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Friend crushes?

DogwoodTree

Still here...
Do you ever get friend crushes?

A friend crush is when there's someone you really want to be friends with--totally platonic, not sexual at all, but can be either gender/any age--and the desire is so great, that you become a bumbling idiot any time you're around them.

In my experience, friend crushes are just as painful as the romantic crushes I used to get before I met my husband. Nearly all of my friend crushes are unrequited (meaning, the other person doesn't particularly care to be my friend), and what social skills I have with most people are completely useless when the friend-crush person is nearby.

What's more, I haven't yet been able to identify the pattern of who becomes the focus of a friend crush for me...why one person might become an interest, but so many other people might as well not exist.

I also would really like to stop getting them altogether. It's destabilizing and useless and painful and confusing.
 
Yes, me too! I feel like I radiate a strong sense of negativity or something. People seem to already have concluded in their minds that I'm someone to stay away from, like I have a contagious plague. Idk why :cryingcat:
 
What's more, I haven't yet been able to identify the pattern of who becomes the focus of a friend crush for me...why one person might become an interest, but so many other people might as well not exist.

I think for a long time in my life, as I reconsider the friendships I've had and still have, I was either the 'mother' or the 'child'. Many of my friendships early on were sympathetic ones, usually with someone who I had some sort of 'commonality' with, similar economic background, religion, interests. There were girls I went to swimming classes with, girls who liked hiking, girls who liked to dance, do gymnastics, liked horses, played baseball. They were people I encountered doing things that I enjoyed and was part of.

Later on as an adult, I encountered friendships in places that I worked, or at school. They were more about being in the same place, and finding something in common and talking. Know that two of the uni friendships I had were about my becoming a sort of mother to two other classmates at various times, whose mother's were alcoholics. For some reason they naturally gravitated toward me.

When I have pursued a friendship, and there were a couple, the women I admired usually kept me at an arms distance. They didn't actually like me I think. I was in those days, somewhat superficial, and hyper-active. Rather the opposite of these women, who were calm, intellectuals, and who seemed completely self-aware. Both of them treated me as if I was a rather precocious teenager, and tolerated me only for as long as I provided something; be it sympathy, entertainment, knowledge, or help of some sort. Yet the friendships were not one-sided as I learned things along the way, and there were times when I felt close to them, but still at arms length.
 
Some of the friendships I pursued were women who I admired and wanted to be like. They had qualities that I desired, and in knowing them, I may have learned to emulate them in some manner I think. As I've become older their influence has waned and I've been able to pick and choose those qualities in myself that I value. Whether or not the 'seeds' of these attributes were already there is difficult to know, or perhaps I recognized them in others and they seemed familiar.
 
Do you ever get friend crushes?

A friend crush is when there's someone you really want to be friends with--totally platonic, not sexual at all, but can be either gender/any age--and the desire is so great, that you become a bumbling idiot any time you're around them.

In my experience, friend crushes are just as painful as the romantic crushes I used to get before I met my husband. Nearly all of my friend crushes are unrequited (meaning, the other person doesn't particularly care to be my friend), and what social skills I have with most people are completely useless when the friend-crush person is nearby.

What's more, I haven't yet been able to identify the pattern of who becomes the focus of a friend crush for me...why one person might become an interest, but so many other people might as well not exist.

I also would really like to stop getting them altogether. It's destabilizing and useless and painful and confusing.
I had a friend crush on a co worker who made me laugh all the time and she even asked me why I was laughing and I said no reason. I would sweat a lot and joke about sex. She was a lot older than me because I was only 21 and she was 36 so I admired her because she was really social and funny.
 
I recently saw a quote saying
"I'm not good at peopling"
That concisely describes me. I do get friend crushes and have learned to turn them off for self protection. I shut down the feelings and do not attempt to build friendships with people. It doesn't work out in the end, and it's easier to keep human interaction restricted to acquaintances and colleagues.

