Am I actually in love or do I just want to be?

[firecashew]

I (F22) have a friend (F22) who feel in love with me a few years ago. I turned her down and we stayed friends but I felt like her feelings didn't quite go away. We've grown a bit closer during the last few months and I think that I've developed romantic and sexual attraction to her. The problem is that I have a history of tricking myself into thinking that I'm interested in people (often friends) when I'm not. This has in the worst case gone on for years before I actually realized that I made the whole thing up. I have this fantasy of romance that I've never been able to fully give up. When I was younger I tried to trick myself into liking men which did not work. I've never had a relationship before. I'm somewhere on both the aro and ace spectrum but not sure where.

 

I feel like I could have a good relationship with her. I want to be with her and cuddle and kiss and be partners. But I've felt all of those things before and been wrong. I don't want to use her as an experiment. I already feel bad for sending her mixed signals.  But what if it's real and I just throw it away? Maybe I'm just scared of having a relationship with a woman and that's what's holding me back? How do I tell the difference?

[Milque Toast]

I think the main thing that could help is telling her! If she's aware that you're not entirely sure of your feelings yet, she won't feel as let down if you decide not to do certain things with her. 

[firecashew]

9 minutes ago, Milque Toast said:

I think the main thing that could help is telling her! If she's aware that you're not entirely sure of your feelings yet, she won't feel as let down if you decide not to do certain things with her. 

thank you for your advice and reply, that's a good idea

[Ceebs]

In other situations in the past, what clued you into the fact that you didn't actually have romantic/sexual feelings for the people you thought you did? How did that realisation come about?

[MrDane]

@firecashew Yup, you have had a lot of mixed feelings. She is only going to be an object for your experiment, if you dont share your feelings. If you share, then she can choose to participate in your mutual experiment (aka relationship)

[SnowTurtle]

On 9/16/2022 at 1:28 PM, firecashew said:

I (F22) have a friend (F22) who feel in love with me a few years ago. I turned her down and we stayed friends but I felt like her feelings didn't quite go away. We've grown a bit closer during the last few months and I think that I've developed romantic and sexual attraction to her. The problem is that I have a history of tricking myself into thinking that I'm interested in people (often friends) when I'm not. This has in the worst case gone on for years before I actually realized that I made the whole thing up. I have this fantasy of romance that I've never been able to fully give up. When I was younger I tried to trick myself into liking men which did not work. I've never had a relationship before. I'm somewhere on both the aro and ace spectrum but not sure where.

 

I feel like I could have a good relationship with her. I want to be with her and cuddle and kiss and be partners. But I've felt all of those things before and been wrong. I don't want to use her as an experiment. I already feel bad for sending her mixed signals.  But what if it's real and I just throw it away? Maybe I'm just scared of having a relationship with a woman and that's what's holding me back? How do I tell the difference?

I'm in my 20s and I can relate to thinking I have a crush on a friend. I love the idea of romance and ended up thinking I had a crush on my closest friend since I was really comfortable around her and liked getting hugs from her when I'm not that big into physical touch in general. As other people said, the best thing would be to tell her. I confessed to my best friend and talking it out with her really helped me sort out my feelings. After talking to her and reflecting a lot, I realized that I didn't have a crush on her because I realized that I just really wanted a relationship and it's just that she would be the person I would be comfortable with the most.

 

A couple of months later, I developed a real crush and learned about the difference between romantic and platonic feelings (at least for me) for the first time. It's different for everybody, but my mind strays to that person a lot. I want to spend a lot of time with and always want to talk to them. Even receiving a text or a simple hi makes my whole day. I hope this doesn't sound creepy XD but I did dream about them before. This only confirmed my asexuality even more though. I dreamt about hanging out and having a lot of fun with them. I think about spending time with them a lot, so it's not surprising to me that that showed up in my dream. I don't know if this will help but this is how I distinguish between romantic and platonic feelings.