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An Erotics of Hypochondria - by Alexandra Molotkow

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Hypochondria and obsessive crushing are similar conditions: both are all-consuming, interpretive fevers, and both bear the stigma of being a lot about nothing.

“Limerence” — like “parasocial” — is a term with academic origins that people tend to learn about from their friends. In 1979, the American psychologist Dorothy Tennov coined it for the kind of burning, obsessive infatuation that some of us are chronically disposed to, while others never experience at all. Her book Love and Limerence received a mixed reception in professional circles — as she writes in the preface to its 1999 edition, responses tended to skew according to whether or not the reader had ever been “limerent” themselves — but it is canon among friend groups across the country…

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