I also differentiate between friend and romantic love via "want to kiss" vs. "don't want to kiss," haha. but the sort of base feeling that they both share for me is, like, if I want to spend time with them and know what's going on in their life and help them out if they need it. that's all for pretty strong attachments, though; crushes and casual friends are just "want to be around." so I suppose the difference between the crushes I've had and the love I might be in is that the first is "want to be around and look at and mack on" and the second is "want to be around always and talk to always and look at always and keep from being hurt ever and also incidentally mack on." I just don't know if that's enough of a difference to count as love, or if I'll look back in twenty years and think, "haha oh man why did I think that silly little crush was such a big deal."
see...usually it's like, if I'm friends with someone and only want to be friends, I don't want to kiss them, but I'd be uncomfortable if they had a crush on me. if I'm romantically liking someone, I want to kiss them and date them, and I'm sad if they don't want to. but with alterous attraction, that middle in between thing, it's like "you could have a crush on me and I would be fine with dating you, but you could also just want to be my friend and I won't be sad." crushes and alterous attractions and romantic loves and friendships all fall under 'want to be around a lot, want to talk to, want to know what's going on in your life and help out if needed', but romantic love, strong friendships, and deep alterous love are the only ones with 'want to be around forever, want to have in my life always'. as for the rest of it, I think that thing you're experiencing that you think is love sounds like love to me. and whether it's enough of a difference, I mean, I'd think wanting to be with someone forever and always be around them is enough of a feeling to call it love.
thanks for your opinion! it makes me feel oddly reassured to hear that you think I'm classifying it correctly, even though it's ultimately irrelevant and tbh I think the object of my affections would just be uncomfortable if I told them I was in love with them. oh well.
I know that feeling. it can be reassuring just to know someone thinks you're right. and...I know the feel of 'object of my affections would be uncomfortable if I said I was in love with them'. I know that feel so well. sigh.
