this concept simply does not make sense to it.

it understands the idea of wanting beings that one is close to. this makes perfect sense to it.
what is the difference between a friend you are close with and a romantic partner? it does not understand.
it does not think it has ever genuinely experienced romantic attraction. it has been informed that this is irregular. perhaps it is aromantic (note: requires further investigation, alternative explanation: is extremely autistic). it supposes it is functionally in more or less two(?) qprs. this is ideal and it does not understand why such a state is not more common.

what is the point of a romantic relationship when it can have social exposure quotas met simply by having friends? it feels it must be missing something.

it being abnormally close with its friends has the rather amusing consequence of people asking of an arbitrary friend of mine and this natalie are dating. it is not entirely sure why this occures. it understands if someone makes such an inquiry after observing a friend and natalie performing an action typically associated with romantic relationships, such as holding hands, however sometimes people ask with no clear reason. baffling. here is the count for how many times people have asked such a question regarding all of its friends it has happened with: recently, cecilie was happy about the 20th increment to this count because it means that the interlocking metal hearts with notches for each time someone has asked this question that it made this (with a forge and anvil! very cool) would have both a multiple of 10 total notches and the same number of notches on each heart. the indicator shall be pictured below, because natalie thinks it is very cool. $[img-caption '/files/thoughts/the-indicator.jpg']