Both. I would have thought purely feeling up until last year... ^{Buckle up this may be TMI/TL;DR but you should expect these moments to happen randomly from time to time if you are active on a blogging site ;)}

Then I experienced feeling true love. I thought I truly loved my partner of 10 years, until I uncontrollably fell unconditionally in love with a guy who became a good friend of mine 6 months after my partner and I split..

My muse, actually ended up friend-zoning me, and I have always been able to handle rejection, not something I had often but I am usually doing the rejections, so if I set standards I understand that rejection can happen to me too.

I COULD NOT DEAL WITH IT THIS TIME. His first rejection sent me for a tail-spin, completly unexpected but I LITERALLY started to hyperventilate - I've never hyperventilated before. My body ahcked so bad from the literal breaking that my heart was doing. I literally could NOT control my feelings for this guy even knowing he was not going to feel the same (or not allow himself to.. I have a feeling he was making a choice meanwhile his feelings at times gave mixed signs..)

Anyways.. my point is I have never ever felt that kind of love for anybody before. I'm 32, female. I unconditionally, STILL TODAY love this guy and we lost contact in not the best of ways.. but my heart refuses to give up it's feelings for him no matter that I strongly wish it would.

It took awhile but I did eventually get to a point where I accepted his rejection (I tried twice to pour my feelings out to him, tried to convince him to give us a shot --he was none too happy with me that I tried the 2nd time.. I never again pushed the subject with him after that though, that was the first time I felt anger from him towards me and his friendship was worth everything more to me I couldn't risk losing it.. although in the end some damage happened before we parted ways.. we went from best-friends to strangers in a matter of months

He treated me 100x better as a friend than my previous partner of 10 years ever did tho. He was the first person in my life that I felt so connected to. This guy was spooky man, he is that 1 in a million you often read about and even think you have already found.. until you find him and realise that everything else was not even close to being a genuine feeling. Him and I were inseparable for almost a year and it took mountains to convince our friends that we weren't together, strangers often jumped to the assumption no doubt..

I suspect a few friends are still convinced that he and I slept together. We literally did sleep together, but never once did this younger guy try to get in my pants or even touch me that way, nor did he accept my suttle but desperate advances (I HAVE NEVER MADE THE FIRST MOVE ON A GUY, find it very unatural.. but I was completely at the mercy of my heart with this guy, against my own will I could NOT control anything. Well, I was able to control the words I spoke, thank goddess.. but he did mention sometimes he could read the love in my eyes (and thankfully then he would be sad for me instead of mad like the 2 times I mentioned expressing my love earlier)

I am not the clingy type. I would have never known that the love I've always felt before actually was not so real. I don't know if I'm lucky though, I would rather not have the memories about the feelings I can't give up. He is not gay. I'm not a troll either, I will never understand why he so blatantly refused me..

Sadly, even though I am not a hopeless romantic, I do secretly entertain the idea that one day down the road of our lives we will cross paths and it might be the right time then. I logically know I am stupid for thinking that, but again, I can not help these feelings for him.
(we live very far apart now currently)

Fack. Almost finished that without a tear.

It taught me though that Anger is a great example of a controllable emotion. You feeling angry at someone is totally your choice and you can change your feeling. Even if you arer being bullied, you can totally control how you feel about that bully. Many people choose compassion instead of anger towards their bully, just as an example to show my proof towards choice.

I would have also said love had the same type of controls a few years ago.. There is a form of love we feel that is mistaken for love often, I think many people never actually feel or fall in true love BUT they mistaken believe that they have at some time in their life.. Affection would be more of an accurate description of this 'psedo' love everyone feels in their life.. Pity, fear of missing out, fear of regrets, being dependent on the person are all examples of the deceptive reasons that we might be affectionate for someone but mistake it as love.

But true LOVE is only a feeling.

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^{yes, I know I wrote a blog on your comment page, but I actually often use my comments as prompts for my blog posts anyways, so please forgive me if writing a lot offends you.. detailed writing is natural for me and it's totally me, I can't really hide it so I don't even bother trying anymore}
_{I often receive shit from others when I express myself through writing on the internet and it floors me that we went from reading and writing everything to do anything on a computer (including while 'building' the internet) to what we have today, people who want to use and be active on the internet but don't have patience to read what others might say on the internet. Basically it's like the internet's native language is 'words'.. so I don't understand what is happening to the world!! I see these types so often now that I get so nervous when writing to new people but I'm also stubborn and refuse to not share my thoughts ..so.. I hope you at least understand}