When Longing Becomes Your Lover - by Amanda McCracken (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

What does it look like to be hopelessly, serially, persistently, and stubbornly in love not with someone, but with longing itself?

Journalist and late-in-life virgin Amanda McCracken dated over 100 men before she realized she was addicted to longing, setting her on a 10-year journey to understand the fallacies behind her beliefs about love, sex and commitment. She invites you along for the sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, always insightful ride.

As Amanda endured one disappointment, letdown, and torpedoed fantasy after another, she began to understand that longing feels good. In fact, it can feel even better than actually being in love. Longing gives us a sense of control in our uncertain lives, and when we can always envision a more perfect relationship, we can ignore the very real problems that all relationships face. But longing can also become an addictive neurochemical boost that derails us from forming healthy, intimate relationships.

Amanda describes her early childhood hero fantasies and how they evolved in her tween and teen years into a commitment to the purity movement espoused at her church. As she grew into young womanhood, her obsession with an idealized version of love led her to become addicted to longing - constantly craving the ideal partner in the ideal location at the ideal time, reveling in the high of anticipating the sex she knew she wasn't going to have. It became a protective mechanism in a "sex positive" dating world that demands physical intimacy but admonishes emotional intimacy, where options seem plentiful but connections ambiguous.

In this searingly honest book, Amanda chronicles her many unrequited and unrealized romantic encounters and what she learned about a concept called "limerence" an obsessive rumination on a version of someone that doesn't truly exist. Amanda weaves together her personal journey with research, storytelling, soul-searching questions, and quotes from experts and nonexperts alike to reveal the addictive nature of longing while providing hope through her journey of overcoming it and ultimately choosing of the path towards healthy, authentic intimacy.

About the Author

Amanda McCracken is a journalist passionate about experiences that highlight the intersection of wellness, travel, and relationships. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Vogue, National Geographic, Elle, NPR, Outside, ESPN, SELF, Runner's World, and many others. She published her first article about longing in 2013, which led to additional articles featuring personal anecdotes and deep research and interviews with the BBC and Katie Couric. She is now considered a "limerence expert" and intimacy advocate. Her 2023 TED Talk, "How Longing Keeps Us From Healthy Relationships," highlights how longing can become selfsabotaging and shares how to change our patterns of longing. McCracken is also a part-time university instructor, massage therapist, triathlon coach, and competitive athlete. Raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, McCracken put down roots with her husband and daughter in Boulder, Colorado, after a trip around the world aboard the Peace Boat.