I never felt anything that I can categorize as an 'infatuation', possibly because of a few things. For one, I beat up this girl when I was 4th grade in elementary school when my emotionally unstable self could not hold anger anymore, so I had a very negative mindset from then until some time in high school. Second, my relationship with my mother, which may seem okay from a third person's point of view, has been bad. Ever since my grandmother has collapsed and has been quite ill, she became more abrasive, and my time with her has been a struggle to not tell her that I dislike her as a hypocritical, bitter, and unmotivated parent. This emotion I have towards my mother is very likely keeping me from falling love to girls as well. Third, there were about three girls who confessed to me when I was in high school, but they only served to set my self further away from girls in general as I disliked all of them due to their overly immature ways to make to take an initiative with expressing their interest and unwillingness to comply to my simple terms; think about others before you act.
There has been a spark of change though, back when I was Junior. Academically, physically, and mentally, I was in a struggle, and I started feeling a little odd about this girl that I saw since Freshman year (for the sake of readability, I will refer her as "E"). E had same nationality and age as me and went to the same church with me, but we never mixed a word. From what I heard from conversations while walking by a few other girls, E was very shy. Because I have been introvert since middle school, I could understand how it feels to be introvert in public yet having to get things out of the chest when talking to close friends, or on the internet.
It was pretty odd to me to care about any girls in school to even that extent. E was in the cheerleader team, but she quit in a year and I honestly do not think she is pretty by any means. I just thought she is someone I can approach and get something out of. I wasn't even thinking about approaching her for my personal benefit, but I just thought it would be an opportunity to rather explore myself by spending time with someone who is so similar to me. Unfortunately for me, all I could do was sending her total of 3 skype messages throughout the entire year: the first one was making a shitty excuse to ask her the math homework pages that I already knew just to see how E would react, the second one was sending her congratulations for some major stuff happened to her during the year (that I will keep confidential for the sake of her anonymity), and the third message sending her a shy happy birthday.
Throughout the two years I saw E with a genuine interest, I still never felt any kind of ecstasy of excitement. I couldn't say anything to her in school, even on the day of the graduation where I could vaguely recognize her from the other row, where I could see E and E could see me as well by simply turning around. The day of the graduation was an end of my journey to try to learn more about E. Strangely for me, I was rather happy to let her go.
From this experience, I thought sometimes falling in love doesn't mean one gets attracted by how the other person looks or what they excel at doing. I felt that love is entirely possible without infatuation or knowing the other person for a long time, and it can also be formed simply by getting to know more about someone who you can see your reflection from and getting to cherish yourself more than before. Unlike most of the guys I knew in high school who desired to meet girls who were pretty, social, or smart, I think I had time for a different type of love. I loved E for two years for her being so much like me. If only I were at least brave enough to be a friend with E, we could perhaps work together to fix the flaws we share and build a good relationship by appreciating the strengths we commonly have.
Unfortunately for myself, I never had a chance to feel such emotion ever since. My mother is still bitter, girls in the university are quite untrustworthy as much as I distrust myself with remnants of my immaturity, and I have to focus on doing other things. It is unlikely that I will ever be interested in girls again, but I can confidently say that my brief attempt to see a reflection of myself from a girl made me feel better about myself and somewhat heal wounds from my grandmothers' illness, verbal fights with my parents, and demeaning thoughts about myself.