Possibly, but to know that, I would have to be shown definition of what Romantic Love actually is, aside from “deep friendship+sex”. Even the Wikipedia article on Romance/Love lists a whole bunch of contradicting definitions that boil down to one of:
1. Friendship and sex (Emotional Bond+ Physical Bond).
2. Biological mate bonding to create offspring.
3. ”...You know, that lyrical, limerical, ephemeral thing that we all experience, so we won’t define it...”
My guess is that answer 3 is basically social memetics to cover and normalize that love is basically 2 by way of 1.
And since asexual people supposedly feel Love as well, this means that Love is essentially an intense desire for Friendship that forms a lasting bond.
Do you recognise Limerance? I was going to say that despite not being aromantic, I find it hard to pin down exactly what distinguishes romantic love from a certain kind of friendship + sexual attraction. But on reflection, I think limerance (or something like it) is basically the missing piece. (In fact, I think that when people talk about romantic love, they are more reliably referring to something that contains limerance than to something that contains deep friendship.)
I honestly cannot recall I ever felt limerence, even when I felt love. This led me to research it, and it seems like limerence is a highly culture specific, and is likely more a cultural meme than an emotion inherent to human brains. If I were to guess, I would say limerence is a side effect of the emotional and sexual frustration of the young and inexperienced humans who dabble in their first relationships, and since hearing/gossiping/reading about other people’s romantic frustrations is exciting, it became a meme.
To support this theory, we see much greater emphasis on limerence/limerice/limerance in cultures and ages when virginity until marriage was considered sacred, and young people were gender-segregated. In free-love egalitarian cultures, we see remarkably little dramatic limerice, and in fact, we see attempts by the youth to artificially create romantic drama (ex: going out of their way to date dangerous people, or pining over an inaccessible celebrity) to achieve a semblance of limerice.
As we grew in numbers and social complexity, it is easy to encounter someone with a completely different desire/expectation of limerance in their life, which I think is the reason romantic relationships became so difficult.
Unsurprisingly, there seems to be very little desire for limerice among LWers and rationalists in general, which explains why a higher-than-average number of us are single, or dating fellow rationalists.
There’s a difference between “having a desire for limerence” and “being the person capable of developing limerence.” Some people may not have a desire for it, but they get limerent pretty quickly with the right triggers. (Some people may even hate the fact that their brain does this because it keeps getting them into bad situations, but they keep developing limerence and are a slave to it.)
This led me to research it, and it seems like limerence is a highly culture specific, and is likely more a cultural meme than an emotion inherent to human brains.
It’s a distinct emotional state comparable to being on a powerful drug. So, it can’t just be a cultural meme. Of course, it could be that the frequency with which the emotional state is elicited is culture-dependent. (Just like some culture have a higher/lower prevalence of depression.)What’s also culture-dependent is whether you romanticize limerence or whether you look at it as something dysfunctional. As you mention, some people seem to think good romance requires limerence. I think that’s irrational (unless you care more about the “hedonics” of being in love than finding someone actually compatible).
I agree that there’s a connection from limerence to drama – though this is for indirect correlational reasons rather than limerence being defined through drama.
If I were to guess, I would say limerence is a side effect of the emotional and sexual frustration of the young and inexperienced humans who dabble in their first relationships,
I suspect the same thing, I think it might have to do with unmet needs and the fantasy of fulfilling them all through this one ideal person you met (who you don’t really know yet, but you’re projecting onto them everything that can fix your loneliness/pain). (It can be completely non-sexual). What I don’t understand is how you go from the description “side effect from frustration” to “it’s a cultural meme.” Depression is an emotional state that we could describe as being a side effect of unmet needs as well, but this doesn’t make it a cultural meme.
I think there also might be a lot genetic variation to people’s propensity to develop limerence?
It would be fascinating if propensity for limerence was genetically determined, because limerence directly influences our mating/breeding habits. For one, teen pregnancy might very well be a side effect of this.
I’m not aro and I 100% agree with the suggestion to taboo the concept of “romantic” (as attached to the word “relationship”, other than as a shorthand for “relationship where both parties experience romantic feelings”). Properly reduced, the things described as love and romance are experiences internal to individuals rather than a property of relationships. (Otherwise unrequited love would not be a thing.)
AFAICT, the thing that distinguishes very-close-friends-with-benefits is the ooey gooey feeling that one’s Other is very Significant, and that one would like to express that significance in sweet, silly, earnest, or otherwise excessive ways. But outside these feelings and the expression thereof, the relationship itself is not necessarily different from VCFWB in any practical respect!
