[ SECRET POST #2050 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2050 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 05 pages, 114 secrets from Secret Submission Post #293.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[checkerblob.livejournal.com]

Since you're mostly older and wiser than me and probably have a lot of thoughts on this subject, I thought it would make sense to ask you this... what exactly is the difference between romantic and platonic love? Is it just physical attraction and the absence thereof? Can the most important person to you, the love of your life, be someone you're not attracted to? Because after a day of sobbing over a real-life best friendship that ended badly recently and reading a few interesting essays on Troy/Abed and the nature of "bromance", I really have no idea how feelings or relationships work and I'm realizing I never did (well, duh, I'm 16). And yes yes yes I know, fiction=/=reality, but the media we consume DOES affect how we see the world around us. (And no, this comment doesn't sound any less stupid in my head. I just don't really have anyone in real life to talk to this about and feelings are really, really difficult).

[murderershair.livejournal.com]

I'm definitely sure at least that the most important person in your life can be someone you're not attracted to. That said, I'm not sure exactly what the dividing line is between romantic and platonic myself, and am tempted to cheat and say "whoever you classify as romantic vs whoever you classify as platonic".

Feelings are difficult, and you don't sound stupid to me. I've had crushes on people I was attracted to and then realized they didn't feel the same way and had the attraction turn into platonic fondness, and I've just had straight up platonic connections, and platonic friendships where I suddenly realized I was kinda sorta really attracted to them.

And then things get even crazier if you're in any kind of relationship with an abuser, and they tell you the feelings you're feeling are wrong and invalid.

[(Anonymous)]

I think CS Lewis said it best when he said that friends go through life side-by-side, while lovers go through life facing each other.

I'd also say friendship comes in degrees that range pretty evenly from stranger to BFF. For example, you can feel affection for someone you hardly know if they do something that warrants affection, but you can't be in love with them (you can be infatuated, which is entirely different because it's about an idea rather than the reality of a person, but not in love)

I'd also say romantic love has a kind of constant attraction that's not just sexual — it often manifests itself as sexual attraction, but from my experience I'd describe it as a kind of longing, always being drawn closer, desiring more, whereas friends are more people who are not so much drawn to each other as they are happy in each other's presence. Words like "desire" and "longing" don't really apply to friends as well as to lovers.

And with romantic relationships, vs platonic friendships, with romance you share your life with someone a lot more than friendships. Friendships don't suffer if one friend doesn't share parts of their life with the other, or doesn't make it their job to handle certain aspects of the other's personality, but romantic relationships do (not to say that romantic relationships don't have any privacy or space, just that the privacy and space generally has to be a lot more consciously provided than with friendships). True friends are always there to give you support and help and companionship, but they're not a part of you, and that does not mean they love you less, just that they love you differently.

Platonic friendship can also sometimes provide people with things romantic relationships can't — perspective and an absence of personal involvement (beyond emotions like affection or caring or concern) in someone's problems and a certain detachment that is still pleasantly personal and biased toward you, but . (I honestly always get uncomfortable when someone's romantic partner is their "everything," because do you have any idea how hard it to have no one to help you apart from someone who is completely entangled with you? Almost as hard as it is to have no one to help you at all.)

Of course, none of this is a binary. You can have romantic elements in a friendship with someone you're not attracted to at all, and you can be attracted to someone who you platonically love but who you're not in love with (e.g., you can think a friend of yours is totally smokin' and fantasize about having sex with them without actually wanting to be in a romantic relationship with them or being upset and unsatisfied with being just friends).

And yes, I'd say the most important person in your life can definitely be someone you're not attracted to. For a lot of people, it's a sibling or a son or daughter, or a friend with whom you have a dynamic similar to a sibling/son/daughter, or you can form bonds through circumstances (war in particular does insane things to the bonds between the people who experience it together) that transcend all other bonds without any attraction OR the life-sharing, longing, desire, etc being involved.

[(Anonymous)]

I think this is one of those things that will be different for everyone. Outside of this comm the most common definition I've come across (at least among all the people I personally know IRL) is that romance is friendship + physical attraction, but I don't agree.

I think it's possible to have romance without physical attraction (assuming in this case that physical attraction = sexual attraction, not just thinking they're aesthetically pleasing to look at or something) and friendship *with* sexual attraction (like friends with benefits type situations for example) but as for how to tell the difference between them, like someone else said, I'm inclined to say a relationship is platonic if it feels platonic to you and it's romantic if it feels romantic to you. I know that's probably a cop out answer, but it's one of those things that's so individual it's pretty much impossible to define it for another person.

I guess a general rule would maybe be that a platonic friend would be someone you enjoy spending time with, but someone you're romantically interested in would be more of that warm & fuzzy/randomly find yourself daydreaming about them/making plans for your (shared) future kind of thing. It's not necessarily that clear cut, though. I think it's a spectrum more than a binary and sometimes people will have relationships that are somewhere between romantic and platonic, not solely either.

As for whether the most important person in your life can be someone you're not attracted to (there are all different types of attraction, but I'm guessing here you mean sexual attraction?), absolutely! One of the most important relationships I've ever had was with my former best friend, and when that relationship ended I was more upset than some people I know who've gone through divorces. We've gotten back in touch again (well, at least we're speaking again) but I haven't talked to her in several months and I know things will never be like they were, which makes me incredibly sad. I know for me at least, the purely romantic relationships I've had haven't been nearly as important to me as the platonic ones (or the ones that were somewhere in between platonic and romantic), and right now the most important people in my life are definitely my family.

I know it's definitely a complicated issue, and I just now (and I'm 11 years older than you) feel like I have a handle on my own philosophy on relationships/friendship/romance and how I feel about these things and apply them to my own life. For me a big part of it was realizing that just because people I know see things a certain way doesn't necessarily mean I have to look at them the same way.

I know it's hard to understand right now, but read those essays (would you mean linking them, btw? they sound interesting to me!) because even if they're about something fictional, the ideas behind them are still based on a real concept, read other people's thoughts/opinions, and I think eventually you'll figure out your own philosophy and where you personally stand on these various issues, and it won't be quite so confusing.