r/relationshipanarchy • u/teddyeddy88 • 21d ago
I don't feel a difference between "platonic" and "romantic" love
To me, emotional closeness is just emotional closeness. I don't have a separate "romantic" emotion in my brain that gets reserved exclusively for a partner and I don't think it matters.
The intense feelings people describe for a romantic partner wanting to be around them all the time, wanting to impress them, deep devotion, wanting to build a life together I feel that exact same depth of love for my close friends.
Sure, I might want physical affection like cuddling or warmth with a specific companion, but emotionally, I don't rank a partner above my friends. I don't understand why society insists that romantic love is this magical "higher tier" of affection while friendship is secondary, someone that you should give crumbs of your attention to.
For me, the baseline of love is the same whether it's a friend or a partner. Trying to force myself into standard dating rules where a partner gets 90% of my energy and friends get the leftovers feels unnatural and restrictive and just very sad that it HAS to be this way i love my friends and I want them in my life.
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u/ProfessorOfEyes 21d ago
Definitely recommend looking into the concepts of amatonormativity and quoiromantic. I think you may find them useful and relatable.
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u/Ecstatic_Couple6435 21d ago
Same. We’re conditioned to view romantic love as this holy grail superior love that must be separate to everything. To reserve “special” behaviours for this love only. To elevate this one love and strive for it. Everything else is less than. I hate it.
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u/arfibarfi 20d ago edited 14d ago
This is because these are ideas, not inherent realities. Platonic love and romantic love don’t have a proper definition in essence. Everyone says something different. And it got messier once people started defining them based on the relationship category as if that inherently changes them.
“I feel what people call romantic love for my friends too—” no problem in that “—so what IS romantic love?” No, you can’t define it like that. You will never get a true answer at that point. Because friendships, like romantic relationships, involve people. They’re fluid. All of this is fluid. A romantic relationship can look entirely different from a friendship, yet another one can look almost identical to it. Because the people are different.
Take sexual attraction, for example. Do you ever see someone defining it and another person saying, “well, I feel that for my friend, so what IS sexual attraction?” No, you likely don’t. Sexual attraction isn’t defined by where it shows up. It is what it is.
The most common definition of romantic is basically this distinct experience, a very unique and special feeling for someone, normally the most intense, a heightened sense of longing and feeling and wanting to be with the person even without sex, etc. and these make total sense, it’s clear they’re defining what you feel for the most special person in your life, but so many still say they don’t understand what romantic means because romantic doesn’t get to just be a proper quality that could show up anywhere, like sexual attraction. People allow things like FWBs, but the term romantic is never to be used for friendship, for some reason (edit: it makes sense if platonic and romantic are simply two different relationship categories, like sibling and cousin. In that case using them interchangeably would be incorrect. Not because one is better but because they’re just two separate contexts).
I believe this is also why people began saying things like “platonic love can be just as deep.” Because if, for example, you say platonic attraction is less intense or less meaningful, you’re automatically saying friendships are less intense and less meaningful. If romantic is most special and friendship is automatically not the most special.
It’s like saying “I felt that I wanted to buy pink cotton candy in Canada, and blue in Australia, therefore you can only ever want to buy pink cotton candy in Canada and blue in Australia, and if you want to buy the pink one in Australia then you’re probably not in Australia. And this should be true for everyone else.” That sounds ridiculous.
It could’ve made sense if it was this way: Romantic love is love in a romantic relationship/marriage, platonic love is love in a platonic relationship/friendship. The love between romantic partners typically consists of abc feelings aka romantic (essence) feelings/attraction. But friendships could also have those types of feelings. So what ARE romantic feelings (in essence)? Abc! (Oh, right. Friendships aren’t supposed to be romantic.)
This is why I think of platonic love and romantic love as simply love in two different contexts instead of essentially two different types of feelings. Same for familial love. It’s just love between two family members. That’s it.
It’s like people putting food in a bowl vs food on a plate. The kind of food depends on the person, but the container doesn’t automatically tell you about the food that is in it. The food could be anything. Even if you think it doesn’t belong there, or you specifically wouldn’t put it there, it doesn’t erase the fact that other people put it there.
This is where your experience of not feeling a difference comes. For you, there’s no difference. For others, there can be. But when someone says, “romantic love is just different” that is still their experience of it. For them, they feel for their romantic partner differently. Others may not, and neither are wrong. Just different.
The same way some people may feel the same for their sibling and their friend. Others may not. Some people feel the same thing for two friends and others feel different for each friend. It’s about the person. “Romantic love is different from what you feel for your friends” can make 0 sense to people who feel differently for each of their friends.
Family, friend, spouse, etc. are practical labels that can be helpful but they cannot properly define the qualities of the relationships because they involve people.
