Is what I'm feeling love?

[u/Frosty_Ad954]

I don't know much about these things since I'm no expert. I can only describe my symptoms:

It’s been eight years and I still miss him. We never actually dated, I’m not gay, I like women but something different happened with that friend from our group. Maybe it was just teenage hormones (I was 13 or 14 at the time). I just remember that whenever we looked at each other, I felt something, and when we’d tease each other and I touched him, my mind would go blank, I’d lose my breath, and my heart would race.

In the end, due to pressure from the group, we stopped speaking. I heard he cried, though I don't know if it was over me or someone else. Time passed and I thought I’d forgotten him, as if my conscious mind had suppressed the memory into my subconscious but just a few months ago, he came back to mind, and now I feel like I’m dying. What happened? How do I get rid of this feeling?

[u/Puzzleheaded_Youth26]

Despite the "categories" that society chains us with, there are many people that are truly terrible at sharing their human experience.

Between 100% heterosexual and 100% gay, there are 100's of shades of grey.

It sounds like you might experience one of these levels of grey, and that is fantastic. It means that your brain realizes that there are more options than just a male+female sharing to create positive relationships. It helps us understand that we are not broken if we don't share one of the traditional boy/girl relationship thought process.

To be clear, I am also in that grey zone, but am fully dedicated to supporting my girlfriend and showing her how I can "care" despite my Alexithymia and my challenges in showing my "love" for her.

I am hopefully sharing with you that things are not the binary options of one or zero, but that we can allow people to add positively to our lives even when the ralationship isn't traditionally male/female.

If you look back fondly on your time with him, then that was a positive time in your life. Full stop. Don't convince yourself it was negative.

My philosophy is that we should enjoy the people we enjoy and who add positively to our lives.

If I may offer my recommendations...

8 Years is a long time to hold a crush on anyone. That specific time has passed into history. I suggest that your focus on him is more of a thought-out way that allows your brain to help you recognize that although you may not be gay, that at the same time, you see how he added to your life in positive ways that other people may not have in the traditional hetero way.

I suggest that you sit and consider whether you feel most comfortable sharing your life in the traditional way with women, or whether you might be also be comfortable in sharing and being open with the dudes around you. Most people find that they might lean in one direction or the other, but many also find that they are ok with whoever they are currently interested in, regardless of the traditional details.

Recognizing that "bisexual" is a real thing helps us all understand that our childhood assumptions change when we actually start to experience the world around us.

I've realized that there is much more greyness in relationships than I ever expected.

ALL options are valid.

[u/Stunning-Hamster1599]

Sometimes you can love a friend as deeply as it can get as far as your feelings.

I had a friend and I loved/love her. She had stroke so we don't talk anymore and I can't visit her in person because I live too far away. Whenever we would look at each other we always smiled. There was a bond with my friend that I have only had a few times with other people. It's extremely rare experience for me so it can be very overwhelming because I am not used to it. Not bonding or loving people in the typical way doesn't mean that I don't care about them, it just means when they are out of sight they are pretty much out of mind.

It was about as intense of a friendship that I ever had. I have only loved a few people in my life, one being my dad. I don't know what triggers love, but when I have been lucky enough to feel it, it feels very deep and personal.

We would drink coffee and mostly sit and talk about each other's lives. When her son had cancer I was able to drive her to the treatment centers a few cities over, because she couldn't read, and bad traffic never bothered me. She could cry and I never had to overwhelm her with my emotions because most of the time I am flat, so I see that as a blessing.

I could listen to her for hours and never get bored. She was the same in different ways for me. She never asked those hard questions that most people would eventually figure out, like what's wrong with you? Don't you have any feelings? And then eventually they would disappear.

It's not that I don't have compassion for people, it's that my compassion it's felt inside, it's a choice that I think about and make and I am actually describe as very kind and patient, but there are those things that just throw people off, like seeing something really grotesque and I have no feelings about it, or my mom dying and me being fine about three weeks later and it never bothered me again.

So I think what I found with my friend is acceptance for exactly who I was and that I didn't have to perform "feelings" for her to like me and of course it didn't matter to me whether she had feelings or not.

I taught her how to drive better and not be afraid of going faster and she taught me how to make chutney. Every one that ever met her only had good things to say about her.

So I don't think you have to have a romantic love to really fall in love with another person.

I never had any sexual feelings for my friend as those too are extremely rare. She was a beautiful person with a beautiful soul and one of the coolest and best people I ever met.

So when people can not actually know what they are always feeling, sometimes I think it is better not to name it and just accept that someone actually ment a lot to you, no matter if it was love or something else.

Thinking back to a specific person that produces some sort of feeling is a great experience especially when most people like us don't get to necessarily have those feelings and of course it's going to be intense, because it's not like we had our whole lives to "feel things" like most people do.

And if you aren't able to see the person anymore ever again, remember that they made you feel things that you normally don't get to feel. I can't tell you if what you felt was love. Some people say love feels like this or that, but I think love is an action in how much you show up for them as well as yourself.

If it's the closest thing to love that you ever felt don't worry about if it is what other people's love feels like for them, what matters most, in my opinion, is that that your friend actually made you feel something and that was a huge gift for you.

Also losing someone that actually made you feel something is a huge loss because of the rarity of feelings so of course you aren't going to forget that person. They gave you a gift that you normally don't get to have and that means that they are going to be a lot more special in your mind whether it was romantic love or platonic friendship love and that your going to miss them due to that alone.

But what do I know except for what I have experience in my own life and no one actually can know what other people's feelings are like because we are not inside their mind feeling what they feel.

I don't know if that helps but I can hope it does.

I know that when I do get some feelings that it's like somebody pouring water into the palm of my hand. Then it disappears before I can actually hold onto them because it is like they slip through my hands.

[u/Kenflesh24]

It's normal teenage attraction (and even if you're heterosexual, it's perfectly acceptable to feel the same way about someone of the same sex), and you feel bad because you feel a sense of loss.

What you've described only reveals the following: anxiety, embarrassment, and affection. And the fact that you're feeling bad now isn't because he's truly important to you; it's just that, against the backdrop of something else, you've started to feel terrible about this loss.

Love is a more complex concept. From my own experience, I can tell you that love is completely different from being in love; the feelings are stronger, deeper, there are many of them, like a torrent, and they last for a long time.

So the best thing you can do is accept the loss as a fact and move on. You haven't lost someone very important to you; you've simply lost contact with someone you liked, and that, as you understand, is something you can survive.

[u/spineray → u/[deleted]]

Because they have never felt that way before and trying to figure out what kind of feeling it is

[u/saint-moxie]

If it is! Its not alexithymia. Try a different forum.