Am I in love, or is it something else?
Love, limerence, loneliness or longing, and how to tell them apart from the inside.
Love, limerence, loneliness or longing, and how to tell them apart from the inside.
Love, limerence, loneliness and longing all use the same equipment. The same held breath when the phone lights up, the same hours gone somewhere, the same certainty at three in the morning. From the inside they are almost impossible to tell apart, which is why you are here rather than simply knowing. These nine questions do not ask how much you feel it, because that is never really the question, and the answer is always a lot, whichever of the four this is. They ask where the feeling lives, how it behaves when things go quiet, and what happens in you when the person is ordinary. Answer quickly and answer honestly, because nobody else sees this.
question 1 of 9
A whole day goes by with no contact. What is the day like?
- Normal. You think of them, and you get on with things
- Long. You check the phone more than you would admit to anyone
- Quiet in a way that does not really have much to do with them
- Fine, until the evening, when you go back to the daydream
the questions in this quiz
A whole day goes by with no contact. What is the day like?
- Normal. You think of them, and you get on with things
- Long. You check the phone more than you would admit to anyone
- Quiet in a way that does not really have much to do with them
- Fine, until the evening, when you go back to the daydream
You are telling a friend about them. What do you spend most of the time on?
- Things they actually did and said this week
- The last message, read out, and what it might mean
- How much better your weeks are when somebody is in them
- What it could be like, if it ever really got going
Picture them ordinary. Bad flu, unwashed hair, a dull mood for a week.
- Still them. You would bring soup
- Hard to picture. You know the good version best
- You would look after them, feel useful, and that would be most of it
- The picture goes flat, and you quietly change it back
They are warm one week and vague the next. What happens to how much you want this?
- It goes up. You want them more, not less
- It cools, and you say something about it
- You wait, because waiting is still better than the empty evenings
- You explain it to yourself kindly and keep the picture intact
Sunday afternoon and you have nothing on.
- That is the hardest hour of the week, and that is when you reach out
- You would like them there, and you are all right without them
- You reread things. You know which ones
- You imagine the Sunday the two of you would have
How much of this has happened in a room with both of you in it?
- Most of it. Months or years of actual days
- Some of it, and then it grew a great deal more in your head
- Not much. What is real is how much you have wanted somebody
- Almost none of it. It is a good story, mostly
Something good happens to you at four in the afternoon. Who do you want to tell?
- Them, and also two other people, and you mean it each time
- Them, immediately, and then you watch for the reply
- Anybody. The wanting to tell someone is louder than who
- Them, in a message you draft and do not send
Somebody asks what you love about them. What comes out of your mouth?
- Specific, slightly unimpressive things. How they are with their sister
- How they make you feel, described at length
- That they are there, and that you are not on your own
- Qualities. The ones you have been looking for, for years
They become simple and available tomorrow, fully yours. What actually happens in you?
- Relief, and then an ordinary happy week
- A drop you would not expect, and then you go looking for the next uncertainty
- Better for a while, and the old quiet would still be there in a month
- You would have to meet the actual person, and some part of you knows that
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