I also wonder if rationality messes up your limerence. Certainly, I find that a daily attempt to try and think more rationally has had a small-moderate effect on my emotional range and registration.
I don’t know how to self-evaluate my rationality, at least not in a publicly defensible way[1], or for that matter compare the intensity of my romantic feelings to those of others… but for whatever my word is worth, I think it’s quite possible to have both. Maybe not in the same moment, but I think it’s possible to switch back and forth rapidly enough that it works fine.[2]
The things that lead to intense romantic feelings for someone, in my experience, come from having all 3 of the following factors:
That I find her admirable. (Admirable traits that come to mind: intelligence, beauty, kindness, competence, etc. Some anti-admirable traits can override admirable ones: being unnecessarily mean, unethical, etc.)
That I perceive an emotional connection with her. (This can be one-sided, of course. I think the best operationalization of this is “that my brain finds it plausible that she and I will do things that make each other happy”.)
That I spend time with her or thinking about her.
My basic observation/theory is that, if the first two factors are present, then “thinking about nice situations involving her” is pleasant and rewarding. That tends to make me like her more, which makes imagined situations even more pleasant, and so on. During middle school, I had lots of time in class with nothing else interesting to do, and I developed some very intense crushes through this process; thinking about them may be considered a form of wireheading. I can confirm the process still works today, although I don’t deliberately do it very often—but one regular use case is situations, like sitting on an airplane, when I don’t feel like reading but also can’t sleep or do much else.
In the fantasies, I often imagined that she liked me back; when I emerged into reality, I knew that wasn’t necessarily the case. (Usually at some point I would tell her I liked her, or ask her about a date; generally she would say she thought I was a fine person but didn’t like me that way; and I would accept that, not mention the subject further (at least for six months or whatever seemed reasonable at that age), and happily resume fantasizing about how it would be if she did like me—or think about another girl.) I think I did ok maintaining basic sanity and safety in that respect.
In the absence of some standardized “rationality test”, I would have to choose things from my life to present, but you’d have to take my word that I was neither cherry-picking nor misinterpreting things in my favor, which is essentially assuming the conclusion; I don’t think it would likely provide net evidence in favor of my rationality unless I had some obviously, objectively, extremely impressive anecdote, and that doesn’t come to mind.
I at one point delighted in romantic pleasure when someone I loved was touching me, while I was talking through an example of Huffman coding, which involved adding and multiplying some fractions; and I was able to notice and correct an arithmetic error in the moment (this was all mental math, no paper), in between mentioning how lovely it felt. That said, math skills are only a small part of rationality skills.
Consider something like meditation or some kind of emotional processing work? I think doing math all day sure makes it less likely you’ll get a date, but it doesn’t have to mean you like people less or anything.
I also wonder if rationality messes up your limerence. Certainly, I find that a daily attempt to try and think more rationally has had a small-moderate effect on my emotional range and registration.
I don’t know how to self-evaluate my rationality, at least not in a publicly defensible way[1], or for that matter compare the intensity of my romantic feelings to those of others… but for whatever my word is worth, I think it’s quite possible to have both. Maybe not in the same moment, but I think it’s possible to switch back and forth rapidly enough that it works fine.[2]
The things that lead to intense romantic feelings for someone, in my experience, come from having all 3 of the following factors:
That I find her admirable. (Admirable traits that come to mind: intelligence, beauty, kindness, competence, etc. Some anti-admirable traits can override admirable ones: being unnecessarily mean, unethical, etc.)
That I perceive an emotional connection with her. (This can be one-sided, of course. I think the best operationalization of this is “that my brain finds it plausible that she and I will do things that make each other happy”.)
That I spend time with her or thinking about her.
My basic observation/theory is that, if the first two factors are present, then “thinking about nice situations involving her” is pleasant and rewarding. That tends to make me like her more, which makes imagined situations even more pleasant, and so on. During middle school, I had lots of time in class with nothing else interesting to do, and I developed some very intense crushes through this process; thinking about them may be considered a form of wireheading. I can confirm the process still works today, although I don’t deliberately do it very often—but one regular use case is situations, like sitting on an airplane, when I don’t feel like reading but also can’t sleep or do much else.
In the fantasies, I often imagined that she liked me back; when I emerged into reality, I knew that wasn’t necessarily the case. (Usually at some point I would tell her I liked her, or ask her about a date; generally she would say she thought I was a fine person but didn’t like me that way; and I would accept that, not mention the subject further (at least for six months or whatever seemed reasonable at that age), and happily resume fantasizing about how it would be if she did like me—or think about another girl.) I think I did ok maintaining basic sanity and safety in that respect.
In the absence of some standardized “rationality test”, I would have to choose things from my life to present, but you’d have to take my word that I was neither cherry-picking nor misinterpreting things in my favor, which is essentially assuming the conclusion; I don’t think it would likely provide net evidence in favor of my rationality unless I had some obviously, objectively, extremely impressive anecdote, and that doesn’t come to mind.
I at one point delighted in romantic pleasure when someone I loved was touching me, while I was talking through an example of Huffman coding, which involved adding and multiplying some fractions; and I was able to notice and correct an arithmetic error in the moment (this was all mental math, no paper), in between mentioning how lovely it felt. That said, math skills are only a small part of rationality skills.
Consider something like meditation or some kind of emotional processing work? I think doing math all day sure makes it less likely you’ll get a date, but it doesn’t have to mean you like people less or anything.
Do your rationality out in a park or something!