Just Creepin'

I might have controversial opinions on the "Faerghus Four." Mostly that it doesn't exist, and at worst, it exists to exclude Dedue.

Yes, Dimitri, Ingrid, Sylvain, and Felix grew up together, but that was as children. While that history is significant to their relationships, it ignores everything after. With the tragedy of Duscur, Dimitri and Dedue became inseparable while Felix was sickened by them, Ingrid couldn't overlook Dedue's connection to the tragedy, and Sylvain's apathy grew.

It's likely that Glenn had some of his own friends closer to his age at the Academy or in the Knights, but he was inextricably bonded with the other Four. The way Felix talks about him, we can assume they were actually pretty close as brothers despite their age gap. The way Dimitri talks, we know that he thought of Glenn as a friend more than a mere bodyguard (as we see him behave with Dedue as well) and can assume that Glenn returned the feeling. Ingrid, of course, despite her youth was still invested in the romance and security of her engagement to Glenn, and it seems that Glenn treated her with fondness and protectiveness even though she wasn't old enough for a real relationship yet. Sylvain doesn't talk about Glenn as much, and when he does it's more about how his friends have more "right" to be grieved over Glenn's death... but I definitely think Sylvain is hiding more of his own grief than he lets on, and he was also bonded with Glenn.

Of course, Glenn's death affected them all differently, but the end result was all four of them pulling away and the dissolution of the Faerghus Five friend group. Felix just went full social isolation basically, threw himself into training and ignored his friends—probably because he felt like he couldn't handle watching them grieve, too. He already had enough to deal with from his parents and the way they talked about Glenn. Dimitri had lost so many people right around that time, and he had every right to fall apart, but the one thing that kept him at least sorta together was investing in the new person in his life: Dedue. Ingrid might not have pulled away on purpose, but she had her own grief and all her worries about what kind of new husband she'd end up with, and those weren't things that she could talk about with the grieving preteen boys that were her remaining friends, so she didn't. Sylvain, while it's a more subtle shift, just kind of let them all go. Threw himself into his womanizing reputation instead. The Faerghus Five crumbled when they lost Glenn, and they never took the chance to establish a dynamic as a Four. And like OP said, the other three didn't make the effort to accept Dedue yet, so they couldn't become Five yet.

Which brings us to the Officer's Academy and Azure Moon. It's the first time in years that the Four have been around each other for any extended period of time. I won't go through analyzing every combination of support chains here, but suffice it to say that there is an overall trend of "we used to be such close friends" turning into "let's be friends again" and finally "I'm glad I have you back." But you also have to take these conversations alongside the support chains everyone has with Dedue. Dimitri will not abandon Dedue, even for his other friends, and the other three have to learn to accept Dedue as part of Dimitri's life. Dedue supports them all and becomes a part of the new group dynamic.

I love my partners in a committed way. I show up. I take care of them. I care about them as my dear friends. I don’t know if that’s in love tho. And I don’t think I’ll ever actually know.

1. The seven different types of love defined by the Ancient Greeks.

(This is the article I found on the first page of Google, but feel free to find your own research!)

Of particular note is the differences between "passionate" love, "playful" love, and "committed" love. They are not mutually exclusive, and in fact often coexist or change over time!

2. There are various terms in modern language as well! It's common to call it "falling in love" like OP mentioned, or "honeymoon phase" or on to things like "smitten" or "infatuated" but my favorite is the more specific term "limerence."

(I first learned about limerence from S1E15 of Adam Ruins Everything: Adam Ruins Weddings which is a little hard to find now that it's off Netflix, but if you have access to TruTV or anywhere else to watch it, I highly recommend it!)

In the meantime, I found this other article about it as well:

The main two things to note about limerence are A: limerence is kind of obsessive and blinds you to a lot of things, while giving you often physiological responses that reinforce the feeling with things like "butterflies in my stomach" or "I think about you all the time" but also point B: limerence is ALWAYS a temporary feeling! So if you've confused and equated limerence with "true love" in your head, in our societal views, then you're going to think that the end of those limerence feelings means the end of love. But it isn't! If limerence is done correctly, it changes and grows into a more long-term committed kind of love that loses the creepy drawbacks and is more stable.

