Randomly Posting Stuff Cause You Feel Like It

[Kätzchen]

[Orema]

Originally Posted by GeorgiaMa'am

In my mind, I always think of myself as being about 30 years old. I have felt this way ever since I was about 30, but suddenly one day I turned around and realized I was in my late 50s. I understand that a lot of other people have this realization too, somewhere around their late 40s to early 60s.

But I noticed today that when I am reading y'all's posts, I think of you as being about 30 too, except for those I have met IRL. I don't think of y'all as being younger than me - just the same as me. Of course, I know that most,if not all of us are older than that.

Do any of you share this?

Great question, but I don't get this. I remember nhplowboi asking something similar and I just can't wrap my head around it.

I assign ages or generations (Boomer, X, etc) based on posts or my interactions, but that's about as far as I can connect with this.

Different strokes, I guess.

[Orema]

Originally Posted by Orema

Great question, but I don't get this. I remember nhplowboi asking something similar and I just can't wrap my head around it.

I assign ages or generations (Boomer, X, etc) based on posts or my interactions, but that's about as far as I can connect with this.

Different strokes, I guess.

Somethin' else, I have always looked forward to getting older. I'll be 70 on my next birthday and can barely wait for it to come... I had a rough time as a teenager and young adult, and a palm reader told me (and showed me on my hand) that life would get better as I got older. As soon as she said it I knew she was right. I knew in my core that getting older would be good for me. Sometimes I've used this thinking as a crutch to avoid things, but not too often...

And this isn't to imply in any way that the connection to younger or certain ages/eras is worse or better than what I experience, it just seems foreign to me and I think it's because my thoughts are on getting older.

Just wonderin', has anyone had a palm reading that's come true?

[Kätzchen]

Originally Posted by Orema

Somethin' else, I have always looked forward to getting older. I'll be 70 on my next birthday and can barely wait for it to come... I had a rough time as a teenager and young adult, and a palm reader told me (and showed me on my hand) that life would get better as I got older. As soon as she said it I knew she was right. I knew in my core that getting older would be good for me. Sometimes I've used this thinking as a crutch to avoid things, but not too often...

And this isn't to imply in any way that the connection to younger or certain ages/eras is worse or better than what I experience, it just seems foreign to me and I think it's because my thoughts are on getting older.

Just wonderin', has anyone had a palm reading that's come true?

Yes

So much so, too, that I actually came across a red leather model of a hand with lines on it -- explaining how one can read your palm. I keep my red leather palm thingy in the visor of my tiny car (for good luck).

[Kätzchen]

[Kätzchen]

[GeorgiaMa'am]

Originally Posted by Orema

Just wonderin', has anyone had a palm reading that's come true?

Not a palm reading, but a one-hour tarot reading, yes. She told me about my whole life. She was very specific, with time lines and everything. She told me about major events that have all come true, even some surprising ones that, at the time, I told her could not possibly come true. She warned me about my crazy 7-year girlfriend and warned me not to hook up with her (and I should have followed that advice). She told me about Dixon. She even told me I would end up living with a man for a long time, and I told her, "You know I'm a lesbian, right?" and she said of course, but nonetheless, that was the case, and that it would be a good relationship. And look, here I am, living with the boy. She recorded the entire reading on a cassette tape, and I keep meaning to listen to it again.

[Gemme]

Originally Posted by Kätzchen

I got my hair trimmed back into shape (a little off, here & there: my hair doesn’t exactly grow anymore like it used to).

Originally Posted by GeorgiaMa'am

Mine either! It's thinner on top now than everywhere else. My hair stylist says it's the aftereffects of the chemo. I'm hoping it comes back.

Nutrafol, ladies. I lose hair with stress. It works but it's expensive and it takes a couple months before I saw anything at all. With all the stress I'm going through now, I've noticed that I've started to lose more again. I'm considering bumping my usage up until I can breathe a little better. Seriously, check it out.

