What does "choosing" a crush mean/feel like?

[9-BBN]

Hi everyone, 

I'm really trying to pin if I'm aromantic or not and I had kind of a silly question about crushes and "choosing" them. I asked a similar question on AVEN and it seems that the whole idea of choosing crushes is more along the lines of being aro/ace. I'm not totally sure if I am actually chose my crushes as a kid and teen. So it would be great if y'all could give some insight. 

When I was younger, I hardly had any crushes (at least what I understood to be crushes). I can think of 3 people in my 20 years that I thought I had a crush on. But these "crushes" seemed to always be a product of these people paying a little extra attention to me and then BAM it was like that was what triggered this so called "crush". I did develop feelings for these people (I think?). Like I would feel bubbly or whatever and want to talk to these people and be around them. But it never was fantasizing about a relationship or anything like that for the most part. I'm not sure if by noticing these people I was "choosing" or not. Is that what "choosing" a crush is like? I feel like having a crush on someone is being swept away by them or falling for them and I'm not totally sure if that's what this was. Even the one person that briefly became more than a crush, when we would hang out on dates I always just wanted to talk to him and be around him. He wanted more, more physical things that I was never invested in ever and it never crossed my mind that the physical things people do romantically were normal. 

Apologies if this is more of a ramble, but I'm not really sure where I stand on the romance spectrum. It's confusing and much harder to pin than asexuality was

[Erederyn]

When I was a teen, I would "choose" my crushes. I essentially had a list of favorable traits, things I'd potentially like in a romantic partner (which were really just traits that I admired in people in general), and whoever (read: cis hetero boy of course because heteronormativity) met a lot of those traits would be my "crush." Sometimes this was motivated by actual feelings! It was just that they were not romantic feeling. For example, one of the traits on my list was being musically-inclined. And so I had a "crush" on this guy in my orchestra who played the cello. I later realized that I did have some kind of feeling for him, except it wasn't romantic. He was quite talented and I just really admired his musical ability hahah. But what helped me realize that I was essentially chosing my crushes was that I didn't care to get into a romantic relationship with them and that besides liking those particular traits, I didn't actually like the whole person- I didn't care to get to know them more as a person. That cello guy? He ended up leaving orchestra later on, and I became disinterested in him even though we had other classes together. It was just this idea that I was "crushing" on.

[nonmerci]

I had a list of traits that was needed to be a good boyfriend for me (being nice, intelligent, pretty, funny... not very original I know). Then I chosed one of the boy (because heteronormativity) that fitted the criteria the most. But there were no romantic feeling involved, sometimes I didn't even care about them. When I wasn't thinking about who could be my crush, I wasn't thinking about them.

With a weird comparison, it's like being in a shop, feeling I have to buy something but I don't really want anything. So I look at all the products and compare them to determine which would be the better choice, according to logical criteria. On the other hand, all the other people who enter the shop don't have this problem : they know exactly what kind of products they want and feel attracted to one in particular.

[Jot-Aro Kujo]

I "chose" Alphonse Elric as my crush when I was a kid- Meaning, everyone insisted I had to have feelings for someone, and he was a favorite character of mine, so I'd pretend I had a crush on him just to get them to leave me alone. So that I would appear normal. I never actually had any romantic feelings for him.

[somenerdyhuman]

I found out that people had crushes in grade 2 so I was like “oh so who do I have a crush on?” I ended up picking the one boy who was relatively nice to me and had an alright personality (heteronormative I know but it’s not like they teach us any better). I somehow convinced myself it was real. I mean, he was nice and all, but I didn’t actually like him as more than a friend. When I actually thought about, like, kissing him or something I would feel kinda disgusted. I brushed it off at the time, but looking back on it, it’s kinda obvious I was arospec

[Tagor]

For me it was basically the same as has been mentioned already. I mentally made a list of traits a partner should have and then went looking for a girl (because heteronormativity) that fit these (with the reasoning that "everybody seems to have somebody like that, and a close partner sounds good, so I better get going").

I think the shop metaphor nonmerci used is really good, as one of the main differences to "real" crushes seems to be that they're completely involuntary and not something you can actually conciously influence.

[Guest vaden]

i want a girlfrend