The Seeing Stone

Help you stop Limerence with grounded techniques. #freefromLimerence

[theseeingstonearchive]

If you’ve been dealing with limerence and want to understand it a bit better, I’ve started sharing some of the things that helped me move past it. Maybe something there could be useful to you too

🤍

ESSAY #1 : When Limerence spins endlessly, give it a form.

ESSAY #2 : LIMERENCE AND MEANING MAKING

ESSAY #3 : THE “SOCIAL CHECK” TECHNIQUE TO REDUCE LIMERENCE

ESSAY #4 : LIMERENCE, VAGUE LANGUAGE AND PROBABILISTIC THINKING

ESSAY #5 : Your Limerence object is a perfume

[theseeingstonearchive]

I HAVE JUST AVOIDED A LIMERENT EPISODE!!!

My technique is working!

I had a board game night with some people. Among them, a guy I never met seemed to be giving me more attention than what I would expect from a stranger. The next day he added me on Instagram (he found my insta via the group chat). I started to think about what happened and why he would add me in the first place. I was trying to remember signs and based that analysis on blurred flashbacks of our interactions. And when I noticed that I directly paused. I also asked myself:

Do I even find him attractive? -> NO

Did he find me attractive?-> Maybe

But who truly cares? I also immediately started comparing the few cues I picked up from him and connected them to those I had already seen in previous LOs. And the verdict was clear like mineral water, he was fitting into the Narcissistic Achiever’s archetype with a hint of the charismatic Opportunistic hobbies.

[theseeingstonearchive]

ESSAY #5 : Your Limerence object is a perfume

This is a short and interesting presentation to teach you that the feeling you are chasing in your Limerent Object can be found in something else… externalising your feeling into a quest for the perfect perfume can help soften the loop and ground the experience.

Your turn :

[theseeingstonearchive]

ESSAY #5 : Your Limerence object is a perfume

This is a short and interesting presentation to teach you that the feeling you are chasing in your Limerent Object can be found in something else… externalising your feeling into a quest for the perfect perfume can help soften the loop and ground the experience.

Your turn :

[theseeingstonearchive]

Your limerence object is just a perfume. you keep trying to convince yourself it smells amazing because it looks perfect on paper, but on your skin it smells like sh*t.

[theseeingstonearchive]

“Maybe” is more addictive than “no.”

[theseeingstonearchive]

Limerence is your brain obsessing over what you don’t know.

[theseeingstonearchive]

Vague language keeps limerence alive, see why here

[theseeingstonearchive]

ESSAY #4 : LIMERENCE, VAGUE LANGUAGE AND PROBABILISTIC THINKING

I like precision. I’ve already talked about how much I love maths and this is basically the same thing applied to language : Semantics matters.

I saw this really interesting chart about how people interpret words like « probably », « unlikely » or « almost certainly ». And the observation is actually really interesting : the same word does not mean the same number depending on who hears it.

« Probably » for someone might be 65%.

For someone else it’s 80%. That’s a huge gap.

So when someone uses vague language, especially an Limerence object, of course you start questioning what they mean. What you’re really doing is trying to translate words into something concrete : a number, an example, something observable but limerence makes that process completely unreliable.

If someone says « unlikely », a pessimist might hear 10%, but if you’re limerent, the uncertainty is uncomfortable, so your brain starts filling the gaps with « signs »/« cues » . Suddenly it becomes 30%, maybe more. The probability never inherently changed but you emotional need adjusted it.

That’s how it turns into a gamble. You start overestimating any positive outcome because your thinking is biased toward best-case scenarios. This phenomenon is in my opinion another strong reason why vague language is so dangerous in romantic situations. It leaves too much room for interpretation and your brain will do the rest.

To reduce that, I use something structured : BEN.

BEHAVIOR : Only count observable, repeatable actions with defined frequency. Examples of measurable behavior :

- Initiates conversation at least 3 times per week

- Replies within a consistent time range (for example within 2–6 hours, not 2 hours one day and 2 days the next)

- Makes plans and follows through (cancellation rate < 20%)

- Suggests meeting in advance (at least 1–2 times per week or per agreed timeframe)

If the behavior is inconsistent, undefined or one-sided, you are just building a fantasy.

EXAMPLES : Traits like “they are kind” must be supported by multiple specific events.

- Rule : minimum 10 distinct, verifiable examples.

- Each example must include : what they did, when it happened, how it was directed specifically at you

Example of valid data point : “They noticed I was stressed on Tuesday and offered help without me asking”. If you cannot reach 10 clear examples, the trait is not strongly supported.

NUMBERS : Statements about the future must include concrete details. A valid plan includes : date, time, activity

Example : “Saturday at 3pm, coffee at X place”

Invalid : “soon”, “we should hang out”, “I’ll let you know”. If no numbers are provided, do not treat it as a confirmed intention.

The goal is to reduce ambiguity as much as possible.

