u/Prudent_Doubt4238

I've begun noticing a certain pattern in my friendships, and I'm wondering if it's because I'm frayplatonic or if it's due to other factors.

For those of you who don't know the term frayplatonic, here's a quick definition.

I've known about the term aplatonic for a while now, but never thought to dig any deeper into the community because I assumed it didn't apply to me. After all, I frequently developed squishes and had even sustained a few multi-year long friendships. However, all of my squishes were, by definition, people I didn't know very well: acquaintances at most. As for my friends, I was never as social as a lot of my peers. Introversion and autism aren't exactly a recipe for large friend groups. Still, I was usually able to find at least one person that I could latch onto for the year. Then, the next school year would begin, classes would be different, and I would begin the process anew with no thought to deepening my previous friendships. And that, elementary school me assumed, was how friendship worked. As life went on and your circumstances changed, so too did your friends. It's only natural.

So, I got older. I began meeting people who I spent more time with. I was still in school at this time, so we mostly hung out within that context, with the exception of all of us inviting each other to our birthday parties. Pretty standard alloplatonic stuff so far, but these were the first people I was friends with for more than a nine month school year. The one I was closest to (more through her efforts than my own, though I did genuinely like her and consider her a good friend) was the one I outgrew the most quickly. I say outgrew not in the sense that I found her immature---quite the contrary---but in the sense that, over time, the friendship became stale. I don't know how else to explain it. (It's weird, too, because, at one point, I remember feeling insecure due to the sheer number of friends she had: I worried I was just another drop in the bucket, that there was nothing particularly likable about myself that had drawn her to me. To go from that to borderline disinterest just seems odd, yet it's what happened.)

This happened again, with another person from that friend group. For context, we all went to different middle schools, but I attended the same high school as him for about a year. In that year, we became closer: the small class sizes at our school made that inevitable. And it was fun---until it wasn't. Until things got stale. I transferred after that year because that high school high key sucked, and we haven't spoken since.

Now that I was at a larger high school, with more ready access to like-minded people, I made friends with greater ease than I was used to. Most of them were, and are, casual friends. We hung out within the context of clubs and then, eventually, bi-weekly D&D sessions. We talked about our mutual interests---eg shows we all liked---and would seldom, if ever, delve into our personal lives. There were, however, exceptions. People I got closer to (though, yet again, this was more their doing than my own). And that's when I began to notice yet another pattern emerge.

Rather than solely feeling a friendship growing stale after we spent too much time together, I also began to get annoyed. I'd notice every time they repeated themselves. I'd notice little quirks in their behavior that are fine when you don't speak all that often, but begin to grate on you when you do. But even when I didn't notice these things, I would still find myself becoming annoyed with their presence in my life in general. Mind you, this was through no fault of their own. None of these people (except maybe one) were objectively annoying.

And now we come, inevitably, to the topic of best friends. I've mentioned friends in general multiple times throughout this post, but it feels relevant to note that, the vast majority of the time, it was not my idea to use this label. Another person would refer to me and them as friends after we'd had 'x' or so amount of positive interactions, and I, taking no issue with it, would agree and consider them as such. Apparently, this approach does not work with best friends. I found this out the hard way: a friend of mine referred to me as their best friend, and I agreed because why not. I assumed that would be the end of it and for a while it was. But then they started using that phrase---"best friend"---more often. I began to feel that they expected certain things of me---that best friend wasn't just a label, but a feeling that I had to return. To perform. And now things weren't just stale. Now I wasn't just annoyed and in need of increasing amounts of alone time. Now I had bugs underneath my skin. Now I was going stir-crazy.

Taking all this into consideration, I might embrace the frayplatonic label if it weren't for a few things. Firstly, I feel like the fact that I could be friends with someone for several months to a year (multiple years if things stayed casual) without things growing stale or bothersome is evidence that I'm not frayplatonic. Secondly, I'm still somewhat confused by the definition. As per the one I linked:

>Frayplatonic is an aplatonic spectrum label defined as only feeling platonic attraction to people that one is less familiar/not close with, and losing that attraction upon getting to know them more.

But what even is closeness?!? What does it mean to be close with someone---to be familiar with them? Does it mean seeing them every day, even if you don't know their last name? Does it mean knowing the ins and outs of their personal life---in which case, how can anyone manage to be close with multiple people and stay on top of their own affairs? Thirdly, as I alluded to in the title, there are other possible explanations for my behavior. Maybe I'm simply not a people person, or perhaps I have an avoidant attachment style. I could just be particularly attached to my own independence (that's definitely the truth). There's enough alternate explanations that this doesn't feel like an open-and-shut case, which is why I made this post in the first place.

So, what do you think? Am I frayplatonic or is another explanation more likely?