Having trouble understanding the concept of romantic love

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To start off, I would describe myself as defenitely straight. I find certain women attractive and good-looking etc...

However, I know that any relationship will not last if it is based on external things such as how a woman looks or how she dresses. Do straight guys get attracted to woman because of their personality and other features?

I welcome people's replies.

Absolutely. If I don't find a woman interesting and don't enjoy having a conversation with her, I do not find her attractive in the least. Obviously, looks are a bonus, but I need to have a mental connection to her in order to find her attractive.

I would say that men are attracted to woman because a combination of things; looks, features, personality, friendship. Love based on external factors such as big features and looks can cause disaster and make relationships tough and not last very long.

the best thing to do is to start with things which you have in common ie: intrests, hobbys and then work up from there. you do however have to like and support the womans intrests as well as your own.

Ive had about a dozen relationships and found out stuff like this is quite hard.

I am 59 and "happily married" (more than once), and in just this past couple of weeks, I have come to realize I also am "having trouble understanding the concept of romantic love". I can very easily, definitely and truthfully say I most greatly *appreciate* my dear wife, yet I cannot find any unconditional feeling of "romantic love", whatever that might actually be.

You are most certainly correct here:

Everybody who lives eventually gets old, and my wife (who is both my second and third) is now beginning to look a lot like her father and occasionally shows a slight leaning toward acting like her mother ...



Wise ones do, and I am grateful my wife also has some of those.

One of the neatest stories I have ever heard, and it is a true one, is that of a man who found a book on the seat of a train. He enjoyed the book as he rode along, and he ultimately returned it to the woman whose name and location were on the inside. Maybe she had intentionally left it in the seat to see who might find it/her?

In any case, the two began to correspond, but she had declined to exchange pictures. A friendship developed, then some mutual interest ... and they eventually decided to meet ... and the woman said she would be wearing a yellow carnation at the station. Not long after arriving there himself, the man noticed a yellow carnation on the lapel of a woman a bit older than he had been expecting ... and while she was not actually "ugly", so to speak, the woman he saw there was far from being the "beauty" (physically) of many men's dreams. Nevertheless, the man approached the woman with the carnation, introduced himself and asked whether she might want to get something to eat ... and ultimately, the woman he had actually been seeking stepped up and introduced herself after being sure he was a man of the kind of character she was seeking.

I may not know anything about "romantic love", but I do just fine with my wife as long as I look past all the stuff that cannot be seen in the dark anyway. But overall, look for the kind of woman who is willing to commit to a man who cannot be dazzled!

In my current relationship, I find that the things that make it go well, are the fact that both myself, and my S.O are pretty much interested in the same things. Such as movies, music, and cooking, amongst other things. We are both also very intelligent, and find conversation interesting and stimulating. We are also strongly attracted, in a physical way. And, we are both Aspies. If it was just a physical thing, I don't think it would have come about at all, since that was not a top priority with me.

Hold on a second... then what is "romantic love"?

Some of the things described here such as interests, friendship, etc... it can happen between two straight guys.

What is so different about romantic love?

Romantic love might be the component that pulls those other layers mentioned above, together, to form what is known as romantic love.

Only guessing here, but I have observed people who have seemed so "in love" they are completely interdependent and absolutely inseparable, as if the two have truly become "one" and either would feel as if a great piece of oneself would be lost if apart from the other.

It's also good to know that "romantic love" as we know it is relatively new as a concept (compared to the timescale of human evolution, or even compared to written history). Also, it seems to be a predominantly Western idea. I don't say that peasants or princes didn't fall in love in the Middle Ages, or that Indians in the Amazon region don't get butterflies in their bellies now and then. I think, however, that in both cases it isn't or wasn't really the norm, let alone the ordinary means of sexual selection. In fact, it was presumably viewed mostly as somewhat of a nuisance in societies where marriages were almost always pre-arranged for socio-economic reasons instead of emotional ones.

