What is this?

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Ok boys and girls, it’s long story time.

About a year ago, a new girl, whom we’ll call S, joined our choir. We got on well and after a few weeks she offered to give me lifts back to my flat because we lived only a few streets away from each other at the time – we were in the early stages of friendship. At this point I made two mistakes, both of which were out of character for me. The first was that I asked her if she had a boyfriend. This is not a strange question to me as I find it interesting to talk about relationships, but it was unusual for me to ask it within only a few weeks of knowing somebody. It didn’t seem to faze her, but still. The second mistake was when she suggested that we could go round to each others’ flats and watch movies together (obviously just as friends). I could feel an emotional push to be with her, and the possibility that I’d fall in love with her if I spent any real time with her. I panicked, and started holding her emotionally at arms’ length – not as in avoiding her, but I locked away my heart and didn’t open up to her as much as I would with an ordinary friend. I never did anything with her outside choir (apart weekly from post-rehearsal drinks), and our friendship gained a level of superficiality on my side. We’ve talked often enough on Facebook, and got to know each other that way too, but that’s not ‘real’ socialising as such. Nevertheless, we are ‘good’ friends otherwise. Fast forward to January this year, she moved out of her flat to the other side of town, and I lost the option of seeing her more than two days a week.

Fast forward again to just over a week ago. I invited S and a work colleague to see a Saturday night performance of Bernstein’s Candide which we all thoroughly enjoyed. In invited S partly because I wanted to and partly because everybody else was likely already committed to other things that weekend. When I got home, I realised I’d been a total fool. For over a year, S had demonstrated that I could trust her, and if I did open up then things were going to be fine. I messaged her on Facebook about it and she pointed out how silly I’d been, and that she enjoyed our friendship. I decided that the following rehearsal (Thursday) I’d try and open up a bit and maybe before then examine how I really felt about her as a person. Cue one week of the biggest crush ever; I did the smart thing and didn’t tell her. By Saturday afternoon it finally blew itself out, leaving me tired, frustrated, and feeling as if my emotions had been nuked: suddenly I felt nothing at all. Then, yesterday evening, something interesting happened.

As another friend drove me home from the pub (he had to pick up his son from near where I lived) I felt that maybe not everything had been destroyed, and there was this little piece of something which had somehow survived the crush’s hydrogen bomb. I realised I was comfortable with the idea of telling people I really loved S, something which I’d not felt comfortable about all of last week. There was a stable feeling of certainty about it, and I fell asleep pretty happy. Then, it all went wrong. I woke up this morning, and S wasn’t the first thought on my mind. I wasn’t so confident about saying that I really loved her, and by now I don’t know HOW I feel about her. I mean, I still like her as a friend, and I still feel that there’s something extra that survived the emotional holocaust, but while I still want to be with her I don’t...I suppose I don’t feel any of the classic symptoms of actual love which people who’ve been in relationships talk about.

The confusing thing is that we’re a good match. She makes me laugh, we get on really well, we have the same values, she is a really lovely person by any standards, she makes me feel confident and when I don’t she knows exactly the right thing to say, and by her very personality she forces me to be myself with her, even if I don’t want to be. She brings out the silly, immature, comic and...’interesting’ side of my personality (which is a reasonable match for hers) and, as one of my friends (married with kids and knows both of us well) put it, “You’d make a great couple being both er, delightfully eccentric.” That is a great description of her, at least, but overall it’s like a job application where the CV ticks all the boxes, but something indefinable is missing.

So, at the end of this, I don’t really understand what’s happening. I don’t understand why I was so stable and sure last night and now I feel confused (I wasn’t even tipsy at the pub). What is this?

I have no idea (not a great help, I know)
I do not get the "fall in love" emotion at all, just the steady love one (don't ask me about the transition period between like and love). These two words are different words, in my language. I am not sure that the alle people differentiate these two, for me they are wastly different.

Sorry, not a lot of help.

That's okay. I think part of the problem is I've never felt 'real' love before, so I have no personal reference point.

Interesting, so we are absolutely opposites in that respect

I suppose so. Because I haven't felt real love before, I can't differentiate between "like" and "love". As in, I can't say "When I feel X I feel 'like' and when I feel Y I feel 'love'". I know what a crush feels like, and I know that what I felt last night was not that, and it was also kind of steady and certain, but that's all I can tell. Other than that it's all rather academic. But then, if what I felt last night was real love, surely I'd still feel the same way today?

I am not quite sure of all my feelings on this one, just loved one person, and he just left me.
But I know that for me the transition period between like/attraction (could be biological thing withe pheromones etc.) and love is quite long. I will have to know and trust that special person. I am deeply attatched to the point that I can not imagine a life without him. Doing things for another person, even though I do not gain from it myself..

No, difficult to explain, I never had to explain it before, guess I lack the words to describe it. But it has something to do with attatchment and trust, not just lust or sex (even though it is nice ) Love is steady, but has it´s ups and downs as well. But there is an underlying feeling that this is the right person, that you want to be with, regardless of the ups and downs.

Love for ones own children is different, much more unconditional

Thanks for the clarification. In that case it would be "like". I wasn't at the point of not being able to imagine a life without her, but it was different from the feeling of a crush. It certainly wasn't lust, because it was a personality attraction, rather than a physical one. Still don't quite get why it wasn't the same today, though. Maybe others here can explain what happened on that point?