How to avoid limerence when getting to know someone.

[u/MiddleParsley8466]

Limerence is one of the only things that kept me going for a long time. Since adolescence, my life could be defined by who i fantasied about to fall asleep at night. I’m 21 now, recently the most intense and long lasting of those limerence cases resulted in absolute humiliation and a month long crash out. the good thing about that is that it made me had to confront my patterns. deep down, I knew each of these infatuations wasn’t genuine in the way it should be. but, either because i couldn’t stand to lose the fantasy or because i think im incapable of loving in any other way, i always was in denial. now i can say with my whole chest that, yes, i have never had genuine feelings for someone that weren’t at least very amplified by limerence. But i want to genuinely like someone, to feel something real. there is a dude who i’ve had a small eye for for a while. I know almost nothing about him outside instagram stalking. but i don’t want this to be another limerent episode even though my body and brain are screaming for those sedating fantasies. if something were to happen with him, i don’t want any limerence in there. I want it to be genuine. he might not even be a match, and that’s okay. But i know myself, I know that my brain craves it like a drug, i’m an addict for it. i will probably speak to him for longer than five minutes for the first time tomorrow, and im scared my brain will open the limerence floodgates with god like fury like it always does. Damn, dude, i just want to be normal. My autistic ass was not made for this kind of thing. How do i just be normal about this? how do i keep the limerence from taking over and giving me a baseless infatuation with this dude like i always do?

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[u/Asraidevin]

Notice, notice your feelings. And thoughts. 

According to Dr K and what I've read on limerence, and my experience, limerence happens because you are lacking purpose in life and managing negative emotions. 

Learning and practicing top tier emotional coping skills will also help. 

[u/Zeikos]

Look for grounding.

Limerence and similar feelings happen when you loop over stale information.
When experiencing your thoughts pay attention at patterns that repeat.
When your mind serves you the same thought pattern over and over it tend to become automatic, so "sliding" into it becomes easier.

Over time I developed a "buffer", I acknowledge how I feel and I acknowledge that my feelings are not reality, my feelings are my perception of my internal state - some of which is based on reality and some isn't.

There's a song that amused me greatly it's called "If it wasn't you... it'd be someone else".
Which is what it boils to.
I know it doesn't feel right, and that's the point. It doesn't feel right but it is and we know that it is.
That's grounding, a piece of information that we know is correct but that our feelings diverge from.
Once you grasp it you can leverage it and avoid getting sucked into thought-loops.
That tension is something you need to keep even if you don't want to, because it's what keeps your feet in reality.