Of course, some people have trouble with the concept that you can be VCFWB and not have romantic feelings about it, or believe you shouldn’t be FWB at all without it, or don’t know how you can even be VCF unless it’s a romantic relationship, etc. (I believe that is the confusion the post is pointing at, generally: that it’s common for the socialization of men in particular to license vulnerability or intimacy with VCFs only in a “romantic” context.)
But for people who are inclined to having VCF (with or without the B), talking about the relationship as being romantic makes little sense, since romantic feelings and expression are individual, non-obligatory, and indeed personally idiosyncratic (or else “love languages” would not be a thing).
In that regard, should we assume that the missing component that makes love “romantic” or “limeric” is irrationality?
My instinct is that if someone has a gooey, excessive feeling that the other is Significant it counts as romantic, but if one had a rational, evidence based belief that the other is Significant, it would not be considered romantic enough, even if the feeling of emotional bond would be much more resilient in the second example.
To use a more concrete example:
1. Bill meets Alice and falls madly in love with her. He does irrational, excessively symbolic and juvenile things to impress her. They break up anyway after a turbulent 3 months. Their Love is Romantic.
2. Frank meets Jane on a professional dating app, and they see with perfect clarity that their values, ideologies, libidos, tastes and lifestyles are perfectly aligned. They marry and spent 57 years together in an easy bliss, until they die. Their relationship would not be qualified as romantic, even though it generated more happiness and a stronger bond.
Therefore, I would suggest that the important component of romance are: irrationality, excessiveness, emotional risk and playing against bad statistical odds. In other words, drama.
I’ve been married just under 27 years now, and ooey gooeyness has been on a long slow uptrend, so I don’t think that irrationality, drama, or short-livedness have anything to do with it. We were together for five years before that, and I asked her to marry me because at some point it became obvious that I couldn’t see spending the rest of my life without her.
Granted, the first year or two of knowing each other was rather turbulent, but during that time I mostly didn’t see her as The One or really even very Significant. That was something that took time, moving from FWBs to VCFWBs to romantic feels.
I think that drama is what we see portrayed in media as romantic, but that’s because the genre of said media is drama (or comedy). And just generally, things in media have to be made more dramatic in order to be entertaining. It’s usually not considered entertainment to see two people who are sweet on each other break into smiles every time they see each other and practically moan at any form of physical contact with one another—unless the genre of the piece is “slice of life” or “fluff”, and most popular media is not that.
I’m assuming “relationship” here means something like “the explicit structure and boundaries of behavior as agreed upon by the parties”—friends, friends with benefits, marriage, polycule etc. People’s romantic feelings and expressions are rarely something that’s part of a relationship’s explicit structure, even if people often have a lot of implicit expectations about them. (And any of those named structures can include romantic feelings, or a lack thereof.)
I understand. So, just to be sure I’m not misinterpreting, the expression of romantic feelings isn’t a part of the explicit structure of the relationship, but the expression of the feelings of friendship is.
Nope—expression of feelings of friendship isn’t part of the explicit structure of friendship either. Lots of people are friends without saying anything about it.
All I’ve really said here is that the difference between VCFWB and a “romantic” relationship is difficult to discern, especially from the outside, and given that the nature of “romance” is both internal and optional to the relationship. If a pair of VCFWB’s stop having sex or hanging out or cuddling, it’s hard to say they’re still in a VCFWB relationship. But if people in a “romantic” relationship stop acting romantic with one another, they can still be said to be in a “romantic” relationship.
The overall point here is that describing “romantic” as if it is a property of a relationship rather than a property of people’s feelings is not a good carving of reality at the joints. People can have romantic feelings (or expression thereof) without having any relationship at all, let alone one with reciprocal romantic feelings.
(Indeed, romantic feelings are quite orthogonal to the type and nature of the relationship itself: the term “friend zone” highlights this point.)
So, from an epistemic view, my take is that it’s not only useless but confusing to describe a relationship as being romantic, since it’s not meaningfully a property of the relationship, but rather a set of feelings that come and go for (and about) parties in the relationship. How many feelings must happen? How often? Must they be reciprocal? Is it still romantic if neither party feels that way any more? What if they didn’t start out that way but are now?
I think that the bundle of things called “romantic relationship” are much better described structurally in terms of behavior, in order to avoid cultural projections and mismatched expectations between partners. One person might use it to mean “marriage for life”, while another might mean “passionate weekend affair”, after all! These more structurally-defined relationships can both be labeled a “romantic relationship” but this does not do a good job of defining a shared vision and expectations for the parties in said relationship.
IOW, I believe that everyone is better off taboo-ing the phrase “romantic relationship” in any serious discussion about relationships—especially a relationship they’ll personally be involved in!
