There are so many different ways to love people, and I feel that many, many people mistake any form of love or attachment to another person as something romantic. Like I've said in another post, I love all of my friends dearly, whether they are male or female, but I have no romantic interest in them. Most of them feel the same way toward me - there is love and a level of devotion to each other and the group of friends as a whole, but they are able to separate romantic love from the love that we can each feel for our friends and those we adopt as our brothers and sisters.
With that being said, I'm also fairly certain I have a male friend who doesn't view things the same way I do. It's very upsetting because I am trying to figure out a way to talk to him about it in such a way that I won't hurt him any more than is possible and still maintain his friendship. If that is possible.
I can understand where many of you are coming from in saying that if someone loves you then you will love them back. I also know that sometimes there is not enough love, or at least the right kind of love, to enable you to be more than content with a relationship. I know that I want more than content - I know I can have more than content. And so... I'm going to end up hurting a good friend for the chance of something better for myself. It hurts, but I also have to try to remember that he would not be happy if he knew that I wanted something more that was not possible for either of us if we were to be in a relationship.
Mind you, this is only a renewal of something I had felt years ago and lost. I was okay with being content, with not having anything more than someone who loved me, maybe not even more than as a friend himself, because that was all I thought myself capable of. I'm not only able/willing, but need to search and find that something more. Which means telling my friend something he does not want to hear. :sad: