged again.

The strange thing is that this experience made me realize I'm still capable of feeling deeply. It woke up parts of me that I thought had gone dormant.

But it also caused a great deal of suffering.

For those who have experienced something similar:

• Was this limerence, love at first sight, or something in between?
• How long did it take for the obsessive thoughts to fade?
• Did you ever reconnect with the person later?
• How did you distinguish between genuine love and an idealized projection?

I'm not looking for validation that I should leave my marriage or pursue her. I'm genuinely trying to understand what happened to me and whether others have gone through something similar.

Thank you for reading.