Mutual limerence but mirroring disinterest?

Is anyone else in this situation?

I have had MANY LOs in my lifetime, back all the way to childhood. Some were celebrities, some were people I knew irl and knew were not my type or not even nice people, and others were great and the relationships grew into mutual limerence and full, loving partnerships. For all of these reasons, not to mention my very logical and pragmatic nature, I feel like I can "see" my LOs clearly and see myself clearly.

I see some red flags with my current LO, but he also is completely my type. It does not surprise me that I was drawn to him. Neither of us is available though.

I can tell you the exact moment that we set off on this path of mutual limerence, although I did not know it at the time. We were in a large group setting and leaving an event. We both got up to quietly leave a few minutes early. I looked at him as he gathered his stuff--no idea why. I don't usually stare at people. It seemed like he had lost something. He looked at me looking at him. I was curious what he had lost, and he seemed curious as to why I was curious. We locked eyes but didn't really look away for several seconds. And that was it; we got our stuff and left.

But mutual limerence SEEMED to kick in for us both.

I started stumbling over him at the gym. He seemed to be near me, in front of me, opening the door for me, or parking next to me every day. I suddenly felt like a magnet.

What did I do? How did I react?

I ran away. I felt very watched, very self-conscious. I wanted to talk to him, but I acted almost the opposite of that. I started getting very nervous around him. One day he was joking around with another woman, and I could see the attraction. Eek! I got SO jealous. So what did I do? Ran even farther away. We are at the gym together for an hour each day, so I would not go anywhere he was. I was being very obvious with my new habits, or so I thought.

What did he do? Mirrored my detachment (or so it seemed). He started coming a full hour later to avoid me! I thought, "So weird. I am important enough to AVOID?" I did not know what to think of it. I wanted him to chase me. Lol. Soothe my insecurities. But he seemed to give in to his own instead! Ugh.

Tenov's book says that this is actually a quite common thing, that mutually limerent people can keep misinterpreting and running away, losing out on the chance for something more stable. She says, "unfortunately, the supersensitivity that is heightened by fear of rejection can get in the way of interpreting LO's body language and lead to inaction and wasted "opportunities," such as the mutual, but secret attractions of Joan and Ted during high school." She also says, "What is important here is that the uncertainty required by the limerent reaction may often be merely a matter of perception-either of one's own inadequacies or of a lack of response in LO. In the case of Ted and Joan there were no external obstacles to their relationship, and the perception of each of them that the other was not interested was not accurate. On the other hand, their inaccurate perceptions probably increased their limerent reaction to each other."

This is what I believe is happening with my LO and I right now. Anyone else?

My bigger question: what signs are you seeing that suggest you are possibly mutually limerent but misreading each other and pulling away?

I feel incapable of "sticking around" when my feelings are hurt for even the tiniest of reasons. Everything in my body wants to get away. But why??? And honestly, anytime I do anything that even COULD be misinterpreted as my pulling back from him, he then seems to do the same thing! It must be common. But why? Why do we have such a strong need to avoid any and all emotional risk???