What signs?

[Guest 123guest]

what signs made you realize your squishes weren't crushes ?

[Ghostflower]

I don't have much experience using the word "squish," but I did realize that a "romantic crush" on my best friend in high school wasn't as romantic as I thought it was.  Looking back, my rationale is this: I loved my best friend so much, and I considered them my favorite person to be around.  My brain had been so steeped in amatonormativity growing up that I thought this must mean that I had a romantic crush on them.  This was compounded by the idea that you should date your best friend (or rather, that you should get along with your romantic partner as well as you do with your friends). 

My best friend and I brought up the idea of dating one another, but it never felt very urgent until they started crushing on someone in college.  My brain panicked on me, thinking that I would be replaced not only as my best friend's closest companion but as their best friend, too.  I wanted to start dating them, because I didn't want to lose what we had.  What made me really recognize this as an aromantic experience was that I would have been fine staying as we were (best friends, rather than romantic partners), so long as our closeness wasn't thrown into jeopardy by a new romantic relationship. 

In other words, I started to suspect that my "crushes" weren't all that romantic because I only wanted to "do" something about them (i.e. start dating that person) when I felt that I would lose a precious connection otherwise.  Up until that point, being "just" friends was more than enough for me, and I currently find myself yearning for commitment without romance and wishing that my platonic relationships were given as much weight as romantic ones.