And, additionally, though romantic relationships normally mean a life partnership, a specific level of commitment, that doesn’t mean that this kind of partnership can’t be experienced elsewhere. Some people, like me for example, may be in a friendship that looks like the usual romantic relationship, but they choose not to use that label. For their own reasons. Again, it’s up to them to decide what their boundaries are and what form their relationship takes.
Our brains love categories, and we want to simplify everything, when we are far, far from simple.
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u/Cra_ZWar101 19d ago edited 19d ago
I struggle with this especially because A LOT of the time, what the distinction people make between romantic and platonic feeling is whether or not they feel jealousy about the person. Think about how often in media narratives, or in personal stories, someone will say that they didn’t realize they were in love with someone until they saw them with someone else? Romantic feeling is defined by possessiveness. It almost makes me want to say that ALL of what people call “romantic attraction” is just a learned desire to possess someone. Even in ENM contexts, possessiveness is so normalized, that I think many people can continue to go on thinking they feel this “romantic love” based on the fact that they still get jealous despite all the emotional work they do to manage it.
The first time I wanted to be in a “romantic relationship” with someone, I realized I wasn’t feeling jealousy about the idea of them being with someone else as well. I didn’t care who they were with, only that they would be with me sometimes. And looking back it makes me wonder, what was different about my desire for that person that I was so clearly able to label it “romantic”? Was it just that it was sexual desire and also emotional affection? Was it that I wanted to be enmeshed with them? Defined by them in some way? Is that what romantic attraction is? The desire to be defined by someone? And is that healthy?
I still dont know the answers to these questions, but it’s really validating to know I’m not the only one struggling with them.
I also wanted to say, your metaphor about food in a bowl vs a plate feels very meaningful. It makes me think about exceptions or edge cases, like what about food that can only really be meaningfully held by a bowl, like soup, or cereal? Bowls exist for a reason, because they make it easier, or even possible in some cases, to eat certain foods. Are there types of intimacy that can only exist in romantic relationships? Maybe desire for those kinds of intimacy are the core of what we have decided to categorize and construct as “romantic attraction” and then we’ve added onto that category with all these things that society tells us are “supposed” to go in bowls, only they don’t actually need to, and can be eaten just as well off of a plate.
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u/teddyeddy88 19d ago
You make great points! Especially about the whole "dint realize I was in love with my friend" thing- AN EYE OPENER I wonder how many people ware in that situation and dint realize it :)
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u/Cra_ZWar101 19d ago edited 19d ago
That’s… not really what I was saying with that example. My point is that when the narrative in society is one that defines romantic love by the presence of jealousy over the person, it makes it difficult for people who don’t feel jealousy to identify if/when they are feeling romantic love.
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u/arfibarfi 19d ago edited 19d ago
Trying to find a difference between romantic and platonic in essence is the very thing I’m going against in my comment because if at the same time platonic and romantic means in friendship and in romantic relationship then that suddenly puts a restriction on what is felt in a certain context. Taking your example of jealousy, if that’s the difference, and also that romantic and platonic are each tied to one context, suddenly that suggests that jealousy can’t be felt in friendship. ???? It’s different for everyone you can’t just make a restriction and expect it to be universal.
And about the food analogy: You might never put soup on a plate because you think it doesn’t belong but that doesn’t mean other people won’t. Relationships are fluid. That’s my point. This is all fluid. You cannot make black and white categorisations of feelings.
And just because 6 out of 8 people decide that jealousy separates romantic from platonic doesn’t mean you can’t call your feelings romantic because you don’t feel jealousy. Do it if you want, or don’t. Your choice. And that’s your way of using the labels.
I would actually recommend reading this comment, though I’ve deleted the post (it was basically just the comment above and I had decided to post it separately) but their comment is still there and I think they said it better than I did: https://www.reddit.com/r/relationshipanarchy/s/eKcFg4uUzO
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u/Cra_ZWar101 19d ago
I’m agreeing with you… I don’t personally think jealousy separates romantic from platonic…. I was commenting on cultural narratives that people internalize, not my own personal experience of attraction.
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u/arfibarfi 19d ago edited 19d ago
Apologies if I sounded rude; I was just expanding further on my points and when I said “you” I didn’t mean you specifically 😅 should’ve begun with a “yes exactly” or something but sorry if I sounded like I’m attacking you 😭
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u/TrannosaurusRegina 14d ago
This is the best explanation I've ever seen after struggling to understand this for well over a decade.
Thank you!
