Alterous attraction with a crush?

[Gabrielle]

I’m sixteen by the way (girl). Okay so I’m curious if what I feel with guys is alterous attraction or romantic because I feel like what I feel towards guys is sometimes a mix of the two. I have a crush right now, or at least I call it that. All of my friends when they have a crush on a guy or when we’re talking about guys gush about romantic candlelight dinners and getting married but for some reason I picture doing those things with the guy I associate as my “crush” and it just doesn’t seem right. It feels weird. Like if I were to be in a relationship with any guy I would want it to be literally a mix of platonic and romantic.  I’ve always felt that if an activity, or gestures, or whatever between two people is too romantic then it can limit what they feel towards each other or how much they can care for each other. If I were to have a boyfriend I’d want the knowledge that we care about each other more than just in a purely romantic way. And the “crush” I have currently feels like a mix between alterous attraction and romantic attraction. Romantic because I get giggly when I think about him, daydream about us kissing, get jealous when he’s around to her girls. And alterous because I really want to get to know him and I think of him more than just in a romantic way. I genuinely would care about him even if I didn’t feel romantic attraction towards him. And also because of what I said before, picturing me and him getting married or me and any guy in the future getting married makes me feel uncomfortable. I want there to be a balance between romantic and platonic. Like half best friend and half boyfriend with us being closer than we are with other members of the opposite sex? Like best friends without significant others and with a limit to our romance in our relationship. Oh and one more thing I am asexual (aegosexual specifically) not sure if that helps or not. I would appreciate any opinions thanks!!

[Coyote]

Hi, Gabrielle. I've got some thoughts on what you've written here.

 

On 5/7/2019 at 4:55 PM, Gabrielle said:

And the “crush” I have currently feels like a mix between alterous attraction and romantic attraction. Romantic because I get giggly when I think about him, daydream about us kissing, get jealous when he’s around to her girls. And alterous because I really want to get to know him and I think of him more than just in a romantic way. I genuinely would care about him even if I didn’t feel romantic attraction towards him. And also because of what I said before, picturing me and him getting married or me and any guy in the future getting married makes me feel uncomfortable.

 

Now as a preface here I'll say that it's fine to conceptualize your feelings in whatever way makes sense to you. With that said, since you're asking to what to call this, I figure it makes sense to point out -- none of the things you've described *have* to mean one thing or the other. I'm sure there are people who use the word "alterous" on their feelings toward people they want/like to kiss, and I'm sure there are people who like their romantic crushes in ways that are more than just romantic, without necessarily wanting to get married, and so on. There aren't hard and fast rules written down anywhere about what any given feeling "allows" you to want. They're your feelings. When it comes to describing them, basically, you're the boss.

 

For reference, I've also compiled some links here on the different things people have said about "alterous" (and more). Since you've described wanting a relationship that's somewhere in between romantic or not, you might be also interested in reading about the different ways people have applied queerplatonic, too. There's a lot of flexibility to these concepts (including "romance") from my POV, so figuring out how to parse your feelings is less about finding the "exact match" as told by someone else and more just figuring out what legacies/associations you feel like invoking.

 

Anyway. Since I'm quoiro and don't use the romantic/nonromantic distinction, I'd also be remiss not to point out that you don't even have to use that distinction in any way if you don't feel like it. You can try describing what relationships you want to build/are building via entirely different models, like Queenie's five factor model of relationships, and go from there. It sounds like you do already have a pretty clear idea of what you want and don't want, which is great! So from there it's just a question of how you'd like to act on it.