Besottedness
Being foolishly, dizzyingly smitten.
Besottedness is being foolishly, dizzyingly smitten. The chest is full and the mind returns repeatedly to the beloved. Clear thinking suffers because of how taken you are. The preoccupation is strong enough to affect ordinary functioning.
Be honest about what is happening to you
Besottedness is the part of new love that is genuinely embarrassing in retrospect. The grinning at your phone. The mentioning their name in unrelated conversations. The friends rolling their eyes. There is no point pretending you are above it. You are not. The body has decided this person is the most important person, and the body cannot be argued with. Enjoy it. It will not last in this form. Six months from now you will recover the ability to be a normal person who occasionally thinks about other things. Until then, do not make any irreversible decisions. The besotted brain is not the brain that should be signing leases. Wait. Float. Be foolish. The besotted brain is its own reward.
"I am about half in love with you. I shall be wholly so before the morning."
— Henry James
Besottedness has a distinctive body signature of dizzying intense infatuation. The chest is full with dizzying activation. The breath becomes lighter or more rapid. The face shows particular dreamy bright quality, often with sustained smile and brightened eyes when contemplating the beloved. The voice often takes on particular animated or distracted quality. The body holds itself in a way that suggests being preoccupied with the beloved: attention repeatedly returns to thinking of them, gestures may become more animated when discussing them, energy organises around contact with them. The state is typically intense at early stages and may subside or transform as relationships develop.
Besottedness overlaps substantially with what research on romantic love has examined as passionate love, with various studies including Helen Fisher's research on the biological basis of romantic attraction examining the brain systems and behavioural patterns involved. Research has shown that intense romantic infatuation involves specific neurobiological patterns including dopamine system activation similar to other reward-driven states. The capacity for besottedness appears widely shared though substantial individual and contextual variation exists in how readily it develops and is sustained.
Besottedness arises through specific conditions involving intense romantic attraction. Common patterns include:
Besottedness benefits from being engaged with thoughtfully rather than acted on without consideration. The following help.
Recognise impaired judgement during besottedness
Besottedness often involves impaired judgement about the beloved including idealisation that does not match reality. Recognising that judgement is impaired during besottedness supports making major decisions with appropriate caution. Decisions made during intense besottedness often warrant being revisited when intensity has reduced.
Allow the experience while engaging with reality
Besottedness can be deeply pleasurable when not allowed to produce damage. Allowing the experience while continuing to engage with reality of the beloved and the relationship supports both the pleasure of besottedness and broader functioning. The combination is workable when attempted.
Recognise normal trajectory
Besottedness typically diminishes over time as relationships develop into more sustained forms. Recognising this normal trajectory supports better engagement than treating diminishment as failure of relationship. Sustained love often differs substantially from initial besottedness; both have their place.
Maintain engagement with broader life
Sustained besottedness can produce neglect of broader life including work, friendships, and other relationships. Maintaining engagement with broader life during besottedness supports better outcomes than allowing besottedness to overtake all engagement. The broader life often supports the relationship rather than competing with it.
If besottedness has produced significant difficulty
Some patterns of besottedness produce significant difficulty when they cross into limerence with intrusive thinking that impairs functioning, when they reflect particular attachment patterns that produce sustained difficulty in relationships, or when they sustain past the point where the relationship can support them. Working with these patterns when they produce difficulty, sometimes through therapy, supports better engagement with both intense love and broader functioning.
"Research on romantic love has examined passionate love and intense romantic infatuation as involving specific neurobiological patterns including dopamine system activation."
— A summary of research on romantic attraction
What is besottedness?
Besottedness is being foolishly, dizzyingly smitten. The body has been overtaken by intense romantic infatuation that exceeds rational engagement, with quality of being captivated by the beloved to point of impaired judgement and sustained preoccupation. The chest is full with dizzying activation. The mind returns repeatedly to the beloved. There is a quality of being unable to think clearly because of how taken you are, of operating from intense preoccupation with the beloved that affects ordinary functioning, of being captured by feeling that has overtaken sensible engagement. Besottedness specifically refers to the foolishly dizzyingly smitten form, often with quality of impaired judgement and sustained preoccupation.
Where do people feel besottedness in the body?
Besottedness has a distinctive signature of dizzying intense infatuation. The chest is full with dizzying activation. The breath becomes lighter or more rapid. The face shows particular dreamy bright quality, often with sustained smile and brightened eyes when contemplating the beloved. The voice often takes on particular animated or distracted quality. The body holds itself in a way that suggests being preoccupied with the beloved: attention repeatedly returns to thinking of them, gestures may become more animated when discussing them, energy organises around contact with them. The state is typically intense at early stages and may subside or transform as relationships develop.
How is besottedness different from love?
Love is the broader category that includes many forms with various qualities. Besottedness is the specific intense early form with impaired judgement quality. A person can love without besottedness (steady sustained love without the dizzying preoccupied quality). Sustained love often involves features that besottedness does not include including realistic engagement with the beloved, stability that does not depend on intense activation, and capacity to maintain broader life functioning. Besottedness typically diminishes over time as relationships develop into more sustained forms; this is normal trajectory rather than failure of relationship. Both intense early besottedness and sustained later love have their place; they represent different stages and qualities of romantic engagement rather than alternatives.
How long does besottedness usually last?
Besottedness typically diminishes over time as relationships develop. Research on romantic love has examined this trajectory; intense passionate love often gives way to companionate love that has different qualities. The specific duration varies substantially across relationships and individuals. Many people experience besottedness most intensely in early stages of relationships, with diminishment over months as the relationship develops into more sustained forms. Some besottedness can be reactivated periodically in established relationships through new experiences, time apart, or other conditions, but the sustained intense besottedness of early relationship typically does not persist indefinitely. The diminishment is not failure but normal development; sustained love that follows besottedness has its own substantial rewards even when it differs in quality from initial intense infatuation.
What should you do when you are besotted?
Several considerations help. Recognising impaired judgement during besottedness supports making major decisions with appropriate caution; decisions made during intense besottedness often warrant being revisited when intensity has reduced, since besottedness often involves idealisation that does not match reality. Allowing the experience while engaging with reality of the beloved and the relationship supports both pleasure and broader functioning. Recognising normal trajectory supports better engagement than treating diminishment as failure; besottedness typically diminishes over time as relationships develop into more sustained forms. Maintaining engagement with broader life including work, friendships, and other relationships supports better outcomes than allowing besottedness to overtake all engagement. When besottedness has produced significant difficulty through intrusive thinking that impairs functioning, sustained patterns from particular attachment styles, or other concerns, professional support is appropriate.
No source-level citations are stored for this entry yet. The dictionary draws on the broader literature in affective neuroscience, psychology and cross-cultural emotion research. See the About page for the project's wider references.
Besottedness sits in the love family as one of its most intense early forms. It overlaps with infatuation as the closely related term, with limerence as the clinical term, with passionate love when sustained romantic intensity is involved, with what attraction research has examined as involving specific neurobiological patterns, and with what cultural and literary traditions across regions have engaged with extensively through romantic narrative.
See where besottedness sits among the other 402 emotions.
Open Besottedness on the wheel