Did y'all ever have crushes?

[Helion]

It sounds paradoxical, but hear me out.

I am aromantic and don't feel any romantic attraction at all, but the main reason why it took me so long to realise what seems so obvious in hindsight is the fact that I did have a crush once in my life, actually. It was during early puberty, I crushed so hard on that one bad boy in school for like no reason. Thinking back it's so peculiar tbh. There was this guy I hardly knew, which looked kinda attractive to me and I was pretty obsessed with him, he took up looots of my brain space and I just became really silly around him, trying my darn hardest to look good, be funny and get closer to him, which was painfully obvious to my friends, who teased me about it, but for some reason even tho they were the closest ppl I had I just couldn't admit it to them because I was so embarrassed and flustered to hell and back for no reason.

One day I just stopped having a crush on that guy and that was sorta the end of my romance career- I developped to be aromantic in the end and here I am.

What are your guys experience's with crushes? It doesn't matter where you are on the aro spectrum, feel free to talk about it!

[opal]

This happened to me too during middle school(around 6th grade). It has always confused me because now I can't tell if I made it up to be like everyone else or if I actually had a crush on him. 

[dewy]

I fall somewhere in the gray area so I have crushes but it's definitely different from how alloromantics experience it. One of the best examples of this for me is how I was talking to my coworker and discovered she had similar interests. So I developed a bit of a crush on her until she mentioned she had a boyfriend and it disappeared. This was all in about 20 minutes, too.

So that's how it is for me currently. I definitely also had crushes growing up, probably a mix of genuine crushes and "well, everyone else is doing it so I guess I have to pick one too". In elementary school, I had a bunch of crushes but I have no idea how real they were. Even then, I feel like I knew deep down I was different. It seemed like everyone was really into romance and "dating" but I didn't understand it, I just picked out some "crushes" on people I thought were cool to fit in.

Not sure what was going on in elementary school, but I think I only developed actual romantic feelings when I got to middle school. I had the biggest crush on this guy for a while, then I lost interest. He started to get on my nerves, and also said he had a crush on another girl. I remember him confessing to her, then my best friend who knew about my crush checked in on me to see if I was ok, and I just went yeah I'm fine I don't care, I don't even have a crush on him anymore.

I think I'm just way less invested in my crushes than a lot of alloromantic people. Never understood when they would talk about crushes like they're all consuming and they just have to get together with them. For me, crushes are like, well it'd be nice to date them, but I'm also fine with just being friends, since there's not too much of a difference between friendships and romantic relationships in my mind.

Edited October 26, 2023 by dewy

[TrueEvergreen]

I don't really know if I ever actually had a crush, I know I thought I did, but idk if that was real attraction or not. 

[Helion]

On 10/25/2023 at 3:17 AM, opal said:

This happened to me too during middle school(around 6th grade). It has always confused me because now I can't tell if I made it up to be like everyone else or if I actually had a crush on him. 

That's something lotta aspec people experience for obvious reasons! 

I'm pretty convinced my crush was genuine, though. I wasn't feeling pushed to or even really faced with the topic of relationships and crushes, etc. much at all and thinking back I don't understand my behavior at all. Seriously, it feels like I was some kinda clown, desperately trying to appeal to that random dude because I was weirdly obsessed with him haha. 

It's just interesting to me because yeah, during your development your way of attraction can very much change, so it's okay to experiment with labels if that's your way of discovering yourself.

And it's also incredibly hilarious that as an aro person I also heard the generic "It's just a phase, you will find your true love someday, yada yada" talk occasionally when in reality being alloromantic was just a phase for me lmaoo

[alto]

In middle school, I had a huge crush on this one cis girl who barely knew I existed.  When I got a bit older, I crushed on this other cis girl who knew I existed.  I thought she wasn't interested though.

[Bellu]

On 10/24/2023 at 2:56 AM, Helion said:

It sounds paradoxical, but hear me out.