I think aspie enthusiasm can be overwhelming or easily misinterpreted by NTs.
 
I feel like I radiate a strong sense of negativity or something. People seem to already have concluded in their minds that I'm someone to stay away from, like I have a contagious plague.
I think people get offended at our typical black & white view of so much in life. It seems to come across as cold & calculating.
nerd.gif


(We're an acquired taste...)

I don't think that I have ever experienced a friend-crush. For me, it's catch-as-catch-can. I have met some pastors that I would have liked to have had as mentors, but that never played out.
 
I have a crush on 2 women, first, the hot, gorgeous Barmaid in lour local, Sam, I think she's got a man but heck, I still would, I dream about what I'd do with her in bed every Sunday night! Also Cara, one of my carers, she's just turned 20 and is pregnant with another man's child, but she's gorgeous and super fit, yeah, if I knew her under different circumstances and wasn't loads too old for her, I could like her you know, a bit, like that.
 
I have a crush on 2 women, first, the hot, gorgeous Barmaid in lour local, Sam, I think she's got a man but heck, I still would, I dream about what I'd do with her in bed every Sunday night! Also Cara, one of my carers, she's just turned 20 and is pregnant with another man's child, but she's gorgeous and super fit, yeah, if I knew her under different circumstances and wasn't loads too old for her, I could like her you know, a bit, like that.

This isn't what I'm talking about. I'm asking about friend-crushes, not sexual attraction or romantic interests.

A friend crush is completely platonic. It has nothing to do with the other person's body or being "hot" or "gorgeous" or what you want to do with them in bed (I really, really, really don't want to know), which is all very objectifying and impersonal and disrespectful and even offensive when that's the only thing people are attracted to in a person. This is about the person's character and personality and intellect and mutual interests.
 
A friend crush is completely platonic. It has nothing to do with the other person's body or being "hot" or "gorgeous" or what you want to do with them in bed (I really, really, really don't want to know), which is all very objectifying and impersonal and disrespectful and even offensive when that's the only thing people are attracted to in a person. This is about the person's character and personality and intellect and mutual interests.

I've tried to stay out of this thread as it causes me a bit of confusion. :confused:

I agree with the above description, but in my case it's precisely those attributes that sometimes led to an emotional and sexual relationship with women who originally were close friends as defined in such a way. After all, as I've posted many times I don't/won't "date" in the most conventional sense. Which more often than not would happen without any real intention either.

LOL...that must sound odd to many people. That I have to know them as a friend first and foremost to even consider proceeding onto something more intense. Just "hitting" on someone was never for me. Go figure. o_O
 
it's precisely those attributes that sometimes led to an emotional and sexual relationship with women who originally were close friends as defined in such a way

I think this is exactly what a sexual attraction should be. You're attracted to several people for their personality/interests/whatever, and every now and then, with the right woman, it turns into a romantic relationship as well. This is true intimacy and respect. You see the woman as a person, not as a sex object or plaything or "eye candy."
 
Think there is a need to clarify this thread. If you are heterosexual the 'friend crush' would be about women befriending other women, with men it would be males who admired or liked other males and wanted to befriend them as well.
 
...or "eye candy."
Being a visual person, so many women (including relatives) --and, even, some men-- appeal to me as "eye candy," but I don't equate that to grounds for an intimate relationship, real or imagined.

When talking about attractive strangers, they register (visually) similar to statues in a museum or animals in a zoo to me. That trait, positive or negative, takes a back seat as I get to know such personally.
 
Think there is a need to clarify this thread. If you are heterosexual the 'friend crush' would be about women befriending other women, with men it would be males who admired or liked other males and wanted to befriend them as well.

I don't know...I think a friend crush for a heterosexual woman could be on a man, too (of any sexuality). There just wouldn't be any sexual or romantic interest mixed up in it.

