As I've gained more and more close friends, more than I've ever had in my life, and some closer than I've ever had in my life, I've come to realize something recently. Despite the prevailing feeling like I want a relationship, I don't actually know why it is I want one, nor what I have to gain from one.
Many of my friends nowadays are in fact either people who have rejected me romantically, or are exs that things just didn't work out with but we found we made better friends. And that's been the case with getting rejected too. I just end up enjoying the friendship so much, and getting so much out of it, that I just start to wonder why I ever wanted anything more than that. And what even is more than that?
Maybe everybody else has already realized this by my age, and my sheltered religious upbringing has just held me back a few years again, but I've started seriously considering, with every new crush, if they'd actually be any better for me as a partner instead of just a friend, and I've found that the answer, thus far, has always been no.
I guess the only thing that still has me wondering is, well, what does a romantic relationship offer that friendship doesn't? My friends already love me, and tell me all the time. They already care for me in ways I used to think only a partner would, and I do my best to care for them too. I still desire a romantic relationship for some reason, but I just can't see what there is to gain anymore.
If you feel safe and stable now, then keep doing what you're doing. There's no shame in just living the life you enjoy. And I hope you didn't need to feel like you have to defend your lifestyle and relationships to me.
I just wanted to come from angle where my perspective is both from a potentially different upbringing and life experience and what having a romantic partner means to me.
All anyone should want for another person is for them to be happy.
Ah, don't worry, I wasn't trying to defend myself. More trying to understand my own feelings via comparison. Because I know that for some reason I do still want and enjoy romantic relationships, but I don't know why, since I get so much from my friends. It makes it difficult to know when somebody would be a good romantic partner for me because I don't know what I want from them in the first place, as evidence by the fact that all my exs have ended up making better friends for me than partners.