It sounds like you’re aromantic.
Possibly, but to know that, I would have to be shown definition of what Romantic Love actually is, aside from “deep friendship+sex”. Even the Wikipedia article on Romance/Love lists a whole bunch of contradicting definitions that boil down to one of:
1. Friendship and sex (Emotional Bond+ Physical Bond).
2. Biological mate bonding to create offspring.
3. ”...You know, that lyrical, limerical, ephemeral thing that we all experience, so we won’t define it...”
My guess is that answer 3 is basically social memetics to cover and normalize that love is basically 2 by way of 1.
And since asexual people supposedly feel Love as well, this means that Love is essentially an intense desire for Friendship that forms a lasting bond.
Do you recognise Limerance? I was going to say that despite not being aromantic, I find it hard to pin down exactly what distinguishes romantic love from a certain kind of friendship + sexual attraction. But on reflection, I think limerance (or something like it) is basically the missing piece. (In fact, I think that when people talk about romantic love, they are more reliably referring to something that contains limerance than to something that contains deep friendship.)
I honestly cannot recall I ever felt limerence, even when I felt love. This led me to research it, and it seems like limerence is a highly culture specific, and is likely more a cultural meme than an emotion inherent to human brains. If I were to guess, I would say limerence is a side effect of the emotional and sexual frustration of the young and inexperienced humans who dabble in their first relationships, and since hearing/gossiping/reading about other people’s romantic frustrations is exciting, it became a meme.
To support this theory, we see much greater emphasis on limerence/limerice/limerance in cultures and ages when virginity until marriage was considered sacred, and young people were gender-segregated. In free-love egalitarian cultures, we see remarkably little dramatic limerice, and in fact, we see attempts by the youth to artificially create romantic drama (ex: going out of their way to date dangerous people, or pining over an inaccessible celebrity) to achieve a semblance of limerice.
As we grew in numbers and social complexity, it is easy to encounter someone with a completely different desire/expectation of limerance in their life, which I think is the reason romantic relationships became so difficult.
Unsurprisingly, there seems to be very little desire for limerice among LWers and rationalists in general, which explains why a higher-than-average number of us are single, or dating fellow rationalists.
There’s a difference between “having a desire for limerence” and “being the person capable of developing limerence.” Some people may not have a desire for it, but they get limerent pretty quickly with the right triggers. (Some people may even hate the fact that their brain does this because it keeps getting them into bad situations, but they keep developing limerence and are a slave to it.)
It’s a distinct emotional state comparable to being on a powerful drug. So, it can’t just be a cultural meme. Of course, it could be that the frequency with which the emotional state is elicited is culture-dependent. (Just like some culture have a higher/lower prevalence of depression.)What’s also culture-dependent is whether you romanticize limerence or whether you look at it as something dysfunctional. As you mention, some people seem to think good romance requires limerence. I think that’s irrational (unless you care more about the “hedonics” of being in love than finding someone actually compatible).
I agree that there’s a connection from limerence to drama – though this is for indirect correlational reasons rather than limerence being defined through drama.
I suspect the same thing, I think it might have to do with unmet needs and the fantasy of fulfilling them all through this one ideal person you met (who you don’t really know yet, but you’re projecting onto them everything that can fix your loneliness/pain). (It can be completely non-sexual). What I don’t understand is how you go from the description “side effect from frustration” to “it’s a cultural meme.” Depression is an emotional state that we could describe as being a side effect of unmet needs as well, but this doesn’t make it a cultural meme.
I think there also might be a lot genetic variation to people’s propensity to develop limerence?
It would be fascinating if propensity for limerence was genetically determined, because limerence directly influences our mating/breeding habits. For one, teen pregnancy might very well be a side effect of this.
Then you’re aromantic with 100% certainty.
I’m not aro and I 100% agree with the suggestion to taboo the concept of “romantic” (as attached to the word “relationship”, other than as a shorthand for “relationship where both parties experience romantic feelings”). Properly reduced, the things described as love and romance are experiences internal to individuals rather than a property of relationships. (Otherwise unrequited love would not be a thing.)
AFAICT, the thing that distinguishes very-close-friends-with-benefits is the ooey gooey feeling that one’s Other is very Significant, and that one would like to express that significance in sweet, silly, earnest, or otherwise excessive ways. But outside these feelings and the expression thereof, the relationship itself is not necessarily different from VCFWB in any practical respect!
