Sensory Deception

I don’t know what it is lately but I keep having situations happen that remind me of a pleasurable experience in the past.  Examples:

•I happened to see Tina Fey on 30 Rock last week.  I have never seen her or the show before but I had heard of her.  When I looked at her I was taken aback because she looks like someone that I dated in the past.  More accurately her eyes are an almost exact match…they could be sisters.  This is itself is not a big deal but this connection caused me to “feel” a pang for a brief moment.  A sudden and intense rush of pleasant memories ran through my head and my heart?  Strange.

•I had a female sales rep stop in the other day and she was wearing perfume.  One whiff of this scent and I made another surreal connection with someone that I had dated in the past.  Once more vivid and intense memories of a person, long ago and triggered by a scent.

•I was talking to a customer service representative yesterday and her voice sent me on a quick trip to a pleasant time in my life long, long ago.  Her voice sounded the same as a past flame, I almost thought of asking her if in fact she WAS that person.

•I went to get coffee today and the woman that was serving was wearing clothing and jewellery that was typical of a certain culture and immediately reminded me of yet another person from the past.

•I read some specific words in a post the other day that made me “feel” an intimate connection with the author.  I had seen those words before, different author and different time yet the result was the same.

I mentioned this sudden onslaught of “triggers” that reminded me of the past to my brother.  Leave it up to a man, especially a brother to make sense of it all by telling me, “You are just horny”.  Oh…that’s all?  Thanks for helping me out!

These triggers and the subsequent reminiscing are not sexually based, there is no sexual tension involved, just warm feelings.  The warm feelings are like a reincarnation of “infatuation” from that previous relationship.  It is not the “love” or sex but the innocent crush from those days that comes back to me.  The overall vision of the person revived from my memory is vague and blurry and there is no specific activity recollected…just an uncanny, yet comforting feeling.

In a way I like it…yet in another it makes me wonder…why are these “triggers” happening so frequently these days?

Temporary Insanity

I was just reading my co-author’s post about her not missing anyone in particular at this time.  I just recently wrote a post where I stated that I miss a particular person.  If I think about my feelings in depth I miss the emotional scenario that my relationship with that particular person brought me.  If I were to find another that could instil the same depth of emotion within me, the woman that I say I miss might soon be forgotten.  Even though my relationship with this woman spanned a great deal of time (over 3 years) there is a very good chance that our environment provided the catalyst to keep the original infatuation alive and well. While I am not saying that our bond was ONLY infatuation, our circumstance had the ability to lengthen the span of time that infatuation could be present.

Infatuation being a form of madness that makes the person that is experiencing it deaf, blind and dumb. As well and at the same time, it is also about the most wonderful, amazing, incredibly good feeling that we can have.
Infatuation feels like love, looks like love and is often mistaken for love – but it isn’t love. We know that infatuation isn’t love because infatuation always fades away with time and doesn’t come back – with the same person, whereas true love will stay after the infatuation disappears.

Infatuation feels so good that some people become infatuation junkies, jumping from partner to partner, always seeking that temporary high that infatuation brings.  Infatuation can be highly addictive and the withdrawals when it fades can be damaging to both persons involved.

Infatuation is an intensifier of feelings, similar to salt being used to enhance and intensify flavour, infatuation does powerful, magical things. Infatuation ‘magnifies’ the intensity of feelings you get from shared experiences with your partner. Real love is the sum of the positive bonds you build up from shared positive experiences with your partner. The size of the good feeling is intensified, or ‘magnified’ by the madness of infatuation.
Infatuation blinds us as to our partner’s humanness.  Infatuation is a form of madness because you lose touch with reality.

Eventually, you’re going to realize that your partner isn’t the most perfect, beautiful or handsome, and loving person in the whole world. You’ll see that your partner is really just a person with the normal number of flaws and idiosyncrasies.

While you’re infatuated, however, you’re ‘blind’ to your partner’s faults, weaknesses, and failings. It seems your partner is perfect in so many ways.

Infatuation makes you ‘dumb’ because you lose touch with things that are really important to you in your life, like your education, your parents and family, your friends, your career, your goals, your values, and much more. Life becomes temporarily all about your partner and those other things seem to fade in importance.

Infatuation makes you ‘deaf’ to the opinions and observations of family and friends who care a great deal about you. Infatuation always goes away. While it seems painful at the time, it’s a good thing that the madness fades away and reality returns.

No one could go through life with the intensity of focus infatuation brings. During infatuation, you could talk all night. You can survive with almost no sleep. You can ignore your responsibilities. You may pay no attention to your health.

Not everybody gets infatuated with their partner. You still can have a wonderful life-long, bonded relationship with your partner without ever having been infatuated. But, If you don’t know or realize what infatuation is, you can make some very big mistakes.

Limerence (infatuation to the extreme) is a state of mind characterized by intrusive thinking, longing, uncertainty, hope, misperception, fantasies, and passion. Limerence has been described as ‘having a crush,’ ‘infatuation,’ ‘passionate love,’ ‘puppy love,’ ‘romantic love,’ or ‘being in love.’ It is important to note that limerence is neither love nor sexual attraction. Love, sexual attraction, and limerence can all exist without each other or any or all of them can coexist together.

Additionally, Tennov lists certain basic components that expand the definition of infatuation very helpfully.

Limerence has certain basic components

• intrusive thinking about the limerent object
• acute longing for reciprocation
• some fleeting and transient relief from unrequited limerence through vivid imagining of action by the limerent object that means reciprocation
• fear of rejection and unsettling shyness in the limerent object’s presence
• intensification through adversity
• acute sensitivity to any act, thought, or condition that can be interpreted favorably, and an extraordinary ability to devise or invent “reasonable” explanations for why neutral actions are a sign of hidden passion in the limerent object
• an aching in the chest when uncertainty is strong
• buoyancy (a feeling of walking on air) when reciprocation seems evident
• a general intensity of feeling that leaves other concerns in the background
• a remarkable ability to emphasize what is truly admirable in the limerent object and to avoid dwelling on the negative or render it into another positive attribute.

I consider this list to be a wonderfully accurate listing of the characteristics of infatuation. They are almost all present when a person experiences infatuation.

Share your thoughts:  Have you ever mistaken infatuation for love?