Sometimes when you're dating someone, you get really confused about what you're
feeling. Like is this friendship? Is it platonic? Or am I feeling romantic? As a
psychotherapist, there's four characteristics I see that I think are
really different between platonic love or friendship and romantic love. So
I'm going to talk to you about those today right now. The first is honesty. When it's
a platonic or a friendship love, you're usually more honest. You're more honest
because you don't worry about it - like they're a friend you don't feel like you
have to censor or say the right thing. Romantic love it's a little different.
You could lose the other person and so you do censor and when you censor
sometimes you're not always telling the complete truth. The second thing is
platonic love has different expectations. When you like somebody platonically or
friendship, your expectations for them are a little bit lower. If they
disappoint you, oh well they disappoint you. I mean it's sad if they're a good
friend, but it's nothing like romantic love when it's a romantic love. What ends
up happening is when someone disappoints an expectation you have, it kind of
startles you - kind of takes you off your game. You start rethinking things. You're
hurt - you're very hurt. You many times feel like they may not be able to listen
or understand you. It takes a whole different toll on the way you feel about
yourself and the way you feel about them. Thirdly, platonic love and romantic love
have different boundaries. If it's a platonic love or a friendship, you don't
worry about going out of town (together). Like you don't get all freaked out about it. Of
course, if you share a room, big deal. If you don't share a room, big deal - doesn't
matter. The whole idea is just enjoy the trip. When it's romantic love, it's a
little bit different. It does matter, you have to talk ahead of time if you
plan to share rooms and then you have to be ready for the consequence of
what that will mean if you share a room.
Is your relationship now exclusive? Are you dating differently? Is it gonna
change the way your partner feels about you? All of these things are very
important and it's important that you understand that it's not just a friend
if it's somebody you feel romantic about. And, lastly, romantic love feels more
selfish than friendship or platonic love. When it's a friendship, there's a give or
take. You know - you're just like, "Okay you did that last time, I'll do it this time," so
you don't get taken advantage of. When you're romantically feeling about the
person that this might be someone, you're very careful about that. You want to
please them. You don't ever want them to think you're exploiting or taking
advantage of them, and also it's different in the sense when when you're
romantically involved with the person you do things that you normally wouldn't
do. So it only makes sense that there's times you're gonna feel more selfish
because you sacrificed more and that meant something to you. And what your
partner is doing has a higher level of what it means than if your friend did it.
I hope this explains because a lot of young people that are dating and they
really you know weren't in tune with their parents' relationship. Maybe their
parents didn't have a good relationship. They get very confused and they sit in
this friend stage for a long time, even when they're feeling something deeper.
And, many times, they're disappointed in love not because of what happened, but
because they were unable to be sure of what they felt and then talk
to their partner about it. When you tell your partner, "Listen, what I'm
feeling for you is not platonic, it's more than a friendship," now you're on the
road to romance. I hope this helps you.