Of course, some people have trouble with the concept that you can be VCFWB and not have romantic feelings about it, or believe you shouldn’t be FWB at all without it, or don’t know how you can even be VCF unless it’s a romantic relationship, etc. (I believe that is the confusion the post is pointing at, generally: that it’s common for the socialization of men in particular to license vulnerability or intimacy with VCFs only in a “romantic” context.)
But for people who are inclined to having VCF (with or without the B), talking about the relationship as being romantic makes little sense, since romantic feelings and expression are individual, non-obligatory, and indeed personally idiosyncratic (or else “love languages” would not be a thing).
In that regard, should we assume that the missing component that makes love “romantic” or “limeric” is irrationality?
My instinct is that if someone has a gooey, excessive feeling that the other is Significant it counts as romantic, but if one had a rational, evidence based belief that the other is Significant, it would not be considered romantic enough, even if the feeling of emotional bond would be much more resilient in the second example.
To use a more concrete example:
1. Bill meets Alice and falls madly in love with her. He does irrational, excessively symbolic and juvenile things to impress her. They break up anyway after a turbulent 3 months. Their Love is Romantic.
2. Frank meets Jane on a professional dating app, and they see with perfect clarity that their values, ideologies, libidos, tastes and lifestyles are perfectly aligned. They marry and spent 57 years together in an easy bliss, until they die. Their relationship would not be qualified as romantic, even though it generated more happiness and a stronger bond.
Therefore, I would suggest that the important component of romance are: irrationality, excessiveness, emotional risk and playing against bad statistical odds. In other words, drama.
I’ve been married just under 27 years now, and ooey gooeyness has been on a long slow uptrend, so I don’t think that irrationality, drama, or short-livedness have anything to do with it. We were together for five years before that, and I asked her to marry me because at some point it became obvious that I couldn’t see spending the rest of my life without her.
Granted, the first year or two of knowing each other was rather turbulent, but during that time I mostly didn’t see her as The One or really even very Significant. That was something that took time, moving from FWBs to VCFWBs to romantic feels.
I think that drama is what we see portrayed in media as romantic, but that’s because the genre of said media is drama (or comedy). And just generally, things in media have to be made more dramatic in order to be entertaining. It’s usually not considered entertainment to see two people who are sweet on each other break into smiles every time they see each other and practically moan at any form of physical contact with one another—unless the genre of the piece is “slice of life” or “fluff”, and most popular media is not that.
That sounds like you named two differences between a non-romantic relationship and a romantic one?
I’m assuming “relationship” here means something like “the explicit structure and boundaries of behavior as agreed upon by the parties”—friends, friends with benefits, marriage, polycule etc. People’s romantic feelings and expressions are rarely something that’s part of a relationship’s explicit structure, even if people often have a lot of implicit expectations about them. (And any of those named structures can include romantic feelings, or a lack thereof.)
I understand. So, just to be sure I’m not misinterpreting, the expression of romantic feelings isn’t a part of the explicit structure of the relationship, but the expression of the feelings of friendship is.
Nope—expression of feelings of friendship isn’t part of the explicit structure of friendship either. Lots of people are friends without saying anything about it.
All I’ve really said here is that the difference between VCFWB and a “romantic” relationship is difficult to discern, especially from the outside, and given that the nature of “romance” is both internal and optional to the relationship. If a pair of VCFWB’s stop having sex or hanging out or cuddling, it’s hard to say they’re still in a VCFWB relationship. But if people in a “romantic” relationship stop acting romantic with one another, they can still be said to be in a “romantic” relationship.
The overall point here is that describing “romantic” as if it is a property of a relationship rather than a property of people’s feelings is not a good carving of reality at the joints. People can have romantic feelings (or expression thereof) without having any relationship at all, let alone one with reciprocal romantic feelings.
(Indeed, romantic feelings are quite orthogonal to the type and nature of the relationship itself: the term “friend zone” highlights this point.)
So, from an epistemic view, my take is that it’s not only useless but confusing to describe a relationship as being romantic, since it’s not meaningfully a property of the relationship, but rather a set of feelings that come and go for (and about) parties in the relationship. How many feelings must happen? How often? Must they be reciprocal? Is it still romantic if neither party feels that way any more? What if they didn’t start out that way but are now?
I think that the bundle of things called “romantic relationship” are much better described structurally in terms of behavior, in order to avoid cultural projections and mismatched expectations between partners. One person might use it to mean “marriage for life”, while another might mean “passionate weekend affair”, after all! These more structurally-defined relationships can both be labeled a “romantic relationship” but this does not do a good job of defining a shared vision and expectations for the parties in said relationship.
IOW, I believe that everyone is better off taboo-ing the phrase “romantic relationship” in any serious discussion about relationships—especially a relationship they’ll personally be involved in!