When you get into a romantic relationship how often is it that you decide on this person first and then become a couple? or is it that you don’t even realize you are falling in love for this person and it somehow happens?

8 comments

1. this is a convoluted and confusing question.

   are you asking: “does love happen by accident, or do you have to plan it”?

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   it happens by accident. nobody plans for it. you can’t manage love like a project. it hits like a bolt of lightning, and it’s never like we imagined it.

2. I always approach intimacy with intention. It helps me to set and enforce personal boundaries and keeps me focused on what I want should I decide to pursue more.

3. I’ve never been in one

4. My wife and I just kind of feel in love. We started as friends with benefits, then started staying over, etc. One thing led to another, and here we are (Dec will be) 26 years later.

5. for me it always happened by chance where I picked up some cues that the person was attracted to me, and acted on them.

   other way around always is a cringe festival where I can’t convey my attraction correctly and they shut me down, so now I stopped putting these women on a pedestal and I just let it be.

6. You spend time with her and get to know each other and within that timeframe, some crucial moments happen where you slowly start to feel that she is special.

   You might share a belly laugh at the exact same, stupid thing. She might go out of her way to remember something you like and provide that for you. You might argue about something and realize that she is trying to understand you instead of winning. She might tell you something she is embarrassed about and it deeply resonates with you …. could be anything.

   Time increases the likelyhood of it happening, but it doesn’t make such thing a certainty. I have a friend who spent ten years with the same girl never going past surface level affection. And I met a girl once that so deeply touched me within one year that I won’t forget her untill my dying day.

7. I guess I can only ‘decide’ something like, wow I like this girl, let’s see if we can talk and find out there’s a chance she might like me too. It might as well happen that you know each other for a long time, but you’re not interested in being more than acquaintances/friends, and then it somehow grows into love, but I’ve never experienced this personally.

8. I would equate it as planting an unidentified seed. You have no idea what, if anything, will sprout. You hope for something beautiful. Then it will only grow if you put in the effort to water and fertilize it. If you don’t put any effort into it, likely you end up with weeds if anything. But sometimes no matter how much effort you put in, nothing grows.
   Sorry, my analogy went sideways there.

   Friendship first. If love develops, great. if not, you can still have a friend.