Does Limerence Lead to Stalking?
How intense romantic infatuation relates to other forms of obsessive love
Posted November 21, 2025 | Reviewed by Davia Sills
In 1979, Dorothy Tennov published Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love , in which she made the case that some people fall into a distinct cognitive state in the early phase of romantic love, which she termed “limerence.”
Limerence is characterized by ecstasy and agony, by mood swings from euphoria to panicked anxiety , depending on whether the object of infatuation seems to return the limerent’s romantic interest. It’s a state of mental preoccupation, overarousal, and yearning—all focused on an insatiable desire to form a pair bond, an “ecstatic union,” with the beloved.
From the perspective of today’s neuroscience , the symptoms of limerence suggest that one person can become such a powerful natural reward that it is possible to effectively become addicted to them (Bellamy, 2025).
Despite the popularity of Tennov’s book, the concept of limerence has had little impact on academic psychology to date. Overshadowed by attachment theory and falling into the messy problem of definitions that bedevils love research (what exactly is the difference between manic love, passionate love, obsessive love, or addictive love?), limerence has not been widely adopted as an explanatory framework for early love experiences.
But the emotional resonance of the idea kept limerence alive in popular culture.
The advent of online communities led to a resurgence in interest in Tennov’s work, with people sharing their own personal limerence experiences and attempting to make sense of what limerence means for the initiation and maintenance of romantic relationships .
One perennial topic of debate is whether limerence is a state that some people experience as a natural part of romantic love or whether it is a disorder that is clinically concerning.
One reason why this distinction matters is that people who have never experienced limerence can, naturally enough, associate it with other forms of obsessive love.
The term “obsessive love disorder” is often used to describe a pattern of intrusive thoughts, controlling behavior, irrational jealousy , and possessiveness in relationships.
Obsessive love can also be delusional, as in the case of “erotomania,” where the sufferer believes that a stranger (often of high status) is in love with them but keeping their shared passion secret.
These obsessions can also lead to persistent harassment and stalking .
A recent scoping report speculated that limerence might be a precursor for stalking behavior, on the basis that “ self-regulation in limerent states is only maintained whilst the limerent has some form of direct or indirect interaction (online or offline) with the limerent object…” (Bradbury et al., 2024).
Similarly, an increase in dopamine -linked motivational drive in both stalking and limerence has been proposed as a possible common mechanism underlying obsessive behavior (Meloy & Fisher, 2005).
It’s clearly important to understand whether limerence can lead to disordered, even criminal, behavior, but it’s equally important to avoid stigmatizing people experiencing limerence if the obsessive behaviors instead have distinct psychological origins.
So, how comparable are they? What drives limerence and stalking?
Limerence versus stalking
The motivational force behind limerence is an intense desire to form an intimate romantic bond with the limerent object. The limerent’s greatest hope is that the feeling is mutual.
They get a natural high from being with the limerent object (or ruminating about them), and the reward-seeking drive that is generated escalates into an involuntary fixation.
In contrast, the motive force behind stalking is the desire to enforce contact on the target and to control or punish them for rejection.
The stalker feels entitled to access, is resentful about perceived mistreatment, and takes satisfaction in the distress they cause their victim.
While there are commonalities in terms of obsessive thinking and increased levels of motivation , the emotional foundations of limerence and stalking are profoundly different.
Who experiences limerence?
In 2024, I ran a survey of 1,500 U.S. and UK adults (selected at random) to estimate the prevalence of limerence in the general population. More than half of respondents reported they had experienced limerence at some point in their lives, with men and women experiencing it in roughly equal numbers (Bellamy, 2025).
Limerence, as articulated by Tennov, is a cognitive state that many people enter during early-stage romantic love.
In contrast, stalking behavior is rare. Estimates suggest that less than 1 percent of the population are perpetrators, and a sizeable majority are men.
Of the surveyed limerents, only half reported having experienced limerence symptoms that were so distressing that they disrupted daily life. The nature of that distress typically took the form of unmanageable intrusive thoughts, inability to concentrate, and difficulty regulating mood.
For the obsessive thinking of limerence to progress to an impulse to stalk, the emotional response to the limerent object must transform from hope and idealization into resentment and vengefulness.
That sort of dramatic inversion of feeling (or “splitting”) corresponds with the psychological profile of stalkers, who often have a history of troubled relationships, psychiatric problems, and criminal offending. Stalkers are frequently found to have personality disorders or other mental health conditions that correlate with malicious and boundary -violating behavior (Racine & Billick, 2014).
Given these disparities, it seems more likely that a predisposition to stalking exists independently of limerence, rather than emerging from it. Stalkers could certainly select a limerent object as their target if they happen to form a limerence attachment, but other personality traits (or disorders) are the determining factor as to whether breach acts occur.
The scoping review of Bradbury et al. emphasizes the difficulty of drawing conclusions about links between limerence and other forms of obsession, given the limited academic literature on limerence. I agree. There is even significant disagreement about the correct definition of the term.
The cognitive state of limerence, as defined by Tennov, is a feature of early love for many people—possibly even a majority of the population. Nevertheless, like many other emotional states, limerence can cause significant distress if it intensifies past the point of self-control.
How and why that happens, and how it relates to other aspects of the limerent’s personality and life history, are serious questions that need investigation.
Tennov D. (1999) Love and Limerence: the experience of being in love (2nd Edition) . Scarborough House, New York.
Bradbury P, Short E & Bleakley P. (2025) Limerence, Hidden Obsession, Fixation, and Rumination: A Scoping Review of Human Behaviour. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology . 40:417–426
Meloy JR & Fisher H. (2005). Some thoughts on the neurobiology of stalking. Journal of Forensic Sciences. 50:1472-80
Bellamy T. (2025). Smitten: Romantic obsession, the neuroscience of limerence, and how to make love last . Watkins Publishing, London.
Racine AM & Billick SB. (2014). Classification systems for stalking behavior. Journal of Forensic Sciences . 2014;59(1):250-254
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.