Breaking down Romantic Love
  • Philosophim
    2.2k
    What is romantic love? I feel it can be identified as a combination of three traits. (Order is alphabetical, not by importance).

    1. Friendship - You can confide in one another and have fun in your interactions in daily life.

    2. Love - Love is simply the acceptance a person despite knowing all of the other person's positive and negative qualities. Further, while you understand their limitations and failings, you support them in being the best they can be.

    3. Lust - The reason this isn't just a good friendship.

    From this breakdown, you can evaluate the level of someone's professed romantic love in a relationship.

    First, each person is going to emphasize the importance of these in some fashion. Some people think lust is the most important. Others love. Others friendship.

    If a person has only one of these qualities, we call this a "shallow" relationship. Typically the person values this one aspect higher than all of the other aspects, and believes this is enough to form a relationship. While this can be a start, the other two need to be developed over time.

    When a person has 2 out of the 3, I would call this an average relationship. Its decent, livable, and as long as the two you have are the two you personally value the highest, you're probably satisfied enough.

    When all 3 are met, we then have romantic love. If both people have all 3, and they are satisfied in receiving what they personally need or want from all 3, then we have a romance for the story books.

    What do you think?
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  • Possibility
    2.8k
    What is romantic love? I feel it can be identified as a combination of three traits. (Order is alphabetical, not by importance).

    1. Friendship - You can confide in one another and have fun in your interactions in daily life.

    2. Love - Love is simply the acceptance a person despite knowing all of the other person's positive and negative qualities. Further, while you understand their limitations and failings, you support them in being the best they can be.

    3. Lust - The reason this isn't just a good friendship.     — Philosophim

    Your classic ‘trinity’ explanation fits the common understanding, but I think it is misunderstood in relation to this notion of love, which developed from the medieval idea that ‘nobility’ in thought, word and deed could improve one’s social standing.

    Romantic love has altered somewhat in interpretation from its origins. It originally referred to the recognition of a relation between perceived value/potential: the apparent beauty and/or virtues of one party in relation to the exploits or words of another, such that this mutual relation edified them both, regardless of their assumed value. Lust played no part, and neither did an understanding of their limitations or failings. It was idealist: the relation itself created in the mind. So the poet and/or soldier transform into a heroic knight in relation to a beautiful and virtuous courtier (despite the reality) when they share in this idealist notion of ‘nobility’.

    It was soon misinterpreted in actuality as a relation between an active agent and a passive one, giving both parties cause to prioritise their own perceived potential in the interaction, to actualise it upon the other, and resist their partner’s attempts to assume the active position. This somewhat warped notion of ‘romantic love’ continues to this day, and within that ensuing tug of war, most of us try to make sense of what love is.
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  • Philosophim
    2.2k
    ↪Possibility
    Your classic ‘trinity’ explanation fits the common understanding — Possibility

    Yep, that's all I was targeting. Nice history lesson though!
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  • Possibility
    2.8k
    Your classic ‘trinity’ explanation fits the common understanding
    — Possibility

    Yep, that's all I was targeting. Nice history lesson though!     — Philosophim

    So, the fact that common understanding is riddled with prediction errors, which results in a high instance of suffering, is not an issue for you?
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  • BC
    13.2k
    So much for theory. I assume you have experienced a) friendship, b) love, and c) lust. So, restricting yourself to as full an explication of your experience as you can, what was your experience of "romantic love"?

    Individually, the three elements all seem 'warranted'; that is, their validity as experiences hold up in retrospect. In my experience, "romantic love" has been pleasant while it lasted, but was "unwarranted" in retrospect because there was often a crash, when idealization (an aspect of romantic love) ran into reality. A good solid love relationship doesn't idealize too much, is realistic, and flexible.

    Lust can fizzle out, but it usually doesn't come crashing down. Friendships may cool, but they don't usually crash, either. Love (never to be adequately defined) endures, may wane, may end, but not harshly (usually). Romantic love, in my experience, doesn't hold up over the long run. Someone (in a documentary on gay liberation) defined love as "a combination of lust and trust". Lust and trust have better long range prospects than romantic love.

    Lust and idealization seem to be the essence of romantic love.
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  • 180 Proof
    14.1k
    ↪Bitter Crank
    :up:

    ↪Possibility
    :smirk:
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  • Possibility
    2.8k
    Individually, the three elements all seem 'warranted'; that is, their validity as experiences hold up in retrospect. In my experience, "romantic love" has been pleasant while it lasted, but was "unwarranted" in retrospect because there was often a crash, when idealization (an aspect of romantic love) ran into reality. A good solid love relationship doesn't idealize too much, is realistic, and flexible.

    Lust can fizzle out, but it usually doesn't come crashing down. Friendships may cool, but they don't usually crash, either. Love (never to be adequately defined) endures, may wane, may end, but not harshly (usually). Romantic love, in my experience, doesn't hold up over the long run. Someone (in a documentary on gay liberation) defined love as "a combination of lust and trust". Lust and trust have better long range prospects than romantic love.

    Lust and idealization seem to be the essence of romantic love.     — Bitter Crank

    I agree that idealisation is the main hallmark of romantic love - in my experience, though, lust is not a necessary aspect, nor friendship, nor any connection to physical reality, for that matter. That’s part of the problem, I guess.

    Romantic love points to the capacity of love (as pure relation) to transcend current, observable reality: to perceive and seek to manifest unrealised potential or value in how we relate and interact with one another. Even when we don’t yet know all of their positive and negative qualities, we have the potential to treat someone as if we accept them anyway. Recognising that all of us have limitations and failings, and that we all rely on loving interaction to support us in becoming the best we can be, helps us summon the courage to love deeper and longer, as well as broader. Through experiences of romantic love, we learn what our own limitations are: what we are or are not prepared to accept in a loving relationship - how flexible we are, and how honest we can be with ourselves.

    Romantic love, in the modern sense, is often grounded in lust - the desire for sexual interaction - but this a cultural construction (arguably patriarchal). The subjective experiences of an eleven year old girl would beg to differ.
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  • Philosophim
    2.2k
    ↪Bitter Crank


    I these three identities
    So much for theory. I assume you have experienced a) friendship, b) love, and c) lust. So, restricting yourself to as full an explication of your experience as you can, what was your experience of "romantic love"? — Bitter Crank

    I keep these three identities in mind as goals to work on. You can improve your sex life. You can work on developing your friendship. You can work on choosing to love a person. Further, I try to see what my partner seems to desire more, and give more effort to that.

    Its seemed to work well. My problem is...I found I'm a bit of an asexual. I faked interactions in my youth, and it was successful. The problem is, I'm ultimately lying in my interest, and eventually came to grips with the fact that relationships really aren't my bag of tea.

    Even so, its fun to think of the "ideal" in terms that can be broken down into the "real".
    "a combination of lust and trust". Lust and trust have better long range prospects than romantic love.

    Lust and idealization seem to be the essence of romantic love.     — Bitter Crank

    I think these all fit within the aspects of love, friendship, and lust. Its another way to view it, but the underlying essence seems similar.
    Philosophim Options
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