I think one key difference is what happens after the connection, especially when you’re apart from them.
When it’s limerence, the person tends to fade over time. Very similar to the difference with a false twin flame. You might obsess for weeks or months, but eventually someone new catches your attention and suddenly that ‘all-consuming’ feeling transfers to them instead. Like you needed to fill a void, and once you find a new distraction, the old one loses its power. It’s why a lot of people who get stuck in Limerance might wind up here, but they don’t actually do anything to develop themselves or further their journey, and they eventually just vanish when they get distracted by something else.
But with a real twin flame connection, something changes permanently inside you. Even when other people come into your life-people who might be more compatible or available… there’s this strange emptiness because they’re simply not them. You could meet someone objectively wonderful, and feel… nothing. That comparison never stops, which is frustrating but also one of the real confirmation signs.
Most tellingly, I think, is what the experience does to you. Limerence keeps you stuck in the same patterns. But a twin flame-even a painful separation-changes you in ways you never expected.