I think I'm slowly teasing apart my platonic feelings. From what I've got so far, I'd say it goes something like this (be warned, long post ahead!):
I do experience platonic attraction, but it's circumstantial/incidental, it's such an ambiguous feeling (more akin to a general desire for social interaction that happens to be heightened because of something like a shared interest, for example) that I often don't register it as platonic attraction anyway, and when I do recognize it, I don't automatically want to label that bond a friendship and cultivate the friendship more.
It's circumstantial in that I experience that sort of ambiguous liking only when the person is regularly, physically around me. Examples include my lab partner, people I sit next to in classes, etc. Sort of like a forced proximity trope but for friendship, lol. I don't see this as a particularly bad thing, as it means I get someone to socialize with. Not bad, until the semester ends and that ambiguous liking is gone and someone who I considered little more than a fun (but temporary) acquaintance is STILL asking to catch up. It's not like I ghost them or anything, I might hold some remaining fondness or appreciation towards them, but it's almost in like a nostalgic way? "The good 'ole days" kind of vibe. I'm not against seeing old acquaintances again, but it's exhausting for them to expect me to maintain the same platonic feelings as when I was around them on a consistent basis.
When I do occasionally recognize that I am experiencing platonic attraction, I still (usually) don't want to go beyond that temporary acquaintance level of bonding. There is exactly one exception to this, someone who I truly consider a close friend. And even then, I'm graduating soon so we'll see how long that lasts! I thought there was another exception, but I realized recently that I actually have alterous feelings towards her.
All in all, I like understanding my feelings more, but it's a lot to put under a label. So I'm probably going to adopt multiple labels that contradict a little. Honestly I'm really just posting this so I can look back and have a properly thought out explanation for those labels, which (at the moment) include:
Desinoplatonic (describes how my platonic attraction is more like "wow, you're cool. I like you. 👍" instead of "WOWIE, you're SO cool, I'm DYING to be friends with you! 🤩")
a mix of Aplspike and Sallaplatonic (mostly to specify that the spike lasts so long as I interact with the person frequently enough)
Daisy AplAroAcespec (cool term that I saw literally while drafting this post)
Friending Aplatonic (I do like having friends and want them in general, I just consider them more temporary than the average alloplatonic 🤷)
The desinoplatonic part is hard to describe. I don't know. Instead of full-on platonic attraction, my feelings usually align somewhere in between impersonal attraction, mental attraction, and platonic attraction that places it somewhere lower on the scale, so to speak. Like impersonal + mental attraction -> my feeling -> platonic attraction. Kinda like alterous but not nearly as strong.
So yeah. That's where we're at right now. Might coin the aplspike + sallaplatonic combo sometime in the future, but idk. Might as well write everything out in case I decide that coin isn't worth the effort.