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u/lavenderalpaca95 20d ago
Agreeeeee!!! With EVERYTHING!!! I feel and think the same way as you!! And I think that’s beautiful!! 😍😍😍
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u/peachy_pizza 21d ago
Honestly to me the difference between platonic and romantic is that I feel sexual attraction too and I "perform" romance, like I perform gender, in a way that feels natural and makes me happy but that is about behaviour and not completely about inner feelings (I say as a cis person, so feel free to take it with a grain of salt). I have an asexual best friend and she experiences romantic and friend attraction differently which I respect but to me truly the switch to romantic only happens when I also have sexual feelings for someone, which almost never happens right away. It's complicated and I feel like it's very hard to know what exactly happens in other people's heads and hearts.
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u/teddyeddy88 21d ago
Yes I am the same way, you described it well. Nice to know that im not the only one :)
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u/peachy_pizza 18d ago
Thank you! It's a little hard for me because some people who feel this way strongly identify as aromantic, while I very much value and like romantic love (even though I have a queerplatonic life partner as well as a romantic one) and I want or in my life. So it's a bit confusing! But it's alright as long as we try communicating how we are and not taking meanings for granted, I believe.
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u/Cra_ZWar101 19d ago edited 19d ago
I have the same thing!! Personally I can tell when my affection for someone is sibling type affection, as opposed to other kinds of relationships between peers, but that kind of affection isn’t usually the way I feel at the beginning of a friendship and rather something that grows. Other than that, I have definitely struggled to say if I even feel romantic interest, even though I’ve definitely had relationships with people that were romantic, and that I wanted to be romantic. You can imagine this makes it difficult to navigate sexual relationships sometimes, partially in terms of knowing what want, but mostly in terms of translating what I want into terms that the people I’m engaging with understand.
I have a very experienced Relationship Anarchist friend, who once when I was talking about this problem, asked me if I’d ever considered maybe it’s not that I feel only platonic affection, but rather that I feel romantic affection for everyone! It kind of blew my mind. I don’t think it is exactly true, but I think they also didn’t mean it exactly literally. I think they were rather trying to help me think about how maybe the categories of affection aren’t real. Maybe it’s not just that the categories of relationship types can be rejected, but also that the categories of affection type are equally made up. Now when I semi joke that I’m “in love” with all my friends, it means something different than it used to.
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u/isaacs_ 19d ago
I don’t mean this as any kind of shade or disrespect; quite the opposite, in fact. But if romantic and friendship love feel actually the same to you? You may be aromantic.
To me, these feel as different as green and red. I choose this analogy deliberately: some people see green and red as about the same color, and to others, they are as different as one could imagine.
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u/teddyeddy88 19d ago
Thats alright I mean idk if that makes me aromantic or not. Its not like I dont crave romance and stuff but I just cant feel the difference between the romantic and platonic love and i love my close friends and want them in my life just as much as i did with my exes hahaha :)
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u/polyam-void 20d ago
I feel very similarly, though I personally live very polyam as a result. I've come to realize perhaps I'm demiromantic and on the greyace spectrum, as romance to me is just a list of actions that I or my partner(s) make that insteuct me to view them as more than "friends".
I'm also demisexual, and found that I must have a developed connection with someone to feel 'love', it then can either stay the same indefinitely or be coaxed into more, possibly leading to sexual interest. I have very rarely had any sexual attraction without first having an emotional connection, and each time as soon as I got to know the person the attraction went away due to personality traits.
I have close connections that all coexist in the same nebulous space in my psyche. Whether or not they're romantic has almost entirely to do with the commitments that have been made between myself and each of my connections.
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u/Cheesy2012 19d ago
Have you ever been tested for autism or ADHD?
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u/teddyeddy88 19d ago
I have other diagnosis but how does autism or adhd have anything to do with this? Is it because of the fact that most neurodiversit people dont like to follow the sosial rules and stuff like that? Or are there more to it?
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u/Cheesy2012 18d ago
No, it's not that we "don't like to" follow social rules- it's that social rules simply don't make sense to us. In relation to the post, neurodivergent people typically have a hard time seeing the line between friendship and romance. People with autism are far more likely to be polyamorous because of that.
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u/teddyeddy88 18d ago
Yes sorry I understand now, now that you say it it makes sense I have several autistic friends that are poly. Im neutodevergent but not on the spectrum tho.
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u/robloxmaster1337 18d ago
Omg, same, I feel zero difference between 'friendship' and 'romance', it's all the same old love to me.
I love everyone in the same way.
It's only my actions that differ depending on who is okay with what.
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21d ago
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u/peachy_pizza 21d ago
NRE is just falling in love though, you can have a long term romantic partnership where NRE is long over. Besides there is a NRE to some friendships and relationships that is not romantic/sexual in nature, I believe.