What this means for aromanticism is, of course, up to each individual aro person to figure out how much this matters to them. It may be that you feel some types of love, even some of the "couple-y" ones, but not other types. So it's perfectly okay (and arguably kind of advantageous) to not experience limerence, but to still end up with that long-term commitment love. And you can still identify with the aromantic label and community, since that's still something different than what alloromantic people feel and what the media represents. It could mean that some of the sub-categories and microlabels in the aro umbrella might be more accurate, but each individual aro person can decide if those feel more useful and/or comfortable.

Personally, as someone who identifies as both aromantic and asexual, I experience neither lust nor limerence, and I also don't get crushes. My platonic love still has the capacity to grow into committed love, but it takes a long time with mutual effort and understanding.

I’m actually kind of curious about this. I think that those are the main 7 ways, but lmk if there are any others.

When I was in my early teens, I thought I was "just a late bloomer" as my family said. I'd been late for my adult teeth and puberty, so it seemed okay. Except that there were kids younger than me, like 9 years old, who had a better grasp of which celebrities were hot, meanwhile I couldn't even wrap my head around the concept of a "crush". Later research would teach me that kids can start being curious about sex even several years before puberty, although when I was that age I did not know that, I did not pay attention to that, and I was not curious. None of it mattered to me yet.

By my late teens, I had started to wonder when that "bloom" would ever kick in, what was wrong with me that I'd never gone on a date or had a first kiss, and around 16 I started to try to fake it. First date, first kiss, first relationship, even some surprisingly steamy PDA that made my classmates think we were actually doin' it behind closed doors. But I couldn't really fathom why people drew that parallel between making out at the high school quad and having wild teenage sex. Seemed like such a leap to me. Sex was just so NOT even tempting. I would later refer to this era as my "ace version of a hormonal horny teenager" since I did actually enjoy some aspects of the physicality of makeouts and the attention of being a couple, but without my teenage hormones or the high school social structure, I didn't really miss it afterwards.

Even by the age of 20, I was mostly faking my way through the few dates and relationships that I tried. I would mention being a virgin, and people would say things like "really? but you're attractive enough!" and I would give some lame line about "I'm waiting for the intersection of the right time, right place, right person." I wasn't entirely lacking in opportunities in my early twenties, but I sure did lack interest. I also met more LGBT+ friends around this time, and actually learned that asexuality is a thing.

At first, I was hesitant to use the ace label. Or the aromantic label, as I was also learning about. That whole "you'll find The One someday" mantra that we're all raised with is pretty tough to shake off because... what if? Not to mention, it's one thing to notice a distinct same-sex attraction and figure out that you're gay/lesbian/bi/etc. But defining a LACK of something is... well, it's inherently hard to define an absence without knowing what the presence is. If you had never seen a light before, could you define what "darkness" looks like? Would you know darkness when you saw it? When it's all you've ever seen? Or you'd only occasionally seen glimpses of dim lights, and you weren't sure if those were maybe your mind playing tricks on you, or if that really is the "light" everyone is talking about, it's just actually dim and kind of lame? I didn't know what I was supposed to be looking for, or looking for the absence of. But what I did know, is that I was feeling increasingly more comfortable the more I surrounded myself with people in the growing queer community.

Long story short, it took me a few years of consideration, into my mid-twenties, before I started actually using the ace and aro labels to self-identify. And pretty quickly after that, I started considering myself openly uncloseted about it, too, since it's so much easier for my life when I help spread information and awareness. I can say to my friend "I'm ace and I don't care who you tell" and later some schmuck asks my friend "hey I have a crush, do you think I should ask them out" and my friend can be like "lol no" before it even reaches a point where I have to shoot someone down. In that and other ways, the ace (and aro) label is actually useful to enhance my life, and that's what I think labels are FOR. Also useful for bonding with a community and finding written resources, of course, and I appreciate that as well.