Suzanne's Limerence Rant

Edvard Munch, Ashes (1894)

Before this came to an end, I forgot this one thing: I don’t know you well, I don’t know you at all. People I know are still mysteries, multitudes and such, but it’s as though their outlines are solid and clear, and knowing them, the comfort and the safety of that, allows me to love them in a way that is unmistakably True. We don’t have heightened ideas about each other, we are sitting on the bus, in the park, on the couch, together. There’s a lot of proof to everything. There is no proof with you. At that first moment I felt as though my intuition is very good and you must be a good person if I feel this way about you instantly. Vulnerable in the way that is not recommended. My desired union with you was vaguely impossible for a couple of reasons. For one, you are 16 years older than me. I am attracted to obstacles to love because it seems like you should have something to prove regarding something so important. I keep getting trapped in the causes. Impossible to pacify parental figure, for example, or when I was a little girl, I had crushes on older women, teachers, etc., and felt like it really was wrong, and forbidden. This made it all the more consuming, and I was obsessed with the validation from the becrushed, and when I got it, the rules had been bent or broken, and I had triumphed. In a sense it’s a chase, but more than that it’s a search. Or for example some people will tell you this kind of thing comes from low self esteem. I take issue with the idea of “low self esteem” being this defining trait because the truth is sometimes I feel good about myself and sometimes I feel bad about myself and sometimes I feel okay. So there are many reasons this kind of thing happens to someone, but I’d rather not back myself into a corner, I’d rather say: this passion is a product of you looking at me. A woman so striking, intelligent, accomplished, looking at me, and seeming to like what she saw, was this feeling it felt like I had been waiting my whole life for. But if my idea of what you’re seeing is completely derived from my own mind then maybe I’m just crazy and narcissistic. But there is also something to be said of your power. And how my efforts to charm you seemed (at least at first) to be successful, making me a worthy woman too. But then you didn’t answer my letter. And while I was very disappointed, I feel relieved too. I really was going crazy. A lot of people say that uncertainty is what drives these things, and I told myself throughout that it wasn’t like that, I was sure she liked me too. Obviously, the greatest delusion was knowing what I thought she was thinking, that I thought we were sharing a feeling.