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Difference between romantic and platonic relationships


Wilhelmina

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I have only recently realised that I am probably asexual. I'm really struggling to understand the difference between romantic and platonic love. Please help! I've been brought up to believe that sex is what makes a relationship romantic, but being asexual is in direct conflict with that. I am not aromatic. I still want physical touch and intimacy, just not the sexual kind. 

 

But what are the differences in feelings between romantic and platonic love? Can anyone share any examples? 

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Galactic Turtle

If you take the sex scene out of a romance movie, is it friendship? 

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Alawyn-Aebt
15 minutes ago, Wilhelmina said:

But what are the differences in feelings between romantic and platonic love? Can anyone share any examples? 

It really varies among people so you will get lots of probably-contradictory examples. Also, as a caveat, love is ultimately all the same: it is all about caring. Love is caring and caring is love. Just beware of excessive categorization of love because it really does not always box well. Oftentimes romance is also platonic, just ask any old couple who have been married for a while and many will say they are not only partners but also friends.

 

For me there is an emotional closeness in romantic love and a desire to know someone to an extent that doesn't exist with friendship for me. Friendship is someone to joke with or discuss mutually-interesting things with or play a board game with, but not someone I would want to hug or really care about hearing all their problems (yeah, I am a bad friend). There is a limit to how much I care about a friend, whereas that limit is much higher or near-infinite for romance (part of this might be my near-complete lack of friends for the past decade though). Romantic attraction builds on that baseline of joke, talk, entertain, but also includes close emotional connections. This doesn't work for everyone but I ask myself, "would I want to hug that person?" If the answer is yes then it is probably romantic, if no then it is probably platonic. It is convenient when your sensual attraction lines up strictly with your romantic attraction.

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Velvet Eden

just remember that romantic attraction and sexual attraction are two completely separate things. 

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I don 't know what true love is yet , but I think when you look at a person and you can 't look away and you think it would be great to spend the rest of your life together, it's clearly not just friendship. I have a friend who is difficult to be friends with , but when she smiles at me, everything inside shrinks from tenderness.

I'm sorry if you can't make out what I wrote. I do not understand English at all, since it is not my native language.

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HonoraryJedi
1 hour ago, Sora Lawlight said:

just remember that romantic attraction and sexual attraction are two completely separate things. 

That sounds really simple but gets more complicated if you don't know what any of those things mean. Which is where I were at when I questioned my orientation. The separation between romantic feelings, platonic feelings and sexual feelings might be very obvious for some, but to me, it never really was. 

 

I have heard the difference between romantic and platonic relationships described different ways. For example, I have read people on this very forum say that it is very obvious. When you're in love you know. The feeling does not compare to anything else. But I have also heard other versions. My mother has a different view, saying that affection feels like affection, and that aside from the sexual feelings, the only other way romantic feelings differ from other forms of affection is just some increased intensity.

 

I think the bottom line is, it varies.

 

2 hours ago, Alawyn-Aebt said:

It is convenient when your sensual attraction lines up strictly with your romantic attraction.

I suppose that's how most sexuals would feel about sexual and romantic attraction, but I'd probably need some actual sexuals to verify that for me.

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3 hours ago, Galactic Turtle said:

If you take the sex scene out of a romance movie, is it friendship? 

This concise and accurate answer made my day. Thank you!

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Closeness and caring are two aspects that are huge giveaways for me. Do I want to be around said person in any kind of situation? Do I want to be allowed to be there for them when they need help? Do I want them to be the one around when I'm not well myself? Do I care about every aspect of their life? Is it just about the fun part or would I be willing to share more with them, all the ups and downs?

Also, as someone mentioned, physical contact. What does touching them feel like? Being touched by them? Is there any difference to what it feels like to be touched by a(nother) friend? Am I more timid around them when it comes to touch? Dead giveaway right there.

 

That's how it is for me, anyway.

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anisotrophic

To me, romantic love is characterized by the obsessive/intrusive thoughts that occur at the outset of a relationship – "passion" or "limerence".

