Do you believe you can be in love with someone on a platonic level?

Love is a many sided thing. I love all of my friends. I wouldn’t bed them… but I do love them.

“In love” seems (to me) to be temporary sounding. I don’t like it.

Delerium- I agree. I don’t think I could be “in love” with someone platonicly. But I can love. Assuming I have any idea what love means.

I think we all know what love means, from the moment we’re born. Some people just forget.

you mean like having a platonic soul-mate? ;)
platonic means to not be sexually attracted to, and to be in love means, well, who the fuck knows.
sooo, to be in love but not want to have sex with someone i think is possible. depending on your own personal defintion of what it means to be in love.
hmm…

@delirium, thats deep.

I can’t take myself seriously with this avatar, though!

I guess I forgot, or overthought it.

There are quite a few people I love who I’m not sexually attracted to. All the same, I love them.

“Love is not a feeling, is an ability”

To me, being “in love” is an impermanent, passionate, but deep feeling state. You fall in love with romantic partners, and after a while the “in love” fades away but the love (and hopefully romance) stays.

But I think you can also fall “in love” with people you wouldn’t date. There have been a couple instances where I fell in love with a female friend. Neither of us were interested in each other as a romantic partner, but many of the feelings were the same: wanting to spend a lot of time with each other, lots of laughing and giddiness, thinking of them and smiling, making lots of eager plans for present and future. Over time, like with a romantic partner, those feelings faded and now we just love each other (or, in one instance, we aren’t really friends anymore. Which of course, sometimes happens in relationships, too, once the “in love” feelings fade away and you see you’re not really compatible.)

I think there are all forms of love. Philadelphia, agape. Yes, you can have a giddy, in love sort of thing and have it be platonic. I went through that once with a gay friend. As eadinad said so well, that phase does not last in any type of love.

eadinad, i agree. well, mostly. the only thing i feel differently about is that being in love has the ability to be permanent. i think it’s possible to meet someone so perfect for you in your eyes that you can stay in love with them for the time that you know them. i’ve heard old couples say that they’re still in love, etc. i’m sure that more often than not, the love fades, but i think the possibility is there for it to stay.

infatuated

And not attainable.

I believe it is possible. When I was 14, I platonically fell in love with my best friend. I didn’t want to have sex with her, and I didn’t feel threatened when she had boyfriends, but I had this feeling for her that I couldn’t explain. To this day, I wish we had not drifted apart.