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Romantic Love

Started by Cassia, August 23, 2020, 07:52:44 AM

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Cassia

For all the platitudes it seems more like a contract of expectations and ego stroking to me. Parent/child love seems like true altruism. Perhaps after years and years, romantic love can change to become altruistic. Am I wrong?

SGOS

I don't know, and I've been at this whole love thing for a long time.

Baruch

My experience is that romantic love is a love affair or a honeymoon.  Short term only.  Common interest and compatibility are stronger and more rational.  Friendship is strongest, but that isn't forever either.  Parent love for child is a permanent commitment, but only if you commit.  Many parents don't give a shit for their children.  Marriage can change from romantic love into altruistic love, mine did.  Eros, philos and agape in Greek.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cassia

It's probably an evolutionary artifact that instills the desire for romance and partner selection and then amps it up with hormones. I have friends that seem addicted to it even as they get older, their lives wrecked by romantic urges.

aitm

Romantic love, imo, is a man with an erection and a woman who believes he wants her for her personality. Men rarely get romantic live if it is not going to be followed by a little hibbety- jibbety.
A humans desire to live is exceeded only by their willingness to die for another. Even god cannot equal this magnificent sacrifice. No god has the right to judge them.-first tenant of the Panotheust

SGOS

Quote from: aitm on August 23, 2020, 09:21:07 PM
Romantic love, imo, is a man with an erection and a woman who believes he wants her for her personality. Men rarely get romantic live if it is not going to be followed by a little hibbety- jibbety.
That's a bit too cynical to match my feeling about it.  I may be the outsider here, but romance is something I really get off on, not that I experience it all the time, but when it happens, I love it.  As for the hibbety- jibbety, I don't keep that separate from love, and I think people are misguided for claiming it's not real love.  To me, sex is an integral part of the whole package that intensives the relationship.

Granted some guys just want sex, and to Hell with a relationship.  At least I've heard this is so (usually from a woman), and most guys are too macho to even want to talk about how sex adds to romance, love, and togetherness.  But I know it's different for everyone.  Some people don't want sex that much, men and women both, and they see it as unimportant in a relationship.  I'm OK with that, but that's not how I want it.  I've had one night stands without getting all gooey about it, but it's not something I search for.  It's better when it is a part of something more meaningful.  What makes it more meaningful?  I haven't figured out what that is yet.  I just know that sometimes relationships can be meaningful, and sex always plays a big part in it.

drunkenshoe

Well, naturally this is going to be a strictly personal review as that is the nature of the subject. It might sound primitive, extreme or come as a backward cultural trait.

I have been in love and as it has a too great impact on me, it is one thing in life that scares the hell out of me. Because I do fall in love and love unconditionally. To be brutally honest and painfully stupid, if you can be logical or rational about that person at the first aspect of anything -without forcing yourself to think further- that is not love. There is no equality, gender or even human rights in love. Love is fucked up and messy, out of control, weird and painful and troublesome and I don't believe there is another way to love. Or I don't know how to love in any other way but I don't think something different than that could affect me. At least it proved that way so far.   

I'm not a romantic person, I don't think. I don't think being 'romantic' has anything to do with love. That sounds like a movie or a book.
"science is not about building a body of known 'facts'. ıt is a method for asking awkward questions and subjecting them to a reality-check, thus avoiding the human tendency to believe whatever makes us feel good." - tp

SGOS

I remember a woman asking me one time, "Why do you love me?"  I was stumped.  How could I be stumped by such an important question?  It's because there is no logical answer.  But I only arrived at that conclusion 40 years later.

Cassia

Quote from: SGOS on August 24, 2020, 07:53:46 AM
I remember a woman asking me one time, "Why do you love me?"  I was stumped.  How could I be stumped by such an important question?   It's because there is no logical answer.  But I only arrived at that conclusion 40 years later.
It could be that we really enjoy being wanted and accepted by someone. It is more about ourselves then it is about them. It was typical for me to wind up with a "mirror", where the other person play acts to match what they think I want. Eventually I learn who they really are.