Originally Posted by GeorgiaMa'am

In my mind, I always think of myself as being about 30 years old. I have felt this way ever since I was about 30, but suddenly one day I turned around and realized I was in my late 50s. I understand that a lot of other people have this realization too, somewhere around their late 40s to early 60s.

But I noticed today that when I am reading y'all's posts, I think of you as being about 30 too, except for those I have met IRL. I don't think of y'all as being younger than me - just the same as me. Of course, I know that most,if not all of us are older than that.

Do any of you share this?

I don't necessarily "assign" an age to anyone but, yes, unless I know differently, I read posts as if they were written by someone with the same life references as me and I do feel younger than my chronological age, especially as I creep towards 50 (just a meager 7 months now).

There are certain things I've looked forward to since childhood, like the big pause, but no one told me anything about dry cycles. Rude!!!

Originally Posted by Kätzchen

This is soooo PNW. I miss it a lot.

[Bèsame*]

I took my bestie to the airport super early this morning. We are going to London/Paris next spring. So today she gave me a sweet thank you surprise. She beat me to the punch. I have one for her already! So...I'm going to type this out so it will hold me to it.

Isn't that the cutest? A luggage piggy bank. Goal=$200 a month. And...that's why I work two jobs. To have fun!

[PlatinumPearl]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDxEQY7wFlg

[PlatinumPearl]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVWuDtRrex4

[Stone-Butch]

I saw a young woman in the apt building hall with a tshirt on and it said.

"I READ BOOKS AND I DRINK TEA and I KNOW STUFF"

I smiled when I saw it as I thought it was cute. Then I gained a grin when I thought how nice that would have been on an older woman. I know I could not stop myself from saying, "I bet you do honey". Went back in my apt grinning.

[Kätzchen]

Today was windy and rain drizzled all afternoon.

[Kätzchen]

“I hated every minute of training. But I said to myself, Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a Champion.”

The greatest of all time, Muhammad Ali.

“Float like a butterfly,
Sting like a bee.”
Cassius Clay
(Muhammad Ali).

[Kätzchen]

The trees lining the basalt canyons in our area are just gorgeous: yellows, oranges, burnt reds. It’s so beautiful here, lately.

[Stone-Butch]

I just watched ceremony on our Canadian Rememberance day for all the men and women who over the years have helped defend our country of Canada and joined with other countries to keep freedom for us all. My grandfather was a pow in ww 1 and my father was a naval sailor in ww2. I am glad they both came out alive .

[Orema]

Is It a Crush or Have You Fallen Into Limerence?

How an intense longing for a romantic connection can lead to a serious addiction.

By Amanda McCracken

For most people, crushes come and go.

But for others, the longing can last years and become addictive. A spark of interest turns into obsessive rumination sustained by a pernicious cocktail of hope and doubt. This is not a crush. This is limerence.

Limerence is a state of overwhelming and unexpected longing for emotional reciprocation from another human, known as a limerent object (LO), who is often perceived as perfect but unavailable.

This may sound similar to the lyrics of a Taylor Swift love song, a scene in “The Great Gatsby,” or the lines in a Shakespeare sonnet. The experience of limerence is timeless, but the term is relatively new.

In 1979, Dorothy Tennov, an experimental psychologist and professor at the University of Bridgeport, coined the term limerence in her book “Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love,” based on a decade of research and several hundred case studies on romantic attachment.

What differentiates limerence from a crush or love is the intensity, an emotional roller coaster that fluctuates from euphoria to despair. Giulia Poerio, a psychologist and mind-wandering researcher at the University of Sussex in England, said, “Any sign of rejection can make somebody hit a low, and any sign of interest can make somebody hit a high.” It’s an endless mind game of, “She loves me, she loves me not.”

Limerents, deeply fearful of rejection, allow their self-esteem to rest in the hands of an LO who may not even know they exist. The LO is most often a friend, colleague, or stranger met in passing. It can also be someone with whom you’ve had a brief romantic encounter that feels unresolved, explains Dr. Poerio, especially if the LO continues to leave breadcrumbs.

