Thom, I’m back. I came back to this place of your love for each other because it’s the appropriate place for me to share that I’ve never experienced the love you write about. I know this love, though; I can feel it in my heart. I experience it with Georgia. I breathe it in when Olivia and I are in a warm embrace. I’ve felt my version of love for a man only for short bursts throughout my life where I’ve experienced deep feelings and overwhelming attraction, but I knew it wasn’t the real thing.

It was always at that first part of the relationship. You know, that time when you can’t stand one moment when you’re apart, and everything you see and touch and eat and drink you want to share with that person. You can’t concentrate at school or at work, and you can’t sleep. You can get so high from the endorphins in your brain and the music you play.

I did some reading on it back in the late seventies and found what I was experiencing is called limerence (also infatuated love). The term was coined by psychologist Dorothy Tennov. It’s a romantic attraction to another person which typically includes thoughts and fantasies with a desire to form a relationship with the love object and have your feelings reciprocated. It’s like walking on air when you make any form of contact with this person. Everything you share with him becomes a significant memory, and you associate various activities and songs and movies with your love object so you can think of him at every chance you get. It’s that I want him and I need him and I know we are meant to be together feeling.

So there’s that. And then after that for me when that goes away it hasn’t worked out. I’ve never figured out the whys except that I’ve chosen wrong, but it’s always been like this for me. I wrote a bit about it in this story here. Anyway, I’m sad about it. I’ve dreamed about walking into a room and seeing “him” across from me, like right out of South Pacific’s “Some Enchanted Evening.” And when I read your stories, I am sad and happy for you at the same time. You had and still have something I can only read about.