Posted on by Kate Bassett
lim·er·ence
ˈlimərəns/
noun – Psychology
  1. the state of being infatuated or obsessed with another person, typically experienced involuntarily and characterized by a strong desire for reciprocation of one’s feelings but not primarily for a sexual relationship.

There is a saying that you can’t help who you fall in love with; but what if you need help untangling yourself from passion’s binds? Especially if it’s your first time in love’s web?

Izzy, an Amazonian redhead, relied on logic to guide her through life after being teased and ridiculed for most of it. Her engagement to her workaholic fiancé’ Malachi, was a logical choice. He’s taller, slightly younger, a social alpha male and makes more money than she does. Her career in technology, buying a home, recycling…all logical choices. Upstanding women do these things before they get married, have children, grow old. Yet, through a strange turn of events, she falls for a man a decade older, nearly a foot shorter and highly introverted in the most unlikely of places. Gavin’s quiet demeanor and mysterious boyishness is both wild and cryptic; a recipe for logical disaster.

Izzy desperately keeps her unrequited attraction a secret to those around her, but, slowly,  it eats her alive to the point of desperation. She does not want to fall in love; she has no time for it. Only fools fall in love, but her affections for Gavin scratches at the back of her mind without stop. Enter Dr. Yasmine Fatima, a cool, smooth talking therapist hired to listen without judgment and verbally walk her through the sheer drops of first time love and heartache. Two women have frank conversations about love, selfishness, desire, introversion and communication all while being recorded on tape.

Is it true that is better to experience love from afar than to have never loved at all?

Written in a script style, Izzy and Yasmine debate their points of love and the lack thereof; a conversational struggle to understand love’s place between the cold halls of the mind and the warm satin sheets of the heart.

 

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The Limerence Tapes is a short story that’s near to my heart. So many in the world talk about ‘love is all we need‘ and ‘love conquers all’, but very few regard the smoldering hell love puts you through when you’re surrounded by the bars of social duty, moral guilt and emotional confusion…especially if you’ve never fell in love before.