nat-attack asked: How do people generally differentiate between romantic/platonic feelings? I love my best friend but he has romantic feelings for me and I don't really know how to define my love. Sorry if this doesn't belong here.
Sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you! I’m not ignoring this question, it’s just a really hard question for me to answer since it’s something I’ve also struggled with. Frankly, I’ve come to the conclusion that romantic/platonic is self-defined, as I’ve never found any overarching definition of either. For some people sex is the thing that divides these two, but romantic asexuals of course know this isn’t the case. Some people are perfectly happy of cuddling with their friends, but others would never dream of doing something they deem so intimate and romantic with a friend. What I’m getting at here is that everyone is different. I think the idea that there is some rigid line for everyone where “platonic” stops and “romantic” begins really isn’t true at all, and that it’s all up to you to define what you feel.
Of course this doesn’t help you and probably will only confuse you even more. I think the best advice is: think about what romantic means to you, and what platonic means to you by extension. There will, many times, be grey areas there (which is where queerplatonic comes in), but I found that once I built up an idea of what both of these were by my definition and no one else’s, that it was a lot easier to define my relationships. Don’t let other people’s definitions of these things cloud up your view.
When I was confused about this, I had a person tell me that I had a crush on the person I was squishing on (who is now my queerplatonic partner). This confused the hell out of me, especially since I was pretty certain that it wasn’t true. I had this idea that romantic and platonic were black and white boxes, when in fact there’s a lot of grey in between and many times it’s up to the individual to decide what things fit into what boxes.
I hope this helps you somewhat! I’m sorry, this sounds like a very confusing situation for all involved.
