Limerence, JFK Jr & Carolyn Bessette

Limerence is a state of mind which results from a romantic attraction to another person and typically includes obsessive thoughts and fantasies and a desire to have one's feelings reciprocated. The concept of limerence "provides a particular carving up of the semantic domain of love", and represents an attempt at a scientific study of the nature of love. Limerence is considered as a cognitive and emotional state of being emotionally attached to or even obsessed with another person, and is characterized by a strong desire for reciprocation of one's feelings—a near-obsessive form of romantic love. For Dorothy Tennov, "sexual attraction is an essential component of limerence... the limerent is a potential sex partner". Willmott and Bentley define limerence as an acute, unexpected, obsessive attachment to one person. Limerence is characterised by internal experiences such as ruminative thinking, anxiety, fixation, and the disintegration of the self, and found in their case studies that these themes find relation to unresolved past life experiences and attempts at self-actualization. Limerence is sometimes also interpreted as infatuation, or what is colloquially known as a "crush". Tennov notes how "limerent bonds are characterized by 'entropy' crystallization as described by Stendhal in his treatise On Love, where a new love infatuation perceptually begins to transform and attractive characteristics are exaggerated and unattractive characteristics are given little or no attention". Limerence is characterized by intrusive thinking and pronounced sensitivity to external events. It can be experienced as intense joy or as extreme despair, depending on whether the feelings are reciprocated. Limerence can be difficult to understand for those who have never experienced it, and it is thus often dismissed as a construct of romantic fiction. Source: www.amazon.com

John F. Kennedy Jr.’s last days prior to his final flight were fraught with difficulty. His most pressing dilemma was the financial future of George, the political magazine he had cofounded with Michael Berman in September 1995. After a promising beginning, based primarily on JFK Jr.’s undeniable charisma, the periodical suffered considerable setbacks both in circulation and advertising revenues. Since its inception, it had gone some $30 million in the red and was losing more than $1 million per month in April-June 1999. Hachette Filipacchi, the French media consortium, had begun to lose faith in George’s ability to survive. Starting in early June 1999, Jack Kliger, Hachette’s newly appointed CEO, successor to David Pecker, had been conducting weekly meetings with John to determine George’s future.

John had collaborated with the Robin Hood Foundation since 1991, a fund-raising organization that sponsored projects in low-income New York neighborhoods. Before founding George, John Jr. had worked in the DA office in New York. One night, after winning a case, he went to dinner with Oleg Cassini, Jackie’s White House fashion designer. “I had a great deal of admiration for John,” said Cassini. “Even people who disliked the Kennedys liked John. He talked about his work in the DA’s office. What he enjoyed most about it was the marvelous assembly of characters he encountered—The interplay of conversations he heard reminded him of the theater. ‘Everyone in the office is overwhelmed,’ he complained. ‘A sense of humor is the only way you can survive.’”

Cassini asked John if he had ever wondered about his father’s assassination. “I asked him if he thought there had been a conspiracy. ‘Based on the books I’ve read,’ he responded, ‘I think it’s more than likely that Oswald was not the guilty party. But my family is extremely self-protective. There are certain details they probably don’t want to know. The same applies to my uncle Bobby’s assassination.’” In the early fall of 1990, while shooting in Belem (Brazil) At Play in the Fields of the Lord, Daryl Hannah fell ill with a mysterious virus. She was taken to a nearby medical clinic, where she spent the next week recuperating from a dangerously high fever. When he heard about her misfortune, John—a true romantic—ordered dozens and dozens of long-stemmed red roses to be delivered to her bedside at the clinic. Jack Donahue, a New York City cabdriver, never forgot the time he drove the couple from TriBeCa to Grand Central. “They were both dressed in grungy clothing topped by baseball caps,” he said. “They looked like they were on food stamps. They argued the entire trip. It had something to do with Daryl not wanting to accompany John to a political fund-raiser of some sort. By the time we reached Grand Central, he felt lousy about it and he gave me a big tip.”

“Jackie didn’t like Hollywood actresses,” said George Plimpton. “It may have had something to do with Jack Kennedy’s lifelong attraction to film stars. I remember Jackie calling me one day and saying, ‘Did you see that photograph of Daryl Hannah in The New York Times?’ They’d run an advertisement for some film she’d just made, and Daryl appeared in the ad attired in a rather suggestive outfit.' I tried to explain to Jackie that Daryl was simply playing a role—it had nothing to do with her true persona. ‘Oh, really?’ said Jackie. ‘Well, while she’s seeing John here in New York, she’s still living with that rocker in California.’” Richard Wiese (a friend from Brown University): “I introduced John to a Sports Illustrated model named Ashley Richardson. She looked a bit like Daryl Hannah: tall, pretty, and blonde. They dated for a while. It was clear by then that John and Daryl weren’t going to make it.” As early as the fall of 1989, it must have become clear to him that his relationship with Daryl, as much as he cared for her, would not evolve into a permanent situation. Although he still considered her his “full-time” girlfriend, he was spotted dating actress Molly Ringwald, John Hughes' muse. John Jr. had a crush on her after watching The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink, although they seemed to connect mostly on a friendly level.  

“John and his mother had their differences, particularly in the summer of 1993 when he stepped down from his position with the DA’s office. She was disappointed,” George Plimpton remembers. “She’d just seen a picture of John and Daryl Hannah in one of the tabloids down the street together. He had on a baseball cap turned backward. ‘You look like an overgrown frat boy,’ she told him, ‘and Daryl looks like an unmade bed.’ John walked out on his mother and slammed the door in her face.” Richard Wiese, who happened to be with him at the time, recalled that they’d been talking about Marilyn Monroe. “John had just seen Some Like It Hot, starring Marilyn, and he was extolling her beauty and sexiness. He said something like, ‘She’s some kind of babe,’ although he refused to admit his father had an affair with Marilyn."

