Hey, deserving listeners, this is the next chapter on my deep dive on limerence. My name is Dr. Kirk Honda.

I'm a therapist and a professor. I thought I would start today's chapter by talking about

common examples of limerence in fiction that are identified as limerence online. One of the most common examples from fiction

that is identified as limerence is Severus Snape from the Harry Potter universe.

So if you're familiar, you know that Snape was in love with Lily, who was Harry Potter's mom,

and it was an unrecic was an unrequited love that lasted his entire

life, essentially, ever since he met her when he was young. And he had this infatuation with her,

or this love for her, despite her rejection, her getting married, even after her death,

for decades later, or at least for 20 years, I guess later, he continued to pine for her

and love for her and only her, and she idealized. He idealized her. So it makes sense that a lot of people would think that

this is limerance but let's look into the details here so i would say according to what i think

the emerging expert consensus about what limerance is is that this is definitely not limerance. It has the look to it,

and I'm worried that a lot of people, including clinicians, will just recognize, and it's pretty

clear that people are, because there's a lot of articles that will identify Snape as a classic

example of limerence. And they will point to this

unrequited love. Just having long-term unrequited love for someone is not limerance. That is

really quite silly. We have a phrase for that already. It's long-term unrequited love. Limerance is an addictive cycle. That's the key here. Now, some would say that limerence doesn't need to include the addictive cycle. It can, but it doesn't have to. But when you actually read the literature and when I survey people about limerence, when you think about our terminology when it comes to love

and crushes and infatuation and falling in love and limerance, I think it's very important

that we section off the word limerance to refer only to the condition that lasts for years and it creates a lot of suffering.

Now, did Snape and do other people with long-term unrequited love, do they suffer?

Yeah, but it's a completely other phenomenon.

Now, maybe some of you who know the Snape universe know that it was.

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