What does a squish feel like?

[Luxasea]

I don't know if this is in the right place, but I was wondering how squishes feel like.

I am trying to see if I have squishes, but I who over analyzes everything, so I just always run around in circles.

[hemogoblin]

I'll come back to write more later, but I wanted to post what a squish/platonic attraction looks like from a couple of perspectives while I have the link handy. There's also this 2012 AVEN thread, which discusses squishes versus crushes (some answers may be a bit dated language-wise since we were still developing a lot of 'basic' lingo then).

[BasicallyEmoPotato]

here's a link:
https://medium.com/@caitlin_murphy/whats-a-squish-cb07ce59adc1#:~:text=A squish is kind of,but as 'just a friend.

[hemogoblin]

Okay, late update is late.

What I was wanting to expand on earlier is that there is no certain, specific way a squish has to feel. People feel crushes/lust/lushes/smushes etc. differently! We're also going to feel squishes differently.

For me, the one experience I've categorized as a squish was incredibly similar to a crush for me. In fact, it took months of back and forth self-debating for me to decide ultimately what I thought it was. The difference was less in the feelings and more in the desired outcome. And notice that still wasn't easy for me. If I had been in a different part of my life, I might have decided it was a crush instead.

So for me, a squish was still like a magnetism towards another person. Where I felt special when they wanted to spend time with me. Where my mind would wander to them and how they were doing. Where I felt oddly nervous and excited around them. But at the end of the day, I was done dating, so anything I would have wanted would have come back to friendship.

Some people might feel the butterflies you get commonly associated with crushes. Other people might not have physical symptoms so much but feel a strong and clear desire to be someone's friend. It depends on the person and the situation.

What makes it a squish is that you feel it's a squish. Do you want to label your experiences as squishes? Something else? Not label them at all? That's all valid. There is no diagnosis for what you're feeling. Feelings are subjective. People even feel things like happiness, fear, or anger differently. Happiness can be experienced via exuberance, anxiety, nausea, relaxation. Fear can be experienced through disgust, nausea, numbness, shock, anxiety, overwhelm. Anger can be experienced via hatred, violence, numbness, shock, sadness. It depends on the person and the experience how they feel a feeling, how it manifests, and how intense it is. Same with various types of attractions. There is no right or wrong answer as to what to label your feelings. What matters is what feels best to you.