How to understand romantic feelings

[AprilR]

I have trouble understanding my own feelings sometimes. Recently there is someone i am interested in i think, but i am not sure if what i am feeling is attraction or platonic feelings.

There are lots of things that make me hesitate also. He is 13 years older than me, and is divorced, pretty different than me in terms of life experience. Also he is my language tutor and it is bound to be awkward if he were to know this. But still i enjoy talking to him, and he seems to like me too, as a person.

Idk where i am going with this, i guess i just like the feeling of liking someone and taking an interest in them, since i cannot find many people with the same interests as me. But i am not sure if this is romantic attraction or not. How do you understand if your feelings are romantic or not?

 

[Tom]

I don't know how to describe the romantic element from a female perspective. For me as a male if I became locked on them mentally, always thinking about them, wishing to be with them and wanting to bond emotionally the romantic element was a given. With friend ships I might enjoy and look forward to someone's company but would not experience those intense feelings of longing/desire. It is more of a cerebral or fun thing, having good experiences in their company.

 

[Trophonius]

It's hard to know in some cases, especially since the female view on romantic feelings differs so much from the male perspective. I take romantic feelings to be the kinds of feelings that project into the future and lead toward imagining a shared life with that person, involving a level of communication more intimate than with friends.

I would just add that sometimes we tend to fall for people who are nice and understanding of us - this is the main reason a lot of people have for developing infatuation with their therapists. In your case, I think it is worth considering if there is a chance you could be in the same situation, assuming you only know this person from your language lessons. I have mistaken people being nice to me because it's part of their job in the past, and this can hurt a lot, sometimes...

 

[Judge]

Recently there is someone i am interested in i think, but i am not sure if what i am feeling is attraction or platonic feelings.

There are lots of things that make me hesitate also. He is 13 years older than me, and is divorced, pretty different than me in terms of life experience. Also he is my language tutor and it is bound to be awkward if he were to know this. But still i enjoy talking to him, and he seems to like me too, as a person.

Bear in mind that you began your sentence with the word "recently". Considering that not a great deal of time has passed, I think it's reasonable to be conflicted about whether this is romantic or platonic.

The point being that you owe it to yourself to give yourself much more time to figure it out. Try not to over-analyze it all, and just "go with the flow". Not to mention that nearly all of my relationships with women happened through evolving friendships that had no time table. And most of them made the first move romantically despite all the banter of males having to take some kind of "lead".

And in the meantime, just enjoy the company and have fun with a newfound friend. And hopefully avoid so much anguish and confusion associated with dating.

 

[AprilR]

Your posts made me think. I don't think i have that much of an affection for him. I do like him but i don't think he would understand me and vice versa.

I mean i don't or can't imagine a future with him that's for sure. There are too many downsides. I would be worried about what other people think, because of the age gap and other differences between us. I would be too stressed i think. And i don't think our life styles would mesh well.

 

[Boogs]

Also he is my language tutor and it is bound to be awkward if he were to know this.

I'm guessing then your interactions have been class-based and not social? If so, there may well be much you don't yet know about him, that until you learn, your mind will be filling in the gaps with it's own opinions, accurate or not, which is what minds need to do when lacking external data.

But regardless, it would seem risky to try to engage while there's a professional relationship ongoing (your language lessons)? But that also gives time for feelings to distil and become clearer. I think more time often makes for clearer feelings.

 

[Alexej]

But regardless, it would seem risky to try to engage while there's a professional relationship ongoing (your language lessons)? But that also gives time for feelings to distil and become clearer. I think more time often makes for clearer feelings.

I would agree - It seems to me to be wise to separate the professional relationship from the personal.
Once there is that clarity of purpose of relationship then other things may become clearer too.

 

[Boogs]

I've had sensations of intense attraction, whether it could be defined as love or lust (or, I suspect, a mixture of the two, if they even can be separated as such), which have with hindsight turned out to be as much to do with hormonal changes and other mental 'positioning' (states of mind) and the intensity of such temporary feelings have overpowered my ability to rationalise them at the time. It's only as that intensity has waned that I've realised the attraction had much less to do with the other person than with myself.

Sometimes, only time can answer these complex questions, and to some degree they can be unknowable as we can't ever really know what's inside another person.

 

[AprilR]

I'm guessing then your interactions have been class-based and not social? If so, there may well be much you don't yet know about him, that until you learn, your mind will be filling in the gaps with it's own opinions, accurate or not, which is what minds need to do when lacking external data.

But regardless, it would seem risky to try to engage while there's a professional relationship ongoing (your language lessons)? But that also gives time for feelings to distil and become clearer. I think more time often makes for clearer feelings.

I think that is true. We chat a bit at breaks, and i admire him for his knowledge about Japanese culture and language but that's it. Also i feel more comfortable around him bc of the age gap, since i cannot relate much to my peers. I may be idealizing him in my head without knowing much about him. I think i will leave it to time to understand my feelings.

 

[Boogs]

Or maybe, just not being used to finding someone interesting whom you feel comfortable conversing with? Could be as simple as that possibly, and for those of us who find few others like that, surely not surprising it generates intense feelings we're not familiar with and haven't the experience to understand their nature at first?
After all, are not difficulties with relationships (of all sorts) one of the common defining aspects of autism?

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

I would just add that sometimes we tend to fall for people who are nice and understanding of us

This has happened to me in the past. I had felt so unwanted and was profoundly inexperienced with women that when, as a matter of course, one was nice and friendly I would feel hopeful because of my inability to create my own options for meeting somebody I would be interested in for a relationship.

Eventually I moved past that but probably went too far when I failed to easily recognize my future spouse's interest in me. She had to hit me over the head with a proverbial 2x4 to get my attention.