 “John was a regular guy,” said Jason Sachs, a TriBeCa picture framer who first encountered John at the Square Diner on Leonard Street. “The first time we met he was eating breakfast and reading the New York Post. We began talking about the New York Yankees. He was an easy conversationalist. We remained friendly. It didn’t matter who you were—he was always cordial. He’d stop you on the street and ask how you were doing. I had a dog, a mixed breed, and he loved to play with it. I once bumped into him in a local hardware store. He’d bought a sponge mop and a broom, and he’d taken out his credit card to pay. The store clerk looked at the card and then looked at JFK Jr. ‘Aren’t you the son of President Kennedy?’ he inquired. John hesitated a moment, then smiled. ‘Guilty as charged,’ he retorted. It was a cute response, particularly as he’d worked in the DA’s office.”

During the late summer of 1993, JFK Jr. first met his future wife, Carolyn Bessette. She was working in the NY public relations department at Calvin Klein after having been recruited by Susan Sokol, a Calvin Klein executive. John phoned Carolyn to ask her for a date. They went out a few times before John invited her to spend a weekend at Sea Song, a Long Island beach house. “John and Carolyn were very much in love,” remarked George Plimpton. “Still, as with most marriages, they had their issues. Their fundamental point of difference involved children. Carolyn didn’t want to raise a family in New York, but she also didn’t want to move permanently to Red Gate Farm. Jackie’s house was too large and impersonal. Consequently, she and John spent nearly every weekend that summer on Cape Cod looking at prospective properties.” Chris Hudson, a friend of Boston University, remembered Carolyn regaling him with drawn-out tales of her “low-end, trailer trash Staten Island relatives. Concomitantly, Carolyn had this almost aristocratic quality to her. It was the combination of these contrasts that made her so special.” Playboy purportedly offered Carolyn (when she became Mrs. John F. Kennedy Jr.) $1 million to pose semi-nude; unlike Daryl Hannah, she turned the proposal. 

Publicist R. Couri Hay: “Carolyn Bessette brought a sense of drama to their relationship,” said Hay. “John loved drama. He was like a Greek mythological hero whose life consisted of euphoric highs and tragic lows. John was headed for the public arena—the Senate and then the presidency. Carolyn had a near breakdown just living in TriBeCa. How could she have handled being a politician’s wife, or residing in the White House? She was attractive and chic, but also strange and erratic.” Chris Overbeck presented a balanced appraisal of John and Carolyn’s relationship. An investment banker, John’s friend from Brown had married and moved to Greenwich, Carolyn’s hometown. According to Overbeck, John “was engaged by intelligence and mystery in a woman, rather than pure good looks. Interesting and complex women intrigued him. Carolyn was both very complex and attractive. She had a fierce side, yet she was feminine. John was very masculine. He liked to take charge, although he was sweet and affectionate.”

“John told me: ‘Carolyn’s my absolute best friend in the world. I’ve never had a better relationship with anybody. That stuff in the press is total bullshit.’ I’ll never forget that he said ‘absolute best friend in the world.’ I asked him again, ‘So it’s all bullshit?’ And John replied, ‘I’d tell you if it weren’t. I trust you.’ He admitted that she was difficult. She was demanding. But that only kept him on his toes.” Richard Wiese frequently played quarterback with John. “After the games, we’d go to this low-key coffee shop on Madison Avenue, and we’d order burgers and milk shakes. We’d sit around and chat, usually about ten of us. It was like being back in college. One thing that struck me about John was that he never spoke ill of anyone, ever. In many respects, he was naive.” JFK Jr.’s acquaintance Richard duPont recalled bumping into John at a TriBeCa bistro called Walker’s. “John began questioning me about how I’d recovered from my alcohol and cocaine addiction,” said duPont. “He wanted to know about certain rehab clinics, such as Sierra Tucson and the Betty Ford Center. How did it work? What did they do? I didn’t attach much importance to the conversation at the time, but afterward it occurred to me he might have been making inquiries because of Carolyn, although he never mentioned her.”

Condé Nast CEO Steve Florio: “I knew Carolyn from when she worked for Calvin Klein, and I always liked her. She was a riot and John adored her. Did they bicker from time to time? Well, I’ve been bickering with my wife for forty years but I’d be finished without her. I know John felt the same way about his.” Once John led Florio into his library and took out a family photo album. “My God,” said Florio. “Every once in a while I have to remind myself that you’re the son of an American president. My grandfather came to this country with five bucks in his pocket and a bag of carpentry tools.” With a big smile, John Jr. said, “That’s why you’re the CEO of a major company now. It’s because your grandfather got on a boat and said, ‘I’m going to find a better place.'”

Sasha Chermayeff (John's friend from Phillips Academy in Andover, MA): "John was seriously committed to the fact that he had fallen madly in love with Carolyn." John Perry Barlow (mentor of Aaron Swartz and JFK Jr): "John loved Carolyn desperately. He really worshipped the ground she walked on." Suzanne Ruddick, a friend of Carolyn’s from Greenwich, visited the couple in New York in early October 1997. “Carolyn and I went shopping in the Prada department at Barneys, and she bought a black gabardine jacket,” remarked Ruddick. “She said John was very generous and supportive. He didn’t mind being written up in the gossip columns, but it irked him when they picked on her. ‘John’s nicer than I am,’ Carolyn said. I discerned absolutely no friction or tension between them. Quite the opposite, whenever I looked, they were either nuzzling or kissing. One evening he gave her a deep blue cashmere sweater as a present with a note that read, ‘To match those matchless eyes.’ —The Day John Died (2007) by Christopher Andersen