To illustrate the above: my maternal grandfather's mother and father were married in 1912. He was looking for a good housewife, who could give him lots of children. She wanted a man who could provide for her and deliver her from spinsterhood. Simple, pragmatic people they were, who didn't love one another passionately, not even in the beginning. Nevertheless, the marriage was by all accounts relatively happy and stable, and it lasted until her death. I think they were happy because each provided what the other wanted.

Of course the times have changed, and perhaps my great-grandparents simply didn't know better. But really, what have our freedom and knowledge brought us of real value, what things that are so important as to make good the double digit divorce rates we enjoy nowadays?

Last edited by dddhgg on 30 Dec 2009, 7:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

Sexual attraction is important in any relationship and often based on fairly superficial traits. If you want to blame anyone, blame our maker



It depends from person to person, but in most cases it is probably a mix. In my case, personality is most definitely the most important factor but some physical beauty is most definitely welcome. You really don't want to have sex with someone you're not physically attracted to.



Basically, the difference between a lover and a friend is that your body longs for a lover whereas only the mind longs for a friend. A lover is someone you sometimes wish you could just wrap around you all day long, whereas there's no physical part to friendship.

Ideally you're at least as close mentally with your lover than you are with your friends, but often this is not the case.

Considering this has only fairly recently been adopted by the West as well, I wouldn't really qualify it as a Western idea but rather as the folly of a degenerate age.



Sound lovely. I often long for a return to those days as many young modern women have such unreal expectations of their relationship they are often simply impossible to live with.



The end of tradition has marked the end of Western civilisation. It's only a matter of time before more traditional peoples take over and European civilisation will cease to exist.

The word "folly" suggests, to my mind at least, that the concept has more or less fallen from the sky, so to say. But unlike total sexual freedom, which only became feasible with the development of reliable contraceptives, this isn't the case here. "Romantic love" undeniably has its roots in the Medieval concept of "courtly love", as understood by the 19th Century revival of interest in Medieval culture. Also, the rise of the mercantile and industrialist classes, with their seas of leisure time and their sentimental, bourgeois ideals, have contributed as well.



Yeah, I know what you mean. While we mustn't idealize the past too much, it seems that Western culture, in this respect, at least, seems to be regressing to much more primitive state.



Perhaps. I wouldn't know, however, which of the more traditional cultures is a really viable alternative to the present European/American hegemony. Islam? I don't think I'd like to be ruled by a bunch of Islamofascists.

Romantic love as the primary or single reason for relationships is a very recent trend that came along with liberalism and the other post-Englishenment anti-traditional belief systems.



The Roman empire fell because it had become too decadent. By the end of the 18th century our civilisation started following a similar path and the new age of decadence is probably soon to reach its zenith.



I don't think we will have the choice anymore. We had that and we gave it away when we allowed ourselves to be ruled by a mediocre corrupt bourgeois.

Anyway, I suspect the Russians and the Chinese to take over for large part. I doubt the Arab world is strong enough to replace the West as the dominant force.

i can not understand the motive behind "romance".
"romance" seems like a scam that is designed to facilitate sex.

my notion of "romance" is what i have seen on TV.

i can not understand why girls want flowers, and i always have to be asked to buy them.

flowers are nothing but shriveled trash afer a few weeks, so why do girls think they are so good?

from the moment i become cognizant in the early afternoon, to the moment i decide my day is over, i am always fully logically alert, and i have no space for the intangible phenomena called "romance". i could not feel it even if i was not "busy" all the time.

my friend tammy thinks she is my "girlfriend"
she is correct that she is a girl and she is correct that she is my friend.
i have no other human "love interest", so i wish she would not be jealous of the fact that i can love nothing much other than my bushland animals that come here every day.

"Romance" is an attempt of men to remember their wives or girlfriends why they're together. It is used to keep women sexually interested in men as women tend to lose interest in the long run (no matter how good you are in bed) if you aren't romantic enough



They don't want flowers. They just want their lovers to do something for them that in their opinion confirms their feelings.

To put it blunt, a man tends to evaluate his relationship by the amount of physical affection he gets (kisses, kuddles and sex) whereas a woman evaluates her relationship by little things her husband does to make her feel better about herself. "Romance" is one aspect of that.



Just because you don't believe in the concept of romance?!?