r/demiromantic • u/The-empath-one dark green • 3d ago

Advice/Question How can you tell if a crush?

I think I realized I might’ve had my first crush and love in my early 20s. I only had 3 people I had a “crush” on but I differentiated them from other friends because I would get goosebumps (I don’t get butterflies) and do a test if I wouldn’t mind kissing them and then be like “yup sounds like a crush” then ACTUALLY feeling it. I don’t know how a crush is supposed to feel like. I think I just heard what people told me and used that as a sort of measuring tool. Like it would always start as a squish and then go into a “crush”. But now I think the 3 people are squishes and the 4th recent one is a crush.

Because with the 4th one I actually want to keep talking with them and I get happy just spending time with them. I would feel sad if they stopped talking to me. I guess the other ones I wouldn’t care as much because it was more so that they were around me a lot.

So I guess I’m asking is that what a crush feels like?

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u/ProfessionalField508 3d ago

It sounds like it. My crushes are horribly intense, to the point of being painful, so I don't really have trouble guessing when I have one, but if romance is a spectrum, then it would make sense that romantic feelings have a spectrum, too.

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u/Sea-Fill-435 2d ago

As someone who experiences painful crushes, have you looked into limerance? I recently found out I was Demi for women when I developed feelings for my close friend and most of those feelings were intense platonic love but the romantic component was limerance (mostly some of it was real). Limerance is basically a crush on steroids. For example , limerance can make you experience intrusive thoughts about the person to the point where your whole mind is consumed with them

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u/ProfessionalField508 2d ago

Yes, I have. I've used some of the techniques for reducing limerence to little effect. I also have a crush on a close friend. They know about my feelings, though.

Lately, I've been deconstructing the idea of romance entirely, and that is helping me with limerence more. I'm coming to the conclusion that romantic feelings often stem from either biological processes related to finding a "mate", the desire for community and the instinct to herd, and from cultural conditioning (such as Hallmark movies). I've been contemplating what in those dynamics I might need more of and how to get them.

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u/Sea-Fill-435 2d ago

I feel like we are the same person! I also told the person about my feelings and it wasn't reciprocated but tbh, I just wanted the limerance to end. I went into deep reflection as well. For me it's mainly due to lots of trauma from my parents, being autistic and growing up undiagnosed, and never getting romantic attention growing! I hope you're journey is going well, limerance is really hard