There is societal pressure against being alone. Who will go to a movie or to dine out solo?

Mike Cl

I like the idea of romantic love.  And I've experienced it for awhile.  But like all things, change happens.  Love is not a static emotion (but then, what is?), but changes as we change as life changes.  If find I like marriage; but a bad marriage is the worst possible living arraignment.  And a good marriage is about the best; for me.  Romantic love (infatuation) was fleeting (well, I'd say a couple of years, part of which was while married) but enjoyable; but I was not saddened when it slowly faded; that's a natural part of change.

Oddly enough I find Kahlil Gibran poem on marriage sums it up for me:

On Marriage
BY KAHLIL GIBRAN
Then Almitra spoke again and said, And
what of Marriage, master?
     And he answered saying:
     You were born together, and together you
shall be forevermore.
     You shall be together when the white
wings of death scatter your days.
     Ay, you shall be together even in the
silent memory of God.
     But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
     And let the winds of the heavens dance
between you.

     Love one another, but make not a bond
of love:
     Let it rather be a moving sea between
the shores of your souls.
     Fill each other’s cup but drink not from
one cup.
     Give one another of your bread but eat
not from the same loaf.
     Sing and dance together and be joyous,
but let each one of you be alone,
     Even as the strings of a lute are alone
though they quiver with the same music.

     Give your hearts, but not into each
other’s keeping.
     For only the hand of Life can contain
your hearts.
     And stand together yet not too near
together:
     For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
     And the oak tree and the cypress grow
not in each other’s shadow.

Take out all the 'god' labels and that is how I regard a good marriage.  Each member of the couple is a person.  I regard my wife as a partner, not a wife.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Cassia

Quote from: Mike Cl on August 24, 2020, 08:49:30 AMOddly enough I find Kahlil Gibran poem on marriage sums it up for me:.....

Take out all the 'god' labels and that is how I regard a good marriage.  Each member of the couple is a person.  I regard my wife as a partner, not a wife.
That is beautiful poem!

Mike Cl

Quote from: Cassia on August 24, 2020, 09:13:58 AM
That is beautiful poem!
If you haven't read The Prophet, you owe it to yourself to do so.  Besides On Marriage, I have read the one On Children hundreds of time.
It is the one book I skim thru fairly often.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Baruch

Quote from: Cassia on August 23, 2020, 08:08:45 PM
It's probably an evolutionary artifact that instills the desire for romance and partner selection and then amps it up with hormones. I have friends that seem addicted to it even as they get older, their lives wrecked by romantic urges.

In prehistory, men and women were ugly, brutish and short (but enough about my Ex) … and never bathed.  A cave man would bring a fresh gazelle head to his beau.  Only hormones could have overcome these problems.

There is a whole genre of romance for women it seems.  The Bronte sisters stuff and zillions of romance dime novels.  This is porn for women.  Women are better at idealism of this type … in love with love … but it is a teen thing.  Sad when a cougar goes after someone 40 years younger.  Of course no man, not even Heathcliff, can meet these ideals.  Though IMHO men age better than women ;-)
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Baruch

#13
Quote from: SGOS on August 24, 2020, 07:53:46 AM
I remember a woman asking me one time, "Why do you love me?"  I was stumped.  How could I be stumped by such an important question?  It's because there is no logical answer.  But I only arrived at that conclusion 40 years later.

She wouldn't have appreciated mansplaining anyway.  Men don't cogitate like women.

I recommend Kahlil Gibran also, with G-d left in.  He was a big meme in the 1920, think Rudolf Valentino.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cassia

Oddly enough, the younger males in the family are not pursuing serious relationships at all. The are aware of the 'going your own way' thing going around but say they are not into that. They just say they don't wanna be tied down right now and prefer to keep it casual. The landscape is changing, with people waiting longer to have families.