💖 Love isn’t just candlelit dinners and couple goals...
It’s your best friend’s late-night call.
It’s your pet’s happy dance.
It’s the joy of creating something you love.

✨ Go beyond romance and explore the spectrum of love that makes life meaningful.
👇 Swipe to see the 8 kinds of love we all need.
https://anshulbohre.com/blog
#BeyondRomance #LoveInEverydayLife #SelfLove #PlatonicLove #EmotionalWellness #Cloud82 #anshulbohre #anshulbohare #cloud82 #Boost_Your_Technology_Partner

Why couldn't the mineral water ever get a Valentine? All of his friendships were so pla-tonic. 💧❤️ #ValentinesDay #PlatonicLove
Lavender marriages: Why young people are now pining for platonic love

As the word of dating becomes more bleak and the loneliness crisis continues, could gay men and straight women shacking up be the answer?

Dazed

Aromantic folks, come to my rescue!

Here's the deal... as usual, I'm baffled by the distinction between romantic love and platonic love.

Oh, I'm polyamorous, which I'm sure is a factor in how I see relationships.

I'm a "go with the flow" enby when it comes to relationships. I don't want to force anyone into any pattern. There's no relationship elevator. If a partner and I both agree to move in together, great, but I don't want to pressure someone into this.

So it seems to me that I'm being intimate with some of my *friends*, and all my loves are platonic.

I can absolutely love and adore people, but it does not mean that I want to put them on a "relationship elevator."

I used to think:

* I'm romantically involved with the people I have sex with.

* I'm platonically involved with
all other relations.

I'm starting to think it's all platonic, but there are some people in the group I do have sex with and some I don't.

I don't know if I'm making sense. 😂

#aromantic #polyamory #love #adoration #RomanticLove #PlatonicLove #RelationshipElevator

Episode eighteen is up now! Today's song is Hug All Your Friends by Cavetown.

I discuss my appreciation for media about platonic love, and the many different versions of this song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epzuiaWGHmE

#podcast #dailypodcast #pigeon #pigeonsongspod #music #songs #cavetown #animalkingdom #hugallurfriends #friends #friendship #love #platoniclove

Hug All Ur Friends - Pigeon's Song of the Day (16/05/2024)

YouTube
What do you lovely folks on the fediverse think of this idea; you and three or more of your friends have the opportunity to platonically snuggle and cuddle in a giant bed? Like, pushing together a king and a queen sized bed or two kings, etc. Boost to help this zip around the #fediverse and get as many folks to vote as possible.   #polls #silly #cuddles #SnuggleBuddies #snuggle #PlatonicLove #affection #Friendship
A great idea!
71.7%
I'm neutral on this idea.
16.7%
I hate this idea
8.3%
Other (post in the comments if you're comfortable)
3.3%
Poll ended at .

I think it's overdue that I tell you all these good news about my mental health.

But first a look back:
In summer 2019 I fell in love platonically. She reminded me a lot of my first love, a girl I was happily friends with for about two years and then got a depression after she found out I loved her and the friendship changed.
All the good and especially the bad feelings from the end of that past friendship came back immediately the first day I met the new woman. It was love at first sight but at first it wasn't even sure if the feelings were really for her or caused by the memory of my first love.
Anyway we became good friends, but the good and bad feelings stayed and by the end of the year I had developed a heavy depression, which stayed for over 4 years.
I won't go into detail about how bad it was (you can find some previous mh- posts on my profile, that haven't been auto deleted), because I want to keep this post (and the cw) positive.

Besides my depression I was diagnosed with social phobia and 3 personality disorders (dependent, avoidant and emotionally unstable). Btw dependent personality disorder has nothing to do with alcohol or other drugs, but, at least for me, with being dependent on other people, or another person.

The past 4 years were awful, but last summer it already got a lot better: I finally got over her. The depression didn't end, but it freed my mind and at least I got somewhat stable (except for one slip up). What remained though was my avolition, which actually had to get worse before it got better.
For a few months I couldn't get myself to do anything, not even post in the Fediverse. I didn't even touch my computer, let alone leave the house. All I did was play Pokemon on my Switch console and some really numb games on my phone, but only for short periods at a time, because I couldn't even motivate me to keep doing that.
I guess I had to reach rock bottom regarding my drive to then go upwards from there.

Mid January I started my computer again and did at least a few relatively meaningful things a day. Than a while later, still in January, I seem to have found a motivation-switch and started doing a fitness routine, which I still do daily. Being physically active motivated me to be more active in other ways too and that changed my mood completely. For about two weeks I described my mood as above average, which was probably because of the updraft. Now I'd say its average, which I'm totally fine with in my current situation.

My therapist got me thinking, if maybe my other diagnoses were just side effects of the depression, which could well be true:

About the social phobia: I now have a nice conversation with a (relative) stranger every day while dog walking. I feel a lot more confident while talking to other people, because I don't have such an abysmal self worth. And many people notice the change.

About the personality disorders: They say you cannot heal a personality disorder, only learn to live with it, but I don't think that's whats happening right now. I bet if I did a comprehensive diagnostic process like I did a few years ago I'd still have results that indicate similar differences in the personality from "the norm", but much less drastic. "Personality traits" instead of personality disorders.

I just definitely have a pathological psychic reaction when I fall in love and I can no longer keep my personality traits in check.
But I believe I'm much better equipped even for such situations than I was before and I mainly thank my new (since one year) therapist for that (deep psychoanalysis).

I don't want to jinx it, but if my situation stays like this for a while, I'm fine with that and I'll soon consider myself healed from the depression.

Sure there is lots of things that can still be improved: I have no money, job or education and no real plan about changing any of that. I have very few friends and generally no social net (which I really should have so when it comes to it, I won't put all my hopes and dreams into one person again and become extremely dependent).
And I actually wouldn't mind a sort of partnership for the first time in my life either. E.g. a queerplatonic relationship sounds nice.

#MentalHealth #GoodNews #positivity #depression #NotJustSad #LoveSickness #PlatonicLove #QueerPlatonic #love #friendship #SocialPhobia #SocialAnxiety #PersonalityDisorder #PersonalityDisorders #avolition #spoons #motivation #PsychoTherapy #PsychoAnalysis #DeepPsychology

romance? no thank you. this is why platonic love is so important and it makes me sad adults and older kids are not expected to do the Valentine's Day thing where you go around giving your friends cards in their collection boxes for fun. romance and the other thing often but not always associated with it is the last thing i'd want.

#romance #ValentinesDay #PlatonicLove