Sue Crump, a 67-year-old volunteer at a mental health charity shop in Sheffield, England, said for 18 months, she obsessively watched YouTube videos featuring her LO, a much younger, married singer she’d briefly met a handful of times. “I fantasized about a relationship with him and read things into texts and online messages he sent in reply to my own.” She turned to a limerence support group on Facebook soon after the isolation of the pandemic lockdown made her longing worse. “It made me realize I was not alone, and I was not going mad,” said Ms. Crump.

Limerence is nourished by replaying memories and rehearsing future interactions. “There’s a fair amount of mental time travel,” said Dr. Poerio, who asked survey respondents to write descriptions of these fantasies. “It’s often not romantic or sexual in nature. It is very much about wanting to feel loved and cared for.”

Chris Gregory, 53, a certified yoga instructor in Denver, recalls first experiencing limerence in high school. “I would develop insanely obsessive crushes on women and then not pursue them. Then I would be crushed by them not responding the way the scene had played out in my own head and heart. I felt unworthy,” he said. Gregory continued to experience limerence throughout his adult life, he said, but mistook it for love.

Limerence toward one person can last many years, even while you’re in a relationship with someone else, explains Dr. Poerio. However, most people are serially limerent, having one LO after another, stuck chasing the same dopamine high felt in the initial stages of love.

The Brain’s Reward Cycle

Dr. Judson Brewer, psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and author of “Unwinding Anxiety,” describes limerence as an addiction. “When somebody’s on a diet, all they obsess over is food. So you can think of this as a person diet,” said Dr. Brewer. “They get stuck in the fantasies that are future-oriented and regrets that are past-oriented.”

If the trigger is loneliness or boredom, for example, the resulting behavior is anticipating reciprocity from the LO, added Dr. Brewer. That reciprocity never comes, but the anticipation yields the reward, dopamine.

Dr. Brewer added, “Dopamine is jet fuel. It’s what gets us motivated to do something” — even if doing something only means anticipating. The uncertainty, or intermittent reinforcement, of the occasional message from the LO keeps our brains hooked. “It’s gasoline poured on the fire,” said Dr. Brewer. We begin to mistake anxiety for excitement and excitement for joy.

Culture as a Catalyst

There are a growing number of online limerence support groups and informational blogs. Psychologists and social scientists aren’t surprised.

Alexandra Solomon, a licensed clinical psychologist in Chicago and host of the “Reimagining Love” podcast, said, “There’s a whole cultural element here about the way online dating and hookup culture create a climate of low accountability and foster insecure attachment. There’s a kind of collective insecurity.”

The American Perspectives Survey found that almost a third of single Americans (roughly equal between men and women) have been ghosted by someone they were dating. The lack of communication common after physical intimacy is enough to drive many people to feel anxious, if not limerent.

With a dating pool that seems infinite, people feel expendable. Being ghosted can create an open tab inside your brain. “It’s easy to feel like there’s no obligation to close a loop,” Dr. Solomon said. “You can start to project onto that person a whole bunch of what ifs. It’s easy to idealize somebody you’ve just met.”

While people experiencing limerence often put their LO on a pedestal, social media further encourages idealization. Individuals who exchange Instagram profiles in a bar instantly have access to years of curated data they can use to build up the other person in their minds, explains Prof. Jennifer Douglas, a psychologist and a clinical professor at Stanford.

When is it a problem?

Most people experience some degree of limerence, said Dr. Poerio, but it’s problematic when it’s uncontrollable. Dr. Poerio uses the analogy of a person whose mind has been hijacked. “It interferes with your ability to have meaningful, real-world relationships because you are sustaining a relationship in your mind. It’s a normal process that’s gone slightly wrong.”

Vincent Harris, 49, a freelance writer in Greenville, S.C., said he lost his first marriage and a job because of the presence of a limerent object he considered his soul mate. Mr. Harris met his latest limerent object through social media during the pandemic.