Actually, for me, I tend to get more friend crushes on men than on women, and yet the idea of getting romantically involved with any of those guys is repulsive to me. I really just want to be their friend. I want to hang out, and have cool conversations, and do fun things together. It could be our whole families sharing time together--spouses and kids, that's totally fine. I'm not looking for an affair at all. They just seem like neat people, and I'd like to spend more time with them.

But friendships don't work out like that for me. I think I've somehow idealized friendship into something it's not, so now I have no idea what I'm even looking for.
 
It's interesting that you say that Dogwood, in my case friends would be girlfriends likely because male friendships have a tendency to be a little more problematic. In that there seems to be the possibility of jealousy related to the male friends spouse or female friends, often there is some other element involved in the male friendship that I don't always understand.

Guess it's as a result of male friends that I've had in the past who wanted it to be more, and flirted or made passes. Have only one close male friend, and he's my husbands buddy as well. It's also easier because he's single. I think if I were to become friends with a couple I would become friends with the female first, even if I wanted a friendship with the male. Although this may seem a trifle dishonest ethically I wouldn't be able to do it any other way. Earning the trust of the female and getting to know her, and her to know me, would be less problematic.
 
When talking about attractive strangers, they register (visually) similar to statues in a museum or animals in a zoo to me.
I heard this is very common in figure artists, professional or amateur. My [lay figure] collection --particularly their faces-- scratches that same itch.
 
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Earning the trust of the female and getting to know her, and her to know me, would be less problematic.

Yes, I agree, this is true. I think it depends on the situation, though.

My DH is friends with several women, and usually that's not a problem. Most of them are married, and most of the time he's around them in a group situation. But sometimes the healthy boundaries get blurry, and that causes problems.

He had a friendship with a girl earlier this year...she's gay, so I guess they thought there was no danger of sexual attraction being an issue. But DH still ended up getting emotionally entangled with her to the point where he was meeting with her secretly for coffee or whatever. It wasn't the friendship-with-a-girl that was the problem. It was the secret-meetings-with-a-girl that raised huge red flags for me. What was going on between them that they had to meet without telling me?? But he has several female friends where this has never happened, and I don't worry about those.

My problem with female-female friendships for me is that I don't like talking with women very much. Most women have a much different concept of what conversations should be about and how to be friends. Most of the people in my household when I was growing up were female, and I watched all of us being so mistreated. I came to see women as being weak and disgusting. Although I've worked on that a lot and can have conversations one-on-one with other women now, I still don't like being in a group of women.

Come to think of it, I don't particularly like being in a group of guys, either...at least, not a group that's over 2 or 3. However, I can handle co-ed groups well enough.

I think I'm really just not cut out for friendships. I think I've had this cartoony image in my mind of what a friendship should be, but that's not what it is. And when it comes right down to it, I don't think I like real people well enough to be close to them. Maybe I can just give up on this whole friendship thing and move on.
 
Dogwood it's compelling that each of us perceives of friendships with others in such a specific way. The idea of spending our lives in relationships attempting to repair the earlier ones. Do we spend our lives doing this I wonder? Find this fascinating as if we've stayed true to a predictable formula. Do we as individuals have no impact on certain types of subconscious behavior, can we simply be a mass of unconscious acts? Wish I understood more about this.
 
What you are describing is called in the LBGTQ (usually Asexual) parlance a "squish." Usually associated with the term "queerplatonic," a relationship in which people can appear to be partners to the outside world, but in reality, are closer than friends, less than a couple. I know exactly what you are feeling, and it falls along a spectrum, a spectrum that is hard to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it. And it's ESPECIALLY difficult when the other party is unable to grasp the concept or the feeling. I have a queerplatonic ("QP" for short) partner; we share a lot of things, are very, very close emotionally, cuddle a lot, but she dates and sleeps with other people (I am aromantic/asexual), and there is a marked lack of jealousy.

What's more, I haven't yet been able to identify the pattern of who becomes the focus of a friend crush for me...why one person might become an interest, but so many other people might as well not exist.
I know exactly what you mean and I have no answer.
 

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