I think love and the effects of attraction/attachment/lower status/infatuation/etc get confused. Now I'm not trying to throw out a bunch of PUA jargon, and I speak from experience and I've been exactly where bender's been.
When I was bad with girls, I easily got attached. I was like wow a girl that likes me, and became infatuated and put a lot of focus on her. So I was desperate, liked her, focused a majority of my energy towards her, she was more popular/attractive etc etc. Being in that position and age, I had a lot more emotions and didn't really know how to handle them, and thus 'falling in love'. The effects of such can be seen with many teen girls, that seem to fall in love and know what it's all about.
Now that I'm older and have developed myself much more, I no longer 'fall in love' so quickly. I know there are thousands of women out there that would love to be with me, so I don't have the feeling of desperation anymore. There's no "wow a girl likes me, I have to hold on to her".
So now that you're in the same area, you have options, and aren't too concerned with the outcome, you're not going to feel those emotions as quickly. But I know you're feeling, "these girls are great and all, and I really dig them, but I don't feel that same til-death-do-us-part feeling I had when I sucked. What's going on here?" As long as you're genuine and are both having a lot of fun, I don't think it's a problem. You can love someone without being in love with them.
As a side note, I feel that the intensity of love is proportional to the emount of energy invested. But think about it: if you never think about somebody and never do anything with them, you're not going to feel the same type of strong love as if somebody you're always making love to(a lot of energy) and thinking about.
|