Loving your friends is a common occurrence. Who doesn’t like their comrades who are always ready to help, who can cry in the shoulder and who have a great time? Of course, we love our friends.
How to distinguish friendship from courtship, sympathy, manifestations of romantic feelings?
But can you say with confidence that your feelings for a friend are not romantic? Sometimes platonic friendships are hard to distinguish from love, and vice versa: people take for love the strong friendship of two bosom friends.
If you doubt the feelings between you and your friend / girlfriend, it is worth considering and analyzing your relationship. Take your time to make hasty conclusions about your account. Let's talk in more detail about what the concepts of friendship and love are and how to distinguish them from each other. Perhaps you should go to a new level with your friend? Or is it not worth risking friendship, confusing it with romantic relationships?
Love and friendship, what is common between them?
Note, you would hardly become interested in the question: “How to understand whether it is friendship or love between you?” If you had no doubt about your feelings for a friend. If we talk about friendship between a guy and a girl, it is worth recognizing the sad truth: there is no lasting friendship between different sexes. One or both of them will one day think about how they really feel and whether their relationship continues.
The phenomenon of love and friendship are similar to each other, and we can safely say that they are components of each other. True friends love each other without showing romantic feelings, and their love lies in mutual respect and affection. Like lovers, they cannot exist without friendship between each other.
But not every couple is ready to cross the threshold of friendship and enter into a romantic relationship, there is a fear of losing a faithful companion or being refused.
So how to distinguish love from friendship, if they are so similar? This conclusion can be made: friendship includes spiritual intimacy, and relationships consist of aspects of friendship and physical attraction.
Let's look at the differences between these two phenomena to find out how to distinguish love from friendship.
Differences of feelings: sympathy for a potential opponent
Analyze your behavior next to your friend. This is a sure way to distinguish between friendship and love. How? Start with obvious signs of sympathy.
How do you react when your friend tells you about sympathy for another person, shows it with you?
If you are on friendly terms with this person, you will be glad to get acquainted with his choice, you will also help him build a happy relationship, if you will, because you wish him happiness and true pure love.
If you are in love, then jealousy will betray you. You are unlikely to like the object of his sympathy, but this does not mean that you do not wish him well. Just mentally, you already imagined it next to you, you are used to this thought, and your subconscious mind is at a loss: "How is it, because I am, why did you choose (not) me?" Jealousy is one of the main signals of your romantic feelings.
Behavior in his / her presence
Do you behave calmly in the presence of a friend or do you feel embarrassed with his appearance in your company?
In friendly relations with the advent of a comrade, you feel free, no matter in what condition you are, no matter how you look. With this person you are comfortable, even if you flaunt in a nightie, one slipper, disheveled, with a thermometer and a bucket for snot at the ready.
If you are still in love, you are doing your best to look better than you are. You care about your appearance, you worry about whether your friend will like your new jacket or hairstyle. You are embarrassed, receiving compliments from him, they cause you extraordinary feelings of joy and constraint.
Personal space
How to distinguish love from friendship? There is another obvious way. How do you feel when a friend is not around?
On friendly terms, you feel relaxed if you know that your friend is spending time with someone else. If you have not seen each other for several days, emotions will not unsettle you and will not deprive you of sleep.
But if you still fell in love with your friend, then your thoughts are probably occupied only by him alone, you want to meet more often and spend more time together. You miss your object of sympathy. You are in love.
Emotion
Emotions play an important role. If you are friends, you experience lightness, freedom, fun next to a friend. No dramas, only positive emotions.
But if you are in love, there may be quarrels between you. Did you think the other way around? Quarrels are not only a manifestation of mature love, but also an expression of love that has not found expression. Perhaps you are subconsciously trying to cover your sympathy with friendship, but you want reciprocity. Not meeting her, you become irritable, demanding in relation to your friend.
Habits and reaction
Your reaction to the habits, behavior and plans of a person can betray your attitude towards a friend. How to distinguish love from friendship, based on the habits of the suspected subject of sympathy?
If you are only friends, you do not blame the friend for his habits, accept him for who he is, and do not try to change him. You made friends with him like that and accept him like that, and his habits and behavior will not affect your life. Of course, you will advise your friend to quit smoking, but do not take it as close to your heart as a lover would do.
Of course, you are worried and wish your friend well, and even a truly unloving friend should make a scandal if your close friend does not want to quit addiction. This will be done by a man in love who hopes for the further development of relations with a person and is worried about his health. A lover can try to redraw a person at his discretion, which is less often seen with real friends.
Note that the lovers try to change themselves if a friend tells them what he does not like, wanting to please the object of sympathy.
Loving friend
If you have come to the conclusion that you are still in love, do not despair. Love is a wonderful feeling, better let's find out if it is mutual. You can watch your partner. Here's how to distinguish a man’s friendship from love? Based on this list, you can understand how your friend feels. Maybe it's time to talk to each other and move to a new level?
You can judge that your friend is sympathetic by points such as:
- your friend does not want to part with you and tries to spend more time together;
- your friend goes to a meeting with potential competitors during the parade;
- your friend is gallant with you, he will give a hand, move a chair, open the door;
- they are trying to pay for you;
- your name is to take a walk without company;
- you are always ready to help;
- it suddenly penetrates your music;
- a friend is silent about his personal life, and reacts sourly to stories about yours;
- they try to conduct you;
- love to chat with you.
This list can be endless, because each in his own way expresses his sympathy for the opposite sex, however, these are some of the most popular signs that they experience more than just friendship.
Focusing on these tips, you can distinguish love from friendship. We hope that this knowledge will be useful to you and your feelings will be mutual.
Analyze not only your manifestations of feelings for a friend, but also the relationship of a friend to you. Take a closer look at his behavior, how he communicates with you, how he reacts to you. Observing your relationship from the outside is the ideal way to help answer the question of how to distinguish friendship from love.