[theseeingstonearchive]

ESSAY #3 : THE “SOCIAL CHECK” TECHNIQUE TO REDUCE LIMERENCE

The social check is a technique where you engage with your LO on a conversation about current events.

For instance the Epst*in files, violence against woman, the rise of far r*ght and anti-women rhetoric.

When you ask someone about meaningful or complex topics, you force a shift from vague impressions to explicit information. In preference to relying on how they make you feel, you begin to see how they think. Their answers expose meaningful patterns : whether their reasoning is consistent, whether their views are nuanced or superficial and what they actually value. This creates a more detailed and testable understanding of who they are.

At the same time, this process naturally activates a more analytical mode of thinking. Limerence is sustained by emotional intensity, anticipation and ambiguity. With the help of a structured conversation, you reduce ambiguity and engage evaluation which can substitute projection. This makes it harder to maintain an idealised image, because new information either confirms it or contradicts it.

If contradictions appear ( differences in values, shallow reasoning : “not all men”, “people are overreacting” “it goes both ways”). These observations reveal their actual character, thoughts and emotional consistency. Limerence thrives on idealised, incomplete images so seeing someone’s real social positioning provides concrete evidence that often doesn’t match your fantasy.

If you comparing reality to the imagined version, your brain naturally recalibrates and the obsessive attachment weakens.

However, this only works if the new information is actually accepted. If it is ignored or reinterpreted to preserve the original image, then the process fails and limerence continues.

In essence, the technique introduces reality into a dynamic that depends on imagination. As the amount of accurate information increases, the idealized version becomes harder to sustain and the emotional fixation tends to weaken.

[theseeingstonearchive]

ESSAY #2 : LIMERENCE AND MEANING MAKING

If you’ve experienced limerence, you probably know this pattern where you try to regulate the anxiety of missing information about your LO. This pattern made my life miserable.

What I’m talking about is the automatic interpretations your brain generates in social situations, especially romantic ones. It’s fast, unconscious and you don’t question it at first.

I realised I had to become way more aware of how I interact with people and stop constructing a whole version of them in my head based on minimal cues.

Stuff like :

calm = mysterious

attention given to me = they are interested

mysterious = valuable / needs to be figured out

This is exactly how limerence sustains itself.

You take neutral behaviours and assign them meaning using pre-existing mental categories. Then everything becomes a prediction loop based on past patterns, many of which aren’t even grounded in reality, just internalised from movies, narratives, books or previous bad/ good experiences.

It gets worse when you start analysing the person through interpretative frameworks :

- Pop psychology content taken too far

- attachment theory misapplied

- even astrology !

Astrology is a good example because it’s highly symbolic. The interpretations is immediate and reassuring. But the more you engage with them, the more they stick. Those pre-constructed meanings then start driving the narrative you build around your LO.

At that point, you’re can’t perceive the person anymore but your interpretation.

How to stop it ?

You need to identify those interpretations as they arise. And deliberately restrict yourself to objective observations.

Write them down if needed :

- you saw them once

- they were calm

- they were quiet

- they didn’t participate in the conversation

That’s it.

These are discrete observations. They do not inherently carry meaning. They should not be combined into a narrative.

Stop inferring.

Period.

[theseeingstonearchive]

“ WHEN LIMERENCE SPINS ENDLESSLY, GIVE IT A FORM”

[theseeingstonearchive]

ESSAY #1 : When Limerence spins endlessly, give it a form.

When I undergo a Limerence episode, the rumination is so intense that I experience a voracious need to externalise it, but I often realised that words alone are too weak to soothe the inner turmoil. That intensity makes the display disorganised and dimorphous.

The visual nature of my limerence rumination is the most rational explanation I have found for that phenomenon. My brain creates intense and strong narratives from very little signal, cues or limited real experience. And “narrative” is just a modest way of hiding the p*rnogr*phic nature of the movie performing inside my head when I think about my LOs.

But since I can’t showcase that intensity or verbalise it without turning myself into a creep or a s*xual off*nder, the stationary state of those thoughts and feelings ( which cannot be externalized ) fuels both the obsession and a terrible sense of shame.

To me, this behavior is wrong and foolish because I am usually a very logical person. But limerence destroys that side of me, which causes me to lack good sense and judgment. During my previous limerent episodes I have skipped school, stopped eating, lost money, lost weight, lost dignity and so on. I usually feel terribly ashamed of the “brain cells” limerence makes me temporarily lose.

Being limerent makes me d*mb.

And the behavior I am containing is absolutely not conforming to accepted social standards of morality. I can’t ( even if some people do it ) go to my LOs and tell them that I feel worthless and distressed because I am dreaming 24/7 about them being nak*d over me. That would be s*xual har*ssment and I disagree with that behavior myself.

So what’s left ?