I am aromantic and don't feel any romantic attraction at all, but the main reason why it took me so long to realise what seems so obvious in hindsight is the fact that I did have a crush once in my life, actually. It was during early puberty, I crushed so hard on that one bad boy in school for like no reason. Thinking back it's so peculiar tbh. There was this guy I hardly knew, which looked kinda attractive to me and I was pretty obsessed with him, he took up looots of my brain space and I just became really silly around him, trying my darn hardest to look good, be funny and get closer to him, which was painfully obvious to my friends, who teased me about it, but for some reason even tho they were the closest ppl I had I just couldn't admit it to them because I was so embarrassed and flustered to hell and back for no reason.

One day I just stopped having a crush on that guy and that was sorta the end of my romance career- I developped to be aromantic in the end and here I am.

What are your guys experience's with crushes? It doesn't matter where you are on the aro spectrum, feel free to talk about it!

ive actually been going through the same situation 

throughout my first 6 years of school i had 2 crushes

the first one was as crushy as a 3rd grader could crush

the second,i made up in my head and at some point it spiraled into my reality

i had a bunch of mini crushes but realalisticly dont think they counted as anything more than asthetics 

anyway there a bunch of reasons why this may have happened to you

-trauma

-grew out of it

-insane hormones

-asthetics

-make belive

personaly i belive my transfermation from lovey straight boy to loveless husk 

was because of  insane hormones when i began getting older,make belive,asthetics,growing out of it,religious pressure,and fear of the possibility of being teased about it

 

[Collie]

I thought I had a crush or two in elementary school when I was a kid, but looking back I think I just assumed they were crushes cuz I just happened to have friendship feelings for someone of the opposite sex. I "liked" a boy, so it had to be a crush right? Wrong.

But I have had a couple crushes. They are rare. I also don't want to date anyone.

[Synthetic Adrenaline]

For me it isn't that I don't have them it's that a) I'm a big ol introvert and relationships quickly just get to feel too much like people-time and b) I'm very pragmatic and not too feelings-oriented. I see love as simply a hormone rush and I don't really take it any more seriously than I do when I feel my adrenal glands producing adrenaline after drinking a can of Red Bull. 

IDK. There are 8 billion people on the planet. The idea of seeing just one as special and having a relationship with them just seems a bit silly. They're a human who burps and farts and makes mistakes like anybody else.

[CanadianBird]

Yeah.

[MondoBilby]

9 hours ago, Synthetic Adrenaline said:

For me it isn't that I don't have them it's that a) I'm a big ol introvert and relationships quickly just get to feel too much like people-time and b) I'm very pragmatic and not too feelings-oriented. I see love as simply a hormone rush and I don't really take it any more seriously than I do when I feel my adrenal glands producing adrenaline after drinking a can of Red Bull. 

IDK. There are 8 billion people on the planet. The idea of seeing just one as special and having a relationship with them just seems a bit silly. They're a human who burps and farts and makes mistakes like anybody else.

Dude you literally took the words outta my mouth, I pretty much feel the exact same way (except I don't have crushes). Having a couple friends is enough for me, I don't need anything more than that. 
 

That last part you wrote is especially funny to me. It's so funny when you see someone absolutely head over heels for someone else, calling them "perfect" and stuff like that, and then you look at that person and they're just...really regular. Like, there's really nothing special about them at all. Makes me wonder how and why romantic feelings even start in the first place.

[Rinpochard]

I had an alterous kinda crush on a total stranger at my school because we had some shared interests. Never spoke a word to them though. That actually helped me realize I am aro: the one time I had a "crush" I didn't even want to date them

[Oko]

I was "in love" but I'm not sure if call it "crush". It was always someone who was interesting about me (not just one person), and I started to love him. He wanted to date with me and I was like: Why not?🤷‍♀️ In the beginning it was nice, but then it ended and it was relief for me.

I have never had "butterflies" or what, I just loved him, like if you love your parents/siblings... For me it's the same.

But I don't want to be in love/relationship anymore😃