*love is weird, i guess

ever since i actually realized that i was on the aromantic spectrum, i've kind of been thinking about the past relationships and/or crushes that i've had and have been trying to "get a grasp" on what i was thinking of them at the time. 

im not sure if ive actually fallen in love with anyone. at least in the way that everyone describes it.

it's not that i'm super, heavily repulsed by it (at least most of the time), but i guess its more of an indifference. i want to be able to experience some of what other people say about love, though (side note: i didn't know that you guys actually get sick in the stomach or that your body heats up when you're in love??). i want to be perceived as desirable by other people, in some weird sort of people pleasing, ego stroking way. i want to be able to say all of that gross, sappy shit about someone who would reciprocate it back. but i've never really done it before, now that i think about it.

i've only ever had two "crushes" in my life:

my first "crush" was someone i had known for like, almost forever. we were super close, and we were always spending time with one another, in one way or another. we talked to each other pretty much whenever we could, and even moreso when we got phones. one time she kissed my cheek in response to accidentally hitting me in the face, and i got so flustered by the action that i thought over it and i realized that i was bi...something! but, anyways, i really idolized her a lot and i really enjoyed her company. that is, until she started talking about her highschool crushes and friends and college. 

then, i started feeling really, really weird. i felt weird whenever she would constantly talk about her other friends, how she would (although briefly) mention crushes. i know for a fact now that a part of that "weird feeling" was probably how adolescent me was jealous of the fact that i probably wasnt as high on her imaginary friend tierlist as she was on mine (which is a topic for another day!), but also some weird parasite in my brain that told me that i was gonna be left behind in favor for her new friends someday. my brain, however? i think it made me convinced that the feeling of friend jealousy and abandonment fear was love. and then i started doting on the "love" i felt, to what 2022 me describes as a massively unhealthy degree. 

i broke off the friendship two years ago when i realized that it was getting too unhealthy for my own good, especially ever since i moved away. 

my second "crush"... i don't think i have the ability to talk as much about it as i did the first one, but we bonded a week after i started going to school in the town i moved to. we immediately became friends after we found out we had mutual interests, and we had this really, really long talk. i don't remember what it was about, but it was so touching that i thought they were so cool. and i wanted to get to know them more. yknow, all the "LET'S BE FRIENDS!" type of thinking. it had been a while since i thought of anyone in that way, but my brain thought that "hey! this must be love!" which was real stupid, now that i think about it. it lasted for like, i don't know, a week or two until, somehow, it got to them.. which the most humiliating thing ever, but they didn't think much of it. and then we were normal for the rest of our friendship! 

other than that, whenever someone expressed interest in me (ironic or otherwise) i felt immediately grossed out and wouldn't talk to them for i dont know, forever if i had to .)

so yeah, my experiences with what i thought to be romance were very weird and very stupid!