[texascoco]

To me, the different ways I feel about different guys is pretty straightforward and makes sense. But after hearing people talk, I began to wonder if the ways I feel are not normal.

My view is this:
1) There is a huge difference between being attracted to someone and wanting to be physical with them and simultaneously loving them and being a fit with them and being super close with them and wanting to spend the rest of your life with them, vs being attracted to someone and wanting to be physical with them and caring for them deeply and feeling extremely warmly towards them and feeling happy when you're with them and wanting to protect them but considering them just friends and not wanting to be in a relationship with them, even if you do have sex with them. There is no comparison. It's like apples to oranges.
2) You can potentially be attracted to and deeply care for multiple people at the same time.
3) Even when you are in love with somebody, you can still potentially feel for someone the way I described secondly in number 1).

In my fiction class, I wrote a nonfiction story about the guy I loved who left me and about one of my friends who I met a the same time I started going out with the guy I loved who left me. I felt for this friend, for a long time, before the guy I loved left me, the way I described secondly in number 1). We eventually had sex, after the guy left me. The kids in class found it very hard to understand the ways I felt about these two guys. They did not understand how I could feel the way I felt for my friend yet at the same time feel the way I felt for the boy I loved who left me. They did not understand how I could feel the way I felt for my friend and be attracted to him and want to touch him (I didn't admittedly want to sleep with him until after the boy I loved left me) and care deeply for him, and yet only consider him my friend - even though I felt those ways for my friend, it is totally different than the feelings of love; he and I are not a good fit at all for a relationship.

To me, how I feel seems pretty straightforward and easy to understand. Maybe in the story I didn't explain myself properly, or maybe these college kids are too young to have a grasp of the different levels of feelings one can have for someone else and how they correspond to the levels of relationships one can have with that person, and I guess that is what I'm pondering - is it THEM that's missing something? Or is it me that is not normal, and they are confused, as they should be?

[texascoco]

2) You can potentially be attracted to and deeply care for multiple people at the same time.

I am referring to the second type of feelings of number 1).

[hamster-bamster]

(1) You say it is as apples to oranges but I am having a hard time seeing what you mean, in more or less precise terms. Maybe that is why the nonfiction story was not received exactly as you hoped for - maybe you were not clear enough.

(2) - sure, that part seems obvious

(3) - in this part, you refer back to (1), which I fail to comprehend in full, so I cannot comment on (3).

[Aoikaze]

Romantic love has always been something of an anomaly. William Blake, one ofthe artists that drove the Romanticism movement, was striving against the same thing that you're talking about. Before that time in history romantic love, or the passions, were seen as something fickle, whimsical, and not to be trusted. Most marriages were arranged, or to put it in a better way, ordained.

The difference between loving someone, I'm hearing from you, is that spark of passion that makes a specific person special in a way that makes you want them. It may be some quality as obvious as really great abs, or good job prospects, but nonetheless does it for you. Whatever it is, it leaves you feeling like you must have and keep that person regardless of how good or bad they are for you.

The problem is that all passions have an end. At some point we all grow old, and what was exciting becomes just another day. We make choices to love, and be in love with those we care for. We also make the choice to fall out of love. You may not control your physiological reaction, but you can choose your response.

For Blake passionatte love was worth the uncertainty. For a great deal of people, even now, it isn't. Arranged marriages still exist, even within the Western world. You must choose what you want, and who you want. Even if it's a mistake it will be one hell of a ride.