Squishes

The concept of squishes/platonic crushes is something I found immensely helpful when discovering my asexuality and aromanticism. It’s however also something I sadly don’t see discussed much these days. There’s always a lot of talk about romantic and sexual crushes in our culture (At least the English speaking one. Fun fact: Czech has no word for romantic/sexual crushes, resulting in a whole range of experiences going undiscussed.), but nobody ever really talks about platonic ones. Some aspec people experience crushes, but not all of them do. And it’s way easier to figure yourself out based on the things you do feel rather than the ones you don’t.

Squishes are the platonic equivalent of crushes. An intense desire to be platonically close with someone. For me having a squish on someone is an urge to become better friends with them. They become almost like a puzzle I need to figure out and solve. I feel the need to come to know them better and to understand them. To learn who they truly are. Talking to them calms me down and makes me happy. The prospect of getting to interact with them sometime during the day is what makes waking up in the morning bearable. I want to be there for them, be helpful, make their day better the same way they make my day better just by talking to me.

You might get emotionally focused on just one person or you might have multiple squishes at once. Sometimes squishes eventually go away, sometimes they last for years. Sometimes you learn a lot about the person and realise you don’t actually like them that much, sometimes you reach the perfect level of friendship you’re comfortable at. Squishes are complicated and varied just like romantic/sexual crushes and they’re not mutually exclusive with them.

Experiencing squishes makes me happy and is an important part of my aro/ace experience and I wish we spent more time talking about what being aspec is like rather than what it’s not and pointing out the things we do not experience compared to other people.