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?
For me - don’t take this as the norm - I find friends through gaming, we become good friends over time, I’ll progressively ‘lower my guard’ and, as part of this process, make more and more sexual jokes and innuendos. Depending on how they react, it might stay at ‘teehee I’m still 13 making pp jokes’, or it might advance to the ‘so I think you’re into some freaky shit, I’m into freaky shit, wanna bang?’ friends with benefits territory. If that goes okay, I’m almost certainly catching feelings, and thus ‘want to be a couple’ is the next step. A few shared or similar interests, or an interest in each other’s interests, is important too. Can’t be pounding like rabbits all the time…
Basically, I eat the desert first, and then have the main course. If we aren’t sexually compatable in some aspect, it is stupid to be dating, in my view. No need for hurt feelings or awkward breakups. And falling back to fwb is easy if we don’t work out for other reasons. Just because you like pet spiders and I want to light them on fire (eek) doesn’t mean that we can’t wake the neighbors with our moans and screams.