For my whole life I’ve struggled with the concept of love and crushes. (I’m on the aroace spectrum if that helps) It wasn’t until this year when I was diagnosed with BPD and I learned that most of my major friendships were FP. But with a lot of those FPs I believed that I had crushes on them at the time. Because that intense feeling of wanting to be around them and be like them and please them was what people around me described crushes being like. Even now in my mid-20s, I still can’t figure out when I like someone or if it’s FP.
I care very deeply towards one of my friends and appreciate the time we spend together. We’ve known each other for almost six years, but within the past few months, we’ve actually started talking about things. Before it was primarily just hanging out with our whole friend group and playing games. When I’m with him, I smile more, I get excited when he wants to hang out, I find him endearing at times, and I tend to present myself in a way that people will like more. But there’s also FP traits I notice like seeing him as perfect (I just can’t find any flaws), getting jealous when he’s hanging out with other people (although not frequently and not too much), and finding myself thinking about the time we spend together a lot (bordering on obsessively at times).
Does anyone else struggle with differentiating between FP and crushes? For those that don’t, how can you tell what’s what?