This generally subsides over time, e.g. after a couple years, and in good relationships becomes replaced with philia/friendship/familial love. Many people that study & discuss this conclude that in the long term, partnerships do look very much like "very good friends".

Some theories of love:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_wheel_theory_of_love

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_theory_of_love

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Wow. Thank you all so much for your responses! This has been really helpful to me and I definitely need to ponder on it, and work out what the differences are for me personally. But this has been incredibly useful and I thank you all! 

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On 3/7/2020 at 1:40 AM, Wilhelmina said:

But what are the differences in feelings between romantic and platonic love? Can anyone share any examples? 

I recently listened to a podcast episode from "Sounds Fake but Okay" where they tried to figure out this exact thing. They came up with this.

 

If the person you have feelings for gets into a relationship and you're jealous, sad, or whatever, it's probably romantic love. Even if you say out loud that you're happy for them, secretly you might wish your person spent more time with you.

 

If the person gets into a relationship and you're genuinely happy for them or want to support the relationship, it's probably platonic love.

 

I just want to make it known that this isn't proven or anything, just the musings of two aspec people.

 

The difference between romantic love and platonic love is hard to discern. The most common answer I've gotten from people is "you just know". I asked my best friend to explain love to me once and they said "Whenever you think about them you get butterflies in your stomach. You can imagine a life with this person." They said they often thought about marrying their girlfriend. Although I've never experienced romantic love, I can give you an example of platonic love. I have this best friend that I've known for a year or so now. I gush about him to everyone I meet. I think about him often and whenever I find something I think he would like, I take a photo of it and send it to him. I tell him I love him all the time and when he said it back (he doesn't often say it), I cried. 

 

Dunno if that helps but I hope it does!

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  • 4 weeks later...

As a heteromantic ace currently in a romantic relationship, I guess I can share my opinion. I'll use my boyfriend and my female best friend as examples to demonstrate the difference between platonic and romantic feelings.

1) I'm jealous if my boyfriend chats with other girls but not jealous if my female best friend makes good friends with other ppl;

2) I want to have a family with my boyfriend and raise a (adopted) child together, but don't want to do these things with a platonic friend;
3) Romantic feelings make me want more hand-holding/ hugging etc than platonic feelings;
Don't know if this makes sense/applies to other people, just my personal experience :)

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AspieAlly613
On 3/6/2020 at 11:40 AM, Wilhelmina said:

I've been brought up to believe that sex is what makes a relationship romantic,

I still can't believe that people are brought up that way, because it's the opposite of how I was brought up.  ("Don't make the mistake of confusing 'that person's hot' with being in love.")  

 

My parents only taught me that it feels different, but didn't present a definition.  The definition I use is "interested in sharing your life with".

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  • 2 weeks later...

This is a question I've thought a lot about -- but as far as I can tell there isn't a universal, necessary, and sufficient factor/characteristic to delineate romantic attraction from platonic attraction. Many things can be ascribed to either (emotional or physical closeness, intensity of feeling, exclusiveness of relationship) but there doesn't seem to be a perfect combination to explain the difference that would be true for every person. It's not a very satisfying answer, but I've grown content that when you think what you're feeling is romantic and not platonic and it feels right to you -- then you can probably just call it romantic attraction and be done with it.  There's a pretty good dedicated thread to this subject that comes to a similar conclusion -- it might be helpful to read that discourse. What is Romantic Attraction?

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On 3/6/2020 at 1:01 PM, Sora Lawlight said:

just remember that romantic attraction and sexual attraction are two completely separate things. 

I think the difficulty lies in that romantic and platonic attraction can't be so easily demarcated. If you don't experience sexual attraction but are feeling romantic attraction, it's easy enough to say that sexual attraction isn't necessary for romance. But when you have feelings for someone it can be hard to suss out if it's friendship or something more when so many qualities of romantic and platonic attraction seem to overlap. It might just be that it's a different internal affect - it just *feels* different, even if all it's constituent parts could just as easily be ascribed to a platonic friendship. But if it's just a feeling that you can't fully describe, it's hard to know what romantic attraction actually is. 

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