When it comes to life in general, one thing that will help you navigate is self-awareness. It’s always important that we understand the connection between our thoughts and feelings and how they influence our perceptions.
In dating particularly, you definitely have to have to know the difference between crushing on someone and sexual tension.
These two often have the same characteristics, which makes it quite hard to differentiate.
Sometimes you might even have a mix of both. But by understanding what they both mean, you will understand how you feel and know what to do:
The heart vs the mindFor you to know the difference, you need to check how your body reacts when you think about them. For a crush, the emotions feel like they are coming from your heart but if it’s just sexual tension, your mind will trigger your body and you will get aroused.
A confusing thing about differentiating the two is that they both give you this incredible rush and that means you have to break it down a little bit further.
When it’s a crush, what you’re feeling will be based on your emotional chemistry. There is something about your crush that you like before you even think about the sexual part of the story.
This is different from sexual tension because now your attraction heavily relies on your sexual attraction, maybe even lust.
Longing for love vs getting physicalWhen you’re crushing on someone, a part of you imagines what it would be like to be in a romantic relationship with them. It means that every part of them excites you and you might even have sleepless nights fantasizing about how holding hands with them feels like, how much fun you will have taking long walks at the beach and other thoughts of how wonderful this person is.
When it comes to sexual tension though, you will notice that your thoughts are mostly drawn to one topic and that’s sex. Maybe you and this person have been showing each other subtle signs that you’re sexually attracted to each other and your mind will spend time breaking down what getting physical with them would be like.
Crushes tend to come from a genuine place as compared to sexual attraction. Yes, a crush isn’t always based on the real qualities that you admire in someone and sexual tension might be part of your overall attraction but, they still have subtle differences.
Sexual tension mostly goes for the shallow physical attributes you like and not really the person as a whole. A crush on the other hand means that you’ve taken time to see this person past what they look like.
Long lasting vs short-livedA crush has a better chance of developing into something deeper as compared to sexual tension. If for example what you had is sexual tension and you end up having sex with this person, there might not be more to that story.
If you have a crush on someone and maybe one day you get intimate after getting to know each other at a deeper level, the foundation is still more solid and it might even lead to a real relationship.