Gatsby Vibes

Limerence, Romantic Obsession, and the Illusion of Closeness

As I sat across from my client, listening to them describe their looping thoughts about a specific person, I noticed a familiar pattern unfolding. Story after story I was hearing about moments of connection followed by confusion, warmth followed by distance, hope followed by doubt. Hot and cold. Mixed signals. Endless analysis.

When they finally paused, I gently reflected back what I was hearing: you’re experiencing limerence.

Limerence is a state of intense romantic fixation on another person, often fueled by uncertainty, inconsistency, and emotional unavailability. It’s not inherently dangerous, though it certainly can escalate for some people depending on attachment history, trauma, and unmet emotional needs. At its core, limerence is less about the other person and more about what they represent.

Limerence thrives on ambiguity. Secure, reciprocal relationships rarely create obsession. Inconsistency does. When someone oscillates between interest and withdrawal, the nervous system stays activated. You’re constantly scanning, hoping, analyzing, and trying to regain emotional equilibrium.

This is where runner–chaser dynamics often take shape.

One person distances (the runner), consciously or unconsciously, while the other pursues (the chaser), seeking reassurance, clarity, or emotional safety. The pursuit isn’t driven by intimacy, it’s driven by the need to be chosen. To be validated. To finally feel secure.

The obsession isn’t about closeness.
It’s about relief.

Relief from self-doubt.
Relief from abandonment fears.
Relief from old attachment wounds that whisper, “If they choose me, I’ll finally be okay.”

And this is where my favorite literary example comes in: The Great Gatsby, later turned into a cinematic masterpiece by Baz Luhrmann starring my very first celebrity crush, Leonardo DiCaprio.

For anyone who needs a quick refresher: Gatsby and Daisy first meet when Gatsby is a young military officer stationed near her family’s home in Louisville. They fall into a brief but intense romance before he leaves for war. By the time he returns, Daisy has married the wealthy and socially established Tom Buchanan. Tom is, objectively, awful, but that’s not the point of this post.

Years later, Gatsby reinvents himself as a mysterious millionaire and buys a mansion directly across the bay from Daisy’s home, throwing extravagant parties in the hope that she might one day walk through his door again.

If we were to ask Gatsby whether he loved Daisy, he would say yes, of course he did. Everything he built, everything he chased, every lavish party and grand gesture was for her.

But what Gatsby loved wasn’t Daisy as she truly was.
It was the idea of her. The symbol she represented. The promise that if he could just have her, his life, his past, and his sense of worth would finally make sense.

The reality of who Daisy was and who Gatsby needed her to be were incongruent.

That’s limerence.

Idealization fills in the gaps when reality doesn’t match the fantasy. When someone is emotionally unavailable or inconsistent, the mind completes the picture for them. We fall in love with potential instead of patterns. With hope instead of behavior.

And hope can be intoxicating.

Love (real love) is different.

Love is steady.
Love is mutual.
Love does not require you to earn consistency or decode mixed signals.

Love doesn’t live in fantasy, it lives in reality.

The therapeutic work isn’t about shaming the attachment or suppressing the feelings. It’s about turning toward them with curiosity instead of judgment and asking:

• What does this person symbolize for me?
• What am I seeking through them that I haven’t learned to give myself yet?
• What would secure, reciprocal love actually feel like in my body, not just my imagination?

When obsession loosens its grip, it’s not because we stopped caring. It’s because we stopped confusing intensity with intimacy and longing with love.

Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is tell the truth:
If it’s costing you your peace, it’s not love. It’s a wound asking to be tended. A need hoping to be met.

— LC ✨