Imaginary Relationships: Phenomenology
By Sara Cagarelli
Unfulfilled love does not always disappear: sometimes it transforms into inner relationships shaped by imagination.
From limerence to romantic daydreaming, these experiences reveal how deeply humans need to feel chosen and acknowledged.
Understanding them can help us approach unrequited love with more compassion — for others and for ourselves.
At one point of their lives, everyone had a mental relationship with someone who was not available or not even a real person. With a quiet mind, we accepted to compensate the impossibility of that relationship by creating a space inside us that would make up for the unfulfilled desire. It is far too easy to dismiss the matter with “Hey, that’s just building sandcastles. Bring your feet back to the ground!”.
When external or internal constraints prevent us from fulfilling our legitimate desire, the human being may feel the urge to build a romantic relationship in their mind. Imaginary relationships take multiple forms and their differences are substantial. Maybe the root is the same for all of them: the human being has a structural need for love, felt as well as given.
We need to feel accepted, chosen and validated and the lack of love can lead us to distress.
Limerence
Starting from 1979 with Dr. Dorothy Tennov and more recently with Dr. Tom Bellamy, the scientific community has tried to research the concept of love in association with the state of mind. This is the immediate definition on Dr. Bellamy’s blog:
Limerence is a mental state of profound romantic infatuation […]. It is characterized by an initial period of elation and intense emotional arousal that can progress to an involuntary, obsessive craving for another person.
(Living With Limerence)
Limerence requires the actual existence of a real person, who becomes the limerent object (LO). The limerent finds themselves to share a space (family, theatre company, workplace, gym, clique…) with the LO and is caught in a strong attraction to them. Since the fulfilment is excluded, the limerent builds imagined situations in which they interact with the LO and the LO offers kindness and sincere feelings towards the limerent.
The fantasized situations are continuously compared to the real situations, making the limerent dependent on the LO’s attentions: the limerent is going to experience euphoria if the LO guarantees care, whereas they are going to drift towards despair if the LO ignores them or misbehaves. Limerence is therefore a form of escape from the pain of unfulfilled love.
The scientific community has not agreed yet if the mere state of profound romantic infatuation is limerence, or if the infatuation needs to become debilitating (grow to interfere with daily tasks) to be called limerence. It is certain though that limerence is triggered by circumstances.
Daydream relationships
There is a way to build a romance that does not give power over to the desired person. When indulging in romantic daydreaming, not only the object of the reverie can be completely fictional, but the daydreamer is perfectly aware of it. Daydreamers do not freeze an image of the desired person to stay attached to it, but rather they take it and evolve it to such an extent that it becomes hardly recognizable. The daydreamer is in control of the situation and the interactions, is not urged to compare them with what happens in shared spaces. The daydreamer’s excitement is sustained by imagination and such gratifying emotions can endure the end of the shared place. In a daydream relationship, the pain comes from the awareness that the perfect love is unreal.
Under controlled circumstances, romantic daydreaming can have a positive influence: the perfect partner sees the daydreamer’s potential and can outweigh the inner critical voice of the daydreamer with their words of pride and encouragement. Those words can motivate them to transform potential into enactment.
If you are wondering whether you are currently a limerent or a daydreamer, you can ask yourself a question: do I need to be in a relationship with that person (do I hope we become a couple?) or is the imaginary relationship with the desired person fulfilling enough?
Romantic Maladaptive Daydreaming
If the daydreamer is a Maladaptive Daydreamer, they may experience a combination of limerence and daydream relationship. The intrusive thoughts are there, along with the sense of euphoria and the certainty that the desired person is perfect. The MDer is aware of the separation between the real person and the projected person, but nonetheless they compare the two and may even undertake action to become a couple.
The outcome is painful either way.
If they declare their feelings and receive a rejection, they are going to experience the pain of unrequited love. If, upon declaration, the desired person is willing to start a relationship, the MDer is going to find out soon that the space between the real person and the project person is unbridgeable. They are going to justify misbehaviors and feel a profound frustration. They’ll realize that there’s nothing more fulfilling than the perfect, idealized love in their mind, and that reality was never considered with its alterity.
Moreover, MD is not directly triggered by circumstances, but has rather an underlying feeling of discomfort that shapes into an imaginary relationship when the circumstances uncover that specific emotional need.
Romantic daydreaming on one side and limerence and MD on the other side fulfil different roles in our need to feel acknowledged, but none of them can replace a fulfilling relationship in the real world – this world. Only through actual confrontation with the alterity of other people, we can grow fit and resilient, as well as not risk losing opportunities.
How many of us do not dare to make a situation with someone available evolve to something real because they fear the rejection even before they tried? Because we see ourselves as unfit, misfits, far from what we think the other person pursues – just because we ourselves pursue an ideal that’s far from reality. Love from and toward others always starts with loving oneself.
Formal Research and Informal Talks
The interest on this topic within the academic world seems to be insufficient. Journalists and reporters who deal with science and spread the news that come from the scientific research to the wide public do not provide enough resonance to the topic, because the research upstream is not enough.
Personally, I wonder if journalists would pay more attention to the topic if scientific community itself sought to explore it in greater depth.
Unfortunately, daydreaming and unrequited love still bear a stigma: unreciprocated feelings may still be considered as inappropriate, a caprice of those who want to play in a higher league; and living in a parallel, artificial world as cowardice.
As a result, MDers and limerents may find difficult to seek knowledgeable help. Unlike the outside world, on submerged, hazy, word-ridden forums and social platforms online that guarantee anonymity and a respectful attitude, many people dare to disclose their experience on maladaptive daydreaming and limerence. The number of those who interact there is considerable and worthy of being observed with a magnifying glass.