4d ago

How do people develop feelings for someone?

I am a social guy, talking to people comes quite natural to me. Therefore I make friends easily. I have had a ton of crushes and was also in love for a couple of times. However I have never had any relationship to speak of (I'm 25, btw), and I feel like I'm missing out on something.

When it comes to relationships I honestly don't know how people do it. I don't know what makes someone "like" someone else, safe for their appearance. Or how someone "starts" to see another as a romantic partner rather than platonic. I feel like I only know how to serve friendship. So how do people develop feelings for someone?

47 comments

I don't like most of the responses here so I'm offer my own. Love is not found it is built.
My wife and I got married young. I'm 34 and I'll be celebrating my 9th anniversary in under a week.
Love is where all those things come together. We have the deepest friendship. We're weird in the same ways and we've basically developed our own brand of humor. I can make my wife laugh literally with a look.
Love is also a commitment to never, ever bail. It's unlike anything else. With friends, you still try to be good company or you wouldn't tell them the deep thoughts. But my wife and I can share anything. We're so intertwined that there's more understanding than judgment. We can say things we don't like about people, about the world, about ourselves. We can be truly vulnerable.
We didn't find love, we built it. From 25 to 34 I'm a phenomenally different person, but we're like two planets oscillating around each other. Our orbit influences the other, and vice versa. We never would have been these people if we weren't together. With most friends I feel like they may have some influence... But in marriage it's just undeniable.
It's a truly unique thing. But I will say I couldn't understand it until I had it. And I still don't. Dating for 4 years wasn't the same as marriage after 1 which wasn't the same as marriage after 5 and that's not the same as it is now after almost 9 years. It's always growing, always deepening, and it's just insanely personal at a very deep level.
- Wow. Pretty much same story here. And you are right.
- A beautiful answer, our trajectory was pretty similar, only that we were together and building it for over 10 years before we finally got married last year :)
  My wife is my home, my constant, my safe harbor, the anchor of my sanity and peace of mind.
  Two planets orbiting each other - I could not have said it better. We're a unit that is greater than its sum and we grew and continue to grow together as individuals and into each other.

47 comments