Icelander said:

Great for lawyer's too.  There's a whole fucking industry built around failed romance.  And don't get me started about the stupidity of love songs, dime store romance novels and the movies.

---

Ran-D said:

So now romance is seeming more and more like a tool to keep people at bay mentally while consuming all their money..

---

No shit Sherlock.

Icelander said:

I'm looking at it from the point of view of all the suffering that seems to be around romance.  If there is a lot of suffering, to me at least, that's a red flag.

---

Couldn't resist so a quick post before I leave back for the void...

The best thing I've read on this topic is an article by Leonard Price called Nothing Higher to Live For: A Buddhist View of Romantic Love.

In this excellent article Price argues that most people see romantic love as their highest ideal, the highest purpose one can live and strive for. It is often the floor to which people fall to, after collapse of all other dreams.

Looking clearly at it, at divorce rates, suicides, violence, dissipation, etc. related to romantic love, one can realize not all is as it seems. But I see that most people are not wiling to look too deeply into this, as it might break their rosy glasses.

On a personal note I could never comprehend how most couples which eventually break up, never talk to each other again. How can their love simply dissipate and so often turn to hatred? To me that clearly shows it was not love at work in their coupling up, but something completely else. Something I clearly do not want to be a part of anymore.

My mostly coupled up friends cannot understand how is that I can be content and happy "on my own". Yet one way or another the notion of coupling up lost all appeal to me years ago. I struggle with it no more, yet I'm still human and instead cherish the company of my friends and family even more, then in case where I would put all my attention and love into "the one".

Also I'm attaching here an interesting graph from the book Singled Out.



It shows 5 lines. The first one shows how happy students anticipated they would be if they got married. The last line at the bottom shows the same students anticipated their happiness levels in case they remain single throughout their lives. The second line shows people who married and stayed married. The third line shows people who stayed single throughout the study. The fourth line shows those who married and eventually divorced.

The main finding from this study is that marriage did not "make" people happy. Typically people who got married enjoyed a brief honeymoon effect, then went back to being about as happy or unhappy as they were before they married. Those people who remained single, were only slightly less happy that those that stayed married, yet note that slightly "happier" people were so even before they got married. Those who got divorced were least happy. The study also showed people greatly exaggerated how happy they would be if they got married (8,5) vs. if they remain single (3).

Icelander said:

If I remember correctly thats where the romantic ideal took off in the west with the knights errant.  Unrequited love and all that nonsense.

---

redtailedhawk said:

The best thing I've read on this topic is an article by Leonard Price called Nothing Higher to Live For: A Buddhist View of Romantic Love.

---

edit. the rest of the post was good too... just thought that link should be highlighted.

Freedom said:

Is there anything that should be left romanticized?  (Other than ninjas, cowbows, gangsters and pirates, of course.)

---