0:00 From time to time, I get asked if there's a way to tell if someone is in the grip of limrance. That state of romantic infatuation that feels like addiction to another person. Sometimes the person asking is a lirant themselves who hopes that their paramore is mutually lirant. Sometimes they're a non-limrant who's worried about the erratic behavior of someone that they're dating. But they always want to know how can I tell if they are lirant for me. Well, there are some clues, some tells that give a pretty big hint. In this video, I'm going to give the game away by listing those classic signs that someone is experiencing limrance. And on the off chance that you are lirant for
0:46 someone else but don't want them to know, this list is also a handy guide for how to hide it. Hi, my name is Tom Bellamy. I'm a neuroscientist and writer and I blog all about limrance at livingwithlimrance.com. I'm also the author of the book Smitten, which explains what lirance is, how neuroscience can help us make sense of it, and how to recover from it. Okay, so how can you tell whether someone is lirant for you? Here are seven of the top telltale signs. Number one, signs of over arousal. As all limmerants know, the exhilaration of limmerant euphoria manifests physically.
1:31 Being with your lirant object amps up your nerves and triggers an autonomic response. This causes the classic signs of arousal. Faster breathing, racing heart, sweaty palms, dilated pupils, agitation. It's difficult to suppress or hide this response and you can look for signs in other people. So if you're talking to someone who is fidgety, excitable, breathing quickly, maybe prone to outbursts of laughter, or they generally just seem energized and emotionally unstable around you, then it's possible that they're experiencing lirant over arousal. Importantly, this arousal response doesn't only happen when the lirant is feeling good. It can also be triggered by feelings of
2:17 jealousy and insecurity. Say if you tease them or criticize them or show interest in someone else. If they seem unusually touchy or tearary or angry about your behavior, it's a big clue that their mood is dependent on how they feel about the strength of connection to you. So extreme emotional responses to positive or negative cues are a sign of physiological arousal. So even though everybody gets nervous around people that they find attractive, lirants get overaroused. Number two, conversational tells. When liance are overaroused, they can blurt out their thoughts before they can filter them and that can be revealing. So examples would be things like
3:03 frequent Freudian slips or a tendency to sort of push emotional boundaries, maybe sexualized conversations or jump to absurd conclusions. >> Could I borrow your notes from yesterday's lecture? >> Sure. When do you want me? And then then? >> Oh god, I'm so tired. >> My lap's free if you need a pillow. >> I'm having lunch with Sarah and accounts today. Fine. Well, I hope you invite me to the wedding. >> This again is a clue that even innocuous interactions are charged with meaning for them. So, interactions that would be trivial with a friend trigger verbal overreactions. Number three, remarkable attentiveness.
3:50 Another clue that someone might be lirant is that they show a surprising degree of interest in your life. Limrance pay attention. They notice and remember the things that you say or do. A liran object is the most important and significant stimulus in the limrance world and they think about them a lot. This tends to result in an apparently extraordinary memory for facts and details about your time together or stories about your life that you've shared. So, if you sometimes feel like everything that you say or do is being remembered with forensic precision, that you're given gifts that are perfectly tailored to your preferences, or that your needs are anticipated with eerie
4:36 predictive power, you may be interacting with a lirant. Number four, they mirror you. Perhaps the most striking form of attentiveness is that limrants begin to mirror the behavior and opinions of their lirant objects. They develop an interest in the lirant objects favorite music or books or movies, maybe even align their political beliefs. Now, in the most severe cases, this desire for entanglement can lead to the lirant seemingly trying to mirror their lirant objects personality. So they adopt their quirky mannerisms or turns of phrase or retell their jokes, pursue their passions or hobbies or even visit places
5:22 that are connected to their limit object in some way. So like literally haunting their footsteps in the hopes of somehow getting psychically or spiritually entangled. So if you start to notice somebody reflecting your beliefs and behavior back to you, you may be dealing with a lirant. Number five, seeking intimacy. Another classic glimmerant giveaway is the desire for intimacy. They want to be closer to you emotionally and physically. So, physical clues would be things like frequently touching your arm or shoulder, giving lingering hugs, or sitting very close to you. Emotional intimacy is sought by sharing their dreams or asking about your personal
6:09 life or confiding in you. Now friends of course are intimate and this could be misread. The way to distinguish it would be if your admirer seems to want more intimacy with you than with their other friends. So that suggests deeper feelings and a special desire for intimacy with you specifically. This sort of intimacy seeking could be simple instinctive behavior, but it may also be a deliberate attempt to see how comfortable you are with them. Testing your boundaries to find out if their intimacy is welcome. If being close to you seems to make them especially happy and giddy, they may well be harboring lirant feelings. Number six, sharing
6:55 secrets. One way to build intimacy is through the sharing of secrets. And limrants often feel compelled to share their private thoughts and fears with their lirance object. They want you to know all about them, want you to approve of them and want to build a meaningful attachment. Sharing secrets is a powerful bonding mechanism and that's what the lirant is instinctively seeking. So this isn't necessarily calculated, but manipulative people can actually use this as a way of trying to engineer uh reciprocation, but it does inevitably lead to an entanglement of your lives if you respond in kind by sharing your own private thoughts and feelings. Now again, some people are
7:43 generally prone to oversharing and they may give a false alarm. But if you notice that you are a particular target for their secret sharing, then you may have unwittingly fallen into the role of lirant object. Number seven, displays of trust. Finally, the flip side of sharing secrets is open displays of trust. This is probably most common for lirants who have some sort of professional relationship with you. If you find yourself being asked to take on responsibilities, say looking after valuable objects or being trusted with keys or passwords or even being promoted to a more senior position by a very affusive boss, this could be an overzealous lirant making a show of
8:29 their high regard for you. In general, limrants like to communicate that they hold you in high esteem. They want you to know that they think you are special. And displaying trust is a way of doing this obliquely. It has some deniability, but it's also direct. And there's a weird sort of public private tension to these sorts of displays. You're being singled out, but with open praise rather than covert favor. So if you feel that this sort of public acclaim is excessive or you wonder why they seem so keen to hand you power over them by making themselves vulnerable, you may be dealing with a lirant. Okay, so those
9:14 are seven of the biggest clues to look out for if you are wondering if that person who seems to be unusually interested may indeed be lirant for you. Any of these clues individually could of course be explained by plenty of causes other than limrance. And I'm not saying that this is a shorefire way of judging, not least if you are lirant yourself because you'll be highly motivated to over interpret their behavior. But if you see a lot of these signs together, it does suggest that they are more than usually into you. Now, one last factor to be aware of is that some manipulative people will know these signs too and what they communicate. They can use these techniques to pace your emotions
10:01 and try and manipulate the strength of your regard for them. So, it may not always be guileless, lirant leakage that you're picking up on. It may be less innocent. So, use this knowledge with caution and take care out there in the romantic wild west. If you enjoyed this video, I think you'll also like this one on common mistakes that liberants make. Thanks for watching. Subscribe if you'd like more, and I'll see you next time.
