Can you have feelings for someone you don’t love?

I guess it depends on how precious you are with the word “love.” Someone who uses it casually might be comfortable using it any time they feel romantic affection for someone. Someone who reserves the word for particularly strong or important romantic affections, on the other hand, would probably recognize a whole slew of steps between initial romantic attraction and love, all of which could be characterized as “having feelings” for the target of those affections.

As for your second question, having feelings for someone is not the same thing as lust. You can be romantically attracted to someone without wanting to have sex with them. Plenty of people who are asexual but not aromantic experience this all the time. It’s easy to conflate romantic and sexual attraction because the two often go together. But they don’t have to go together, and they are two different things that can be distinguished from one another.

Infatuation maybe. Its natural to have feelings for those you have feelings for. Acting on it takes judgment and insight.

Love is not equal to lust. Lust is free, abundant and is fleeting. Love takes a lot of work, is rare and when things go right can last a lifetime. The key to knowing the difference is for it to be love the lust continues day after day, year after year and when it eventually leaves you still want to be with that person.

Can you have feelings for someone you don’t love?
Yes. Love and feelings are not the same thing.

Is [having] feelings for someone, the same thing as lust?
No. There are many feelings other than lust. And, lust is just possible category of types of romantic attraction, which can be very different feelings and be about very different things, and lust is usually very different from romantic and/or personal attraction (in my experience anyway), even if some people naturally often get them confused.

Yes, it’s possible.

It is very easy to love someone without being “in love” with them!!! It’s even easier to lust after someone without having any feelings of love for them!!!

I have loved many a friend in my lifetime; yet, I had NO desire to spend the rest of my life with them & was unable to give totally of myself. When I met my husband, the love that I felt was an insanely deep love. where his happiness was far more important to me than my own. Fortunately, he felt the same for me so it was a win/win where we became best friends for life. I have a closer relationship with the friends that I love than I do with the friends that I only care about aka acquaintances. Lust is usually a sexual desire which doesn’t even require that you like them…only want them. Love is an emotional reaction where lust is a physical reaction.

We are taught from a young age that we have nothing if we don’t love. My life’s experiences has taught me just the opposite. I spent the first half of my life looking for love so I could be happy. I offered my love to many thinking it would bring happiness. What I learned is that it does NOT matter how much you love them….IF they don’t love you back then you have NOTHING!!! Lust is more of an immediate, short term gratification. Love is where you care deeply. Being “in love” is where you love deeply.

it’s hard to explain or understand until you have experienced it; so I hope some of this makes sense!!!