I am a social guy, talking to people comes quite natural to me. Therefore I make friends easily. I have had a ton of crushes and was also in love for a couple of times. However I have never had any relationship to speak of (I’m 25, btw), and I feel like I’m missing out on something.
When it comes to relationships I honestly don’t know how people do it. I don’t know what makes someone “like” someone else, safe for their appearance. Or how someone “starts” to see another as a romantic partner rather than platonic. I feel like I only know how to serve friendship. So how do people develop feelings for someone?
Yeah. What is love, really? A question people have pondered since the dawn of time.
There’s this societal expectation that things go a certain way. You know lots of people, make friends, become “more than friends” with some, “have feelings” for someone, date, stronger feelings, “fall in love”, and so on.
For some people love is very transactional. For some love is about passion. For some love is an infatuation. For some love is about practical compatibility, shared status, culture, and ideals. For some love is something that can only develop after years of marriage.
All of these are very different. None are right or wrong. They’re just narrow verbal explanations for a complex range of considerations both practical and emotional.
Honestly I think most people just follow the process of coupling with someone just because that’s what people do and life goes easier with a buddy.
I’m no master of romance, but my advice to you would be to just focus on building strong, close relationships with people in whatever form that might take, while being honest with them about what you can offer. In this context, honest doesn’t mean being abrupt and telling everyone you’re incapable of love, it just means not misleading people.