“For three years, I felt like I was living under a cloud. I had no motivation other than to hear from her,” Mr. Harris said. “I was paralyzed with fear that if I reached out to her, I would say the wrong thing. As she lessened contact with me, I became more desperate and unbalanced.” In May 2023, he was medically treated for a second mental breakdown.

How do you stop intense longing?

Cultivate self-compassion and a more purposeful life: Dr. Brewer recommends practicing Loving Kindness Meditation to develop self-compassion and create connections with others who don’t require anything in return. Brain scans show doing this meditation deactivates the part of the brain active during longing or worrying, according to Dr. Brewer.

You can also get involved in grounding activities with people that bring you joy and fulfillment. For Mr. Gregory, becoming more present helped him manage his limerence. Mr. Gregory attributes working in yoga education and becoming sober to helping him cultivate honest, open relationships with people.

Disrupt the fantasy: Brandy Wyant, a psychotherapist in Arlington, Mass., who specializes in helping patients with O.C.D., describes her lifelong history with limerence and the ten-week treatment that diminished her ruminating in a published case study on limerence.

One of the cognitive behavioral therapy techniques that worked for Ms. Wyant was listing all the ways she was trying to seek physical or emotional closeness to her LO. That might be daydreaming, re-listening to voice mail messages or playlists, rereading texts, rehearsing messages, or looking at pics. She said to rank what’s easiest to hardest to stop, and then start with the easiest.

One strategy she uses with her clients to de-idolize their LO is listing reasons the LO is not perfect. Another list includes ways in which the LO and the patient are not compatible.

Name it to tame it: You can deliberately interrupt the habit by calling it out — “Hello, limerence” — and paying attention (for example, through journaling) to what it feels like when you’re in that state of longing. Recognizing the feelings of self-denigration, anxiousness, and depression will lead to disenchantment, said Dr. Brewer.

You should also believe you deserve more. As Dr. Tennov wrote, “Limerence can live a long life sustained by crumbs.” Don’t let it starve you of time, energy and self-esteem. It may distract you from the emotionally available loving partner right in front of you.

Amanda McCracken is a freelance journalist and essayist writing a book about limerence based on her research and personal experience, which she discussed in her TEDx talk, “How longing keeps us from healthy relationships” and podcast “The Longing Lab.”

[Kätzchen]

Thanks for posting that article about limerence! I was just reading about that a few weeks ago. I personally feel that Valentine’s Day plays a role in limerence, lol.


**************

And, I think The Detroit Lions play today. I’m a big fan of the Detroit Lions: been reading a bunch of excellent articles written about your football club, Orema. Sure hope THE LIONS win their game today. If they do, they will be one step closer to winning the Vince Lombardi Trophy!!!

GOOOOOOO LIONS!

[Orema]

Originally Posted by Kätzchen

Thanks for posting that article about limerence! I was just reading about that a few weeks ago. I personally feel that Valentine’s Day plays a role in limerence, lol.


**************

And, I think The Detroit Lions play today. I’m a big fan of the Detroit Lions: been reading a bunch of excellent articles written about your football club, Orema. Sure hope THE LIONS win their game today. If they do, they will be one step closer to winning the Vince Lombardi Trophy!!!

GOOOOOOO LIONS!

Thanks, Kätzchen! Yes, we're very excited for the home team. Everybody and their mama is having a watch party today. We're hoping to make it to the bowl and hopefully against the Chiefs (that's what people tell me, though I have no idea), but we're thrilled just to make it this far. I may go out and do some shopping and get a hair cut during the game.

[ksrainbow]

Originally Posted by Orema

Thanks, Kätzchen! Yes, we're very excited for the home team. Everybody and their mama is having a watch party today. We're hoping to make it to the bowl and hopefully against the Chiefs (that's what people tell me, though I have no idea), but we're thrilled just to make it this far. I may go out and do some shopping and get a hair cut during the game.

Overall all 4 games were well played! Honestly I was all in for the Lions vs Chiefs!