Since my main issue was the dumbness related to my limerent state, I tried to channel the obsession into something more structured and “intelligent” (Intelligence is relative, but I think my cognitive strength is strongly associated with proper decision-making and good problem-solving abilities.) I therefore moved my limerence obsessive thoughts into a document, a kind of research material to help myself and maybe others.

As I said before, instead of letting limerence circulate endlessly inside my mind, I moved it outside myself and gave it a concrete form. I created visual pages, organized the faces of my LOs, wrote short narratives and grouped the people involved into structured cases or archetypes. Through that process, the obsession shifted from my brain/heart center to a document.

For my type of cognition, that shift was critical. In fact, my mind usually excels at detecting patterns. I love maths, neuroscience, flow charts, structure, grammar, etc. But when those patterns remain internal, they eventually spiral into rumination.

A good analogy to picture how limerence feels to me is to imagine solving a complicated equation entirely in your head (no paper, no pencil) while listening to lectures about the problem and attempting to hold every step of the reasoning in memory without writing anything in a notebook.

The ideas spin around in your mind and nothing stabilises because you have nowhere to write the equations or follow the logic. You keep running mental simulations of the problem, but you can’t anchor them anywhere. At the same time, frustration builds along with a sense of pressure, because you still want to solve it but you can’t because your brain is not a computer with unlimited memory or perfect processing. As infamous as Maths is, there’s a lot of emotion into it if you like this discipline. If it wasn’t true, why do you think some people spent their entire life trying to solve or prove an equation ? Most of them get paid for it, when a LO is the subject of your obsession you just turn into a mad cat. That’s how limerence feels for me.

So I redirected my attention by placing the material outside my head. My brain moved from an emotional processing mode toward a more analytical one. In effect, I transformed limerence from a private emotional loop….

… into something I could observe, organise and examine almost like a research material.

It reduces the shame because the process itself is more analytical and resembles my normal way of approaching life.

In this document I called “LIMERENCE : A VISUAL UNDERSTANDING OF MY PATTERNS” I grouped all of my LOs into archetypes and identified some patterns in my limerence history such as :

* calm boy

* emotionally unavailable high achiever

* socially charismatic model-looking guys

* admired older boy

* narcissistic achiever

We all know that limerence tricks the brain into believing a person is “unique.” But the clustering I did showed that they were actually variations of the same template. They were 5 ideas/ archetypes of the “ideal” partner.

Once my brain saw the repetition ( the easy associations ) the mystery weakened, if not disappeared completely : From an intense “OMG He is SO special” to a sharp : “My brain reacts to this type”

That’s the kind of cognitive shift my brain needed to stop limerence. I think that when you find what kind of rational truth your brain is sensitive to, you can use that knowledge to your advantage and engineer a way to switch the limerence off. (For me mental associations and cognitive categorisation works pretty well)

I also wanted to re-inject reality into this research. I have created individual pages for each case (each LO)

In each case I wrote :

* how the attraction started

* what I projected onto the person

* what reality actually looked like

* how the situation ended

Alongside each person, I also recorded what the experience gave me. For example : discovering new music genres ( I adapted my music tastes for my LOs), experiencing social summers (I’m quite isolated), traveling , etc.

That’s the theory, but in practice you might question how efficient is it ?

To MY EXPERIENCE, I recently realized how efficient this method was with CASE NUMBER #10 (they are not arranged in historical order).

One month ago, a limerent episode started with a brand-new stranger :

I could feel it beginning with this ache in my chest, after a week of distress I look at my document and decided to look at him with an analytical eye and I accidentally performed a kind of cognitive reappropriation. Case #10 occurred completely differently. For context : my longest limerence pattern lasted 7–8 years and I have had 11 limerence episodes in my entire life.

When I analysed Case #10, I realized the person was basically a composite of several previous limerence patterns :

* the mannerisms of #2

* the head shape of #4

* the eyes of #8

* a physical similarity to my boyfriend (who is not a limerent pattern ! He is a healthy partner. )

The moment I recognized the pattern, the limerence stopped instantly. That recognition destroyed the limerence quickly. So the intense attraction lasted about one week, until I used my portfolio to properly reflect it.

That’s why I decided to write that essay, because if it worked for me, it could potentially work for someone else ?

I can share more details for anyone interested in how I did it. My idea is that you should make it personal.I designed it like a small graphic design book/ magazine. This format is still aesthetically pleasing but also creates clear boundaries and helps ground the experience. Instead of letting my mind wander and think about any LO, I just look at the book. Making it concrete removes the mystery.

When the loop stays abstract, it can grow and take up a lot of mental space.

When it is on paper, it becomes something I can see and hold.

Because of that, the feeling usually fades quite quickly. I can literally see and carry the loop in my hands. It also means I don’t spend hours listening to professionals on YouTube anymore to shut my head down, I understand it more than enough, what I just never did was connecting that knowledge to my own experience. And the insight I gain with my research case study feels more valuable, because it is more personal and comes from my own experience.