Can't feel love?

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It takes a bit to get to the point, but I wanted to explain my process.

I've been very troubled over the past 12 hours due to a conversation I had with my roommate regarding our future plans. There is a possibility that he may eventually move out (we are moving to California in a month and he has just expressed his intentions to return here in a year or two). This upset me greatly.

1. He expressed on multiple occasions that he thought we were well suited and should remain roommates for many, many years, if not forever. I've been operating with this as fact for some time now.
2. Any issues of return (for example, family and friends left behind) were discussed previously. Had a limitation for his stay been brought up in the many conversations, I would have declined to move at all, as I am the one accepting the job and will be unable to move back if he does. I was happy as things were.

So, I tried to move past those frustrations and examine what was troubling me so deeply.

I discovered that I am a very lonely man. I can occupy my own private space for hours and days and be happy (alone), but living with a friend (even having a friend) has provided great comfort. I've thrived. Again, I love being alone; this is different. If I'm stuck in California and he moves away, I will feel lonely. I examined these thoughts very carefully to see if I feared abandonment, but discovered I did not.

I then wondered why I felt so lonely if I did not feel abandoned. Couldn't I just work incredibly hard at making another friend? Statistically, I have best friends who lasts about 4 years before they end up moving away. My duration with Jeff is nearly done. It's not that I can't make another friend; it's that I have no use for casual friends, only close friends, and close friends are more like family, because I feel love and affection for them.

However, I have been used in the early stages of testing friend candidates. It takes months to gauge through actions whether they are genuine and benevolent. I think part of my difficulty lies in my inability to catch insincerity on their parts, so I have to judge each person the hard way. When I can trust them, I can start building affection for them. This is a very lengthy process that is full of painful mistakes each time I try to seek a friend.

Once the friendship is established through action, I can see in their behavior and hear in their words that they love me in return (I form sibling-bonds with my friends). As I feel affection for them, I am further able to support their assertion in my thoughts. It is a pleasant thought, knowing one is loved.

However (and I come to the point here), I cannot "feel" that I am loved. This extends to all persons in my life . . . my very loving parents, my cats, my dear friends . . . I only know it, but there is no emotion or feeling to support the thought. This contributes to my loneliness and frustration because when I am not actively engaging with a friend, I become less able to form positive thoughts based on behavior, and I have no activation of emotion to assuage me. This makes solitude become loneliness.

Is love (received) a feeling? I know that I feel love that I give.

I'm not sure, I always assumed it was natural to feel loved by knowing it. I never have been of the mind that knowing you're loved always triggers some sort of deep emotion. Its comforting, its nice.. and for me thats it.