I dated 100 men but was STILL a virgin at 41. I thought I’d never find true love… then one word changed everything

Manuel invited me to visit him in San Francisco after we hit it off one weekend in Boulder during his visit to see a mutual friend.

He offered to buy my plane ticket. ‘You’ll pay me back, somehow,’ he chuckled on the phone. I declined.

This was my first red flag, but I focused on the green ones and bought the ticket.

Tired of online dating apps at 37, I convinced myself that this guy I’d met organically – a cute attentive smart athletic engineer – had potential for the lasting relationship I deeply desired.

However, not long after I arrived at his one-bedroom apartment, I found a long black hair wrapped around a used condom on the top of overflowing trashcan.

I have sandy blonde hair.

‘I know we aren’t exclusive yet, but did you consider taking the trash out to hide the evidence? Or did you want to make me feel like trash?’ I asked as I felt tiny tentacles of ick crawling up my back.

I left his apartment that night to crash at a friend’s place across town. As I was getting in the Uber, he said: ‘How can I pay you for your ticket?’

I responded: ‘Keep the money and get a maid.’

I was disappointed another ‘Mr Maybe’ had turned out to be another ‘Peter Pan’ but grateful I hadn’t had sex with him.

While I had been physically intimate with plenty of guys, I hadn’t had sexual intercourse with anyone. In a hookup culture where nothing felt sacred anymore, I had wanted to reserve something to matter (even if only to me).

Initially rooted in a church purity pledge I’d made in high school, the decision to wait to be in a committed and loving relationship to have sex became one I continually made date after date, decade after decade.

After 25 years of dating, there must have been 100 men – some went no further than a week-long exchange on an online dating app, some were exotic flings, some were ongoing ‘situationships’ that burrowed deep into my heart.

I found the nice guys who showed interest in me utterly boring and tried to prove my worth to the charming, enigmatic guys who left me longing.

What I didn’t realize along the way was how I was self-sabotaging myself from ever getting into that relationship I desired by continuing to hook up with and then long for physically and emotionally unavailable men who had ghosted me. It was a protective mechanism.

The summer before I turned into a 40-year-old virgin, I sat in my therapist’s office and cried after purging details of my latest mistake, this time a one-night stand with a charming mustachioed boat captain in the Caribbean.

Glenda, who I thought had surely tired of my tales, slowly looked up from her notes, and gently said: ‘Amanda, longing is your lover.’

I sat still and silent as one does when they’ve heard a hard truth that explains how they’ve navigated much of their life.

‘You’ve been experiencing limerence,’ Glenda added.

She was right. I was in love with falling in love, addicted to longing for a possibility. There I felt ‘safe’ from the vulnerability of real emotional intimacy and the potential for failure.

It wasn’t my lack of sexual experience keeping me from having a healthy relationship, it was my limerence.

You may have never heard the word. But you’ve read about limerence in literature like Wuthering Heights, watched it in movies like 500 Days of Summer, and listened to Taylor Swift sing about it in Enchanted.

Understanding limerence

As most journalists would do, I took a deep dive researching limerence, interviewing experts who were studying it, and talking with other individuals who found themselves in crush after intense crush.

In 1979, experimental psychologist Dorothy Tennov coined the term in her book Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love, based on a decade of research and several hundred case studies on romantic attachment.

Limerence produces the same euphoric feelings experienced in the first stages of love. However, people experiencing it also report anxiety (misinterpreted as excitement) when uncertain as to whether the limerent object (LO) returns their interest.

In fact, it’s the blend of hope and uncertainty that keeps limerence alive (that’s why so few people disclose their crush). Someone experiencing limerence is constantly looking for signs of interest from the LO and deeply fears rejection.

Ultimately, psychologists who study limerence told me it isn’t about sex. It stems from a desire to be seen and cared for.

Some even argue it should be in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, alongside conditions such as depression, anxiety and schizophrenia. 

Others say it’s so common that most people experience it at some point in their life.

When neuroscientist Tom Bellamy randomly surveyed over 1,500 respondents on his Love and Limerence blog, he found that over 60 percent had experienced limerence. Of those people, 50 percent said they’d had it so bad it had disrupted their lives

There was statistically no difference between men and women.

Changing My Patterns

In Tennov’s research, she noted that individuals described ‘an aching of the heart when certainty is strong.’

However, neuroscientists I spoke with see limerence as part of the trigger–behavior–reward pattern in the brain. If the trigger is a song that reminds you of your LO, the behavior is envisioning a reunion with your LO. Then dopamine is released as the ‘reward’ by simply anticipating the LO reciprocating attention (not actually getting it).

And for an ADHD mind such as mine, that struggles with dopamine regulation, intense crushing was a well-worn stimulating route – thus a hard-to-break habit.

First, I had to catch myself in rumination and identify it as limerence.

Then, in order to disrupt the pattern, I had to notice and remove the triggers – the smells of an LOs shirt left behind, the temptation to revisit the LOs social media feed, the songs I’d deemed anthems for our potential relationship.

With fewer triggers, it was easier to distract my brain with purposes that were more fulfilling than ruminating about someone who left me breadcrumbs.

For some individuals I interviewed, they repurposed energy by investing in a friendship, exploring a new hobby, or planning a trip. I began pouring more of my time and energy into researching and writing what (several years later) became my book, When Longing Becomes Your Lover.

One of the most impactful tasks my therapist gave me was to begin writing a mantra in my prayer journal every night: I am ready for and worthy of a deeply loving and intimate relationship.

Did I believe it? Of course not! But it took writing it down (and occasionally saying it out loud) night after night for about six months, before something shifted in my life.

She also had me describe specific encounters with idealized LOs that had left me feeling like an afterthought, at best. By recognizing their flaws, I could mentally release them from the imaginary pedestal on which I’d placed them.

Psychologists I interviewed call this cognitive reappraisal. I call it writing the truth.

Almost two years after I’d started working with Glenda, my nervous system, my mind, and my heart were ready to receive love from someone who was emotionally and physically available.

I was tired of chasing avoidant men who’d charmed the pants off me, of guessing his level of interest and availability, of imagining love.

So, in the summer before I turned 41, I didn’t run when I met the long-haired drummer from Long Island who showed genuine interest and took me out on a proper date with no strings attached.

Being with this nice guy felt easy, not boring. And when he sent me flowers in the shape of my dog with a note that said: ‘You have me for the long haul,’ only one month into dating, I didn’t bolt or feel smothered. Unlike my past dating experiences, it felt liberating to know how someone actually felt about me.

Finally, I believed I was ready for and worthy of a deeply loving and intimate relationship.

About 11 months after meeting, I lost my virginity to this trail-running, Rush-loving Yankee fan (who would, three months later, become my husband) in a thatched bungalow on the island of Huahine, in French Polynesia. It was perfectly imperfect.

Parts of this story appear in health journalist Amanda McCracken‘s memoir When Longing Becomes Your Lover: Breaking from Infatuation, Rejection, and Perfectionism to Find Authentic Love: A True Story of Overcoming Limerence, published by Worthy Books, an imprint of Hachette.