Limerence Deep Dive (Chapter 9 - The Cause)
Psychology In Seattle Podcast
Kirk Honda
4.6 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 10 December 2025
⏱️ 40 minutes
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Summary
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00:00 Obsessive and abusive love
15:33 Are these examples of limerence?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, Deservent Listeners, this is the next chapter on my deep dive on limerance. |
| 0:06.5 | And my name is Dr. Kirk Honda. |
| 0:08.1 | I'm a therapist, and I'm also a professor. |
| 0:10.1 | And this is the Psychology in Seattle podcast and YouTube channel. |
| 0:13.7 | I wanted to start today's chapter by talking about another example from fiction that people often will say is a clear example of limerance. |
| 0:24.6 | And that is the character of Martha from the TV show on Netflix called Baby Rainier. |
| 0:31.6 | If you're familiar with that show, it was a very, very popular show one or two years ago. And online, you will hear |
| 0:39.4 | people say, oh, Martha from baby reindeer, she clearly is a good example of someone with limerance. |
| 0:45.2 | So let's evaluate that claim. So Martha does display some signs of limerence in that she was intensely attracted to someone from afar. |
| 0:57.7 | If you don't know the story, she is sort of a lonely person in the UK and she falls in love |
| 1:06.0 | with a bartender named Donnie. |
| 1:08.0 | And Donnie is this nice guy, kind of a pushover, kind of lonely himself, kind of struggling |
| 1:13.6 | himself a little bit. |
| 1:15.3 | But he doesn't like Martha, but he sees the good in her. |
| 1:20.8 | And since he's at work as a bartender and he doesn't really like his coworkers that much, |
| 1:26.9 | he entertains Martha's |
| 1:30.1 | crush by allowing her to dominate his time because she just talks and talks and |
| 1:36.3 | talks and never asks any questions. And so he feels sort of trapped having to listen to her, but also kind of, you know, the, the way that |
| 1:48.2 | Donnie is written, and it's written by the, by the actor who apparently lived through this |
| 1:55.1 | real scenario, I think we're led to believe that he kind of needs it a little bit. He gets a little bit of validation by Martha's crush on him. |
| 2:07.7 | And she also shows signs of limerance in that she will interpret small signals as clear indications of reciprocation from Donnie like the fact that he |
| 2:20.1 | listens to her is interpreted by her as clear evidence of reciprocation when |
... |
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