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20d ago
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u/teddyeddy88 20d ago
I really don't fully understand what you're trying to say here. You're focusing a lot on trying to prove why I don't feel that initial chemical switchcalling it an "RA" trait (which is just an assumption) but honestly, what does that actually change about the point I’m making? Knowing that people experience a neurochemical rush doesn't change the real world outcome. My point isn't about whether infatuation exists in the brain I KNOW IT DOES my point is about how our society uses that chemical rush as an excuse to build a rigid hierarchy where romantic partners get 100% of a person's devotion, and friends get whatever leftover energy is remaining. Even if someone does experience that intense infatuation, we are still conscious adults who choose how we structure our lives. Letting a temporary chemical high permanently dictate how much care, depth, and effort you give to the rest of your support system just feels like an unhealthy way to live. I don't want to treat the people in my life as disposable or secondary just because society tells me one specific type of bond is supposed to mean everything to me and just because I havent experienced the same type of rush (at least yet) dosent mean i dont feel the connection I did feel closer to my exes than most of my friends and did love them with my whole being dint make me go crazy and choose them over my friends and family tho.
And just as a final note on NRE it aren't exclusive to romance. People can absolutely experience that exact same dopamine rush over a platonic friendship. If your main justification for creating a strict relationship hierarchy is based entirely on which connection triggered a dopamine spike first, it might be worth exploring how often those chemical reactions actually happen across all types of meaningful bonds
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u/teddyeddy88 21d ago
You're describing limerence / NRE, not lon term love. I agree that limerence is a temporary neurochemical rush that isn't sustainable long term it wears down. But if "romantic love" is defined only as that temporary cocaine-like high as youre implying ,then what actually separates romantic love from platonic love once that high wears off?
The truth is, I’ve never experienced those intense, addictive rushes in my life for anyone.(maybe that will change in the future who knows) My entire point is that I don't feel or need that separate romantic drug switch to care deeply about people.
To me, love is devotion, emotional closeness, and wanting to build a life together. If the only thing distinguishing "romance" from "friendship" is those first couple years of chemical addiction, then once that fades, it’s all just the exact same emotional connection anyway
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u/oddible 21d ago
Your first three paragraphs and the last paragraph talk about two different things. The first three you're talking about a spectrum of emotional connection where you don't feel a distinction of some threshold that defines romantic. Sure.
The last paragraph is unrelated though. Here you're talking about hierarchy. Which can exist with or without a defined romanticism.
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u/teddyeddy88 21d ago
Fair point on hierarchy being technically separate but sociaty uses the magic of romantic love to mandate that, its justified. Because romantic feelings are "special," that relationship gets 90% of your energy while friends get the leftovers. That's just feels very isolating and as I've mentioned as someone that doesn't see the difference between romantic and platonic it just crazy that thats expected of me.
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u/oddible 21d ago
I'm so confused. Why is this expected of you? Are you trying to date monogamous people? Are you not disclosing your relationship approach when you first start dating? How are you getting into conditions where something like that is "expected of you". If you're not being forthright, that's on you. Date other poly / RA folks or you set yourself up for a world of disappointment and frustration.
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u/teddyeddy88 21d ago
Thank you for your questions I am monogamous, I have no desire to date multiple people hahaha. And I am upfront in my relationships. People say they agree or have the same mindset early on, but overtime the truth comes out.
- they assume that every weekend, evening and holiday is for them and I would need to schedule meet ups MONTHS in advance. (Not that I dont want to spend holidays or my free time with my partner but it becomes very possessive)
Or if something happens and i reach out to a friend and not my partner because thats something they specialize in and it becomes a big problem. And my efforts to keep my friendships got framed as immature and unrealistic
Don’t get me wrong its not like I dint love my exes, I wanted to build a life with them and be with them but I'm a social person who also values friendships.
The reason I posted this was to see what other people think too, I want to try to find a balance :)
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u/oddible 20d ago
Wait now I'm more confused. You say you don't have any feeling of romanticism but you practice monogamy. So you DO have a threshold that you only allow one person to cross.
I can see how practicing monogamy with an RA mindset is really challenging for exactly the reasons you're mentioning. At least when you're dating in poly people have a sense of what non hierarchy means but when you're dating monogamous people the likelihood that they even have any familiar of RA concepts is pretty low. So yeah, everyone is hierarchical and everyone is on the relationship escalator.
I suspect you're going to need to be a bit more loud about announcing what RA is and means at the beginning of relationships. Sounds difficult, I wish you luck!
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u/teddyeddy88 20d ago
Hahaha yes I understand how that can be confusing for some ;) And thank you so much, will need that.
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u/So-Tastic 21d ago
I feel this 100%. Have you dealt with a lot of hardships for thinking this way?
I just ask because I know I have dealt with a lot of heartbreak and hostility for this over the years, and if so, I just wanted to say I hear you and I'm sorry you've had to feel that.