Love or friendship? Understand how you feel about him!Loving someone well and being in love are two different feelings that can be confused during different stages of life. Even in long-term dating, but that the passion ends and the affection and friendship remains, it is difficult to realize that the current feeling is not the same as it was at the beginning of the relationship.
In the case of unrequited loves, it can be very incomprehensible to someone who perceives a protective and caring behavior in the loved one, to hear from them that there is nothing but friendship. The different types of love make the feeling very confusing, both to understand their own emotions and to discover what the other is feeling.
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Time is the surest way to understand the differences between feeling affection for someone and wanting to spend your life with someone. However, although the feeling is confusing and difficult to decipher, some behaviors deliver what is really behind the good intentions.
Wanting someone’s happiness can mean two types of feelings: a brotherly love or a still immature passion. Regardless of the category in which the feeling fits, wishing someone well is always a show of true love. Discover the four main differences between loving someone as a friend and loving as a life partner:
- Love with and without jealousy
Jealousy is a characteristic that can be present in both forms of feeling, but the way it manifests itself is very different between those who want the person well and those who really love them. The person you like as a friend may feel jealous of attention, become uncomfortable if they see that someone else’s friendship is being valued more, or if they discover they’ve been excluded from a potentially fun ride.
However, when the feeling is deep of someone you love as a boyfriend, jealousy can appear with the simple company of a person of the opposite sex. To imagine that there is someone special in the life of the loved one is reason enough to lose nights of sleep.
- Jealousy can present itself in different degrees, giving rise to six types. Discover yours!
However, jealousy is something that appears on several levels, from simple annoyance to a symptom of obsessive people. There are also those who love, as a friend or boyfriend, and do not feel jealous, because the feeling appears according to the level of self-confidence and belief in others.
- Different types of protection
People who love are usually protective because no one wants to see their loved one suffering or in danger. However, the need to protect others is one of the ways that deliver the nature of feeling. Whoever is in love thinks a lot about the person he likes, worries and acts with the slightest indication that something is wrong.
Photo: (c) Can Stock Photo
When love is a friend, there is no daily concern for others and the protective instinct appears only in certain situations. After a meeting in which he was left to send a message when he got home, but he didn’t, for example. These are specific situations that induce a possible tension and the need to know if the other is well and out of danger.
- Need to be close
One of the simplest feelings of those in love, the need to be close is almost a thermometer that identifies the real intentions of the heart. When love is the same feeling as couples, the person can often feel lonely and, along with loneliness, the feeling of wanting to share good times with the likes appears. It is common to want to see every day, to be as close as possible and to know about the other person’s life, even though at first this seems like normal behavior among friends. (Eight signs that you feel like him)
Liking someone as a friend also makes people want to be close and enjoy time together. However, there is no need to always see and friends can go for days without meeting or giving news. In true friendships, nothing changes even if the two go months without speaking, because the feeling is already consolidated in both parts.
- Internal desires
Desires that indicate how a person sees another person can remain hidden for a long time, making it difficult to identify what they feel. There is no such feeling among friends, but among people who have known each other for a long time and are experiencing the beginning of a passion, this will may be masked.
When friendship starts to become confused with passion, it is common that at first the two deny the feeling and avoid feeling desire for each other. Any indication of passion is masked by the disbelief and shame of seeing someone so intimate in this way. (How to differentiate friendship from being in love?)
In the case of long-standing loves that have become beautiful friendships, the opposite occurs, the desire disappears, but people keep trying to revive it, until they realize that it is not enough. This characteristic is often the deciding factor that clears the minds of people confused by their own feelings. However, finding out whether there really is a desire or not is a question that only time can bring a definitive answer.
