burnedbridges

Yes, sort of? In hindsight it's difficult to separate actual crushes from forced crushes, but for me I was obsessed with romance in a really shallow level from a young age. I had "crushes" on people as a kid, but in hindsight I don't think these were crushes, rather me picking random boys I thought I could have a crush on and then just making friends with them. In my early teenage years I did experience some romantic attraction, but usually it was based on an idealised version of that person? When I actually talked to them in person, I didn't feel attracted to them, but if I hadn't seen them in a while and I'd built up this idealised perfect unreal version of them in my mind, I'd experience romantic attraction towards that version. I also had some feelings I thought were romantic attraction at the time, but later realised that it was just a close platonic relationship and I didn't want romance. So, kind of, but every crush I've had has been slightly off or wrong in some way, and most of them were vaguely forced and I'd try to make myself feel romantic feelings. As I've grown up and let go of the feeling that I have to have romance and crushes in my life, I've found that I don't experience crushes at all anymore. Personally, I use the aro label to mainly refer to the fact that romance doesn't really fit into my real life - while I can and have daydreamed all I like about romance, in practice, I'm aromantic. I'd also say that orientation can change - just because you experienced romantic attraction in the past doesn't mean you do now. Last piece of advice - when trying to work out identity and Labels, try to focus on the now rather than the past or present. Instead of thinking "can I apply this label to my past" or "will I fit into this label in my hypothetical future scenarios", think "does this label fit me now". I have no idea if that helped but I hope it did.