Is romance dead? Do you want it to be? Is time for a resurrection? Or was it all too cliché in its last incarnation and it needs a major revamping?

[AmandaYVR]

For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.
- Judy Garland

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined together for life - to strengthen each other in all labour, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to share with each other in all gladness, to be one with each other in the silent unspeakable memories (of the last parting)?
- George Eliot

Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs,
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes,
Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers' tears.
What is it else? A madness most discreet,
A choking gale and a preserving sweet.
- William Shakespeare

Once I knew only darkness and stillness... my life was without past or future... but a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living.
- Helen Keller

“We come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.”
- Sam Keen

“Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”
- Robert Heinlein

"Love is the emblem of eternity, it confounds all notion of time, effaces all memory of a beginning, all fear of an end".
- Germaine De Stael

"Mom, romance is dead. It was acquired in a hostile takeover by Hallmark and Disney, homogenized, and sold off piece by piece."
- Lisa Simpson, The Simpsons

Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.
- Matt Groening, Love is Hell

Updates

+1 y

Interesting answers here, thank you. I'm really enjoying reading them.

Some of the men are commenting that they, too, would like some romance, but it tends to fall on them to supply or create it; and I agree with this.
I asked a question about this some months ago. Some great, informative ideas here:
Guys, what is your idea of a romantic gesture a woman could do that you would enjoy? ↗

[CaptainOverthink]

I wouldn't know really. As I see it..
Love is a concept different to each culture. Different to each person. Throughout history the concepts been different. Typically we see 2 people bond and fairytales blabla... but love is more complex than that story of one love eternal. Its nuanced, slightly contradictory and sort of ambigous in terms of description.

Naturally its our human instinct pulling us together in a spectacle of maddening emotion and devious deliberation. Ultimately to procreate but also to be caring to your 'tribe'/family/pack.. to be protective.

But that is love.. Romance is more like the act and the dynamic settings that occur around people when we pursue our SO, or maybe even when friendship borders into the closer circles of care and selflessness. It's the mystique impressions we draw in our minds as we breath in the moment.

--Is Romance Dead?--
No, romance can't die. Duh.😂 🤔

I can agree that romance has become more complex and hard to find than I imagine it's been before.
Especially with the intolerance and fragility of the modern world where words travel so fast in digital spaces and spin out of proportion to take new shapes and then manifests in unfair punishments across the board. Its a world where everyone is expected to know how to be before they've had a chance to make the mistakes that will teach them the lessons. At the same time those same mistakes are punished fast and the stumbling and still learning individuals are chased away in shame.
And forgiveness is an oblivious concept in the corner of our eye (at least as a society).
So yes, it's hard to learn how to be a romantic in practise today.

But there's many out there. And I think those that haven't given up are realizing that in order to get the good lessons you have to be ready to be seen as the bad guy. Because how they see you now is irrelevant to the future 'you' and you have to keep on improving and prove people wrong. Nothing is gained through listening to crap. Change happens all the time.

Romance is very much alive. But i think the harsh teaching-environment has set a lot of people back a bit. We're late. That's what i see for men at least. But we're coming around in our 30s.

I myself, I am late. I don't want romance to be dead. I am pushing along. I can't drive change for everyone. But I can try to save myself and try to get those around me to save themselves from their boring lives of solitude. I know a lot of guys around my age that have given up on learning to be alive, they are content as losers. In denial or not.
I won't be that guy, life is ticking away and if we're hiding away from it then what's the point of being alive in the first place. Life is crawling through quicksand.

But no. Romance isn't dead.

[AmandaYVR]

Wow. That was so good, I had to mute the thought-provoking TV I had on in the bkgd and read it slowly multiple times. This is very, very meaty. And then I moused over your account and found that you are from Sweden. They sure know how to educate, and teach language, over there. I have found multiple Swedes and Germans interesting on here. (My mother's German; maybe it's not so surprising.)

You need to write a mytake about this. This is a mytake already. But I want more. More, more.

Following you now, CaptainOverthink. You're not thinking too much. Others are thinking too little.

[CaptainOverthink]

Wow! I did not expect that reply. Very inspiring comment. Im going to have to think about a myTake. How to structure that argument. But no promises.

Actually not so much educated. Sure ground school to12th year, the standard. But The English is like a second language for swedes since we start to learn it from 3rd grade and our culture consume a lot of American and UK Entertainment as a result of that. I guess at some point in the 1950 or something it was clear that international communication was the future. In music, inventions, IT, industry, trading.. etc

Its like a part of who the modern swede is now. This goes for other european countries as well.
We even have the term 'to be speaking "Swinglish".
That is.. to mix swedish and English in a myriad if ways.

And then since the nordic countries has done well for themselves we are a rich country, so we travel a lot to escape the climate. So much English in oractise all the time its like swedes pride and hobby to get to speak swedish. So much that its hard to learn speaking swedish because swedes barely use their own langage when they know the other person could understand English better.😂

[Shamalien]

it appears to be mostly dead... because the foundation fell out from beneath it's feet. Before you can have romance you need to have a soul.

[sejla]

I'd say romance is a bit over rated. For me it's the daily things a man does. Does he help me unexpectedly. Would he come help me if my car broke down or send someone who can help me. Does he check in with me to make sure I made it home ok?

Being caring and kind is much better than romance.

[Dongtai]

Romance takes time. Actual good and well planned romance? You have to get to know the person you’re romancing, plan it out, etc.


Romance isn’t dead but I don’t think there’s a lot of people who are patient or grateful enough for romance. People want instant love now. I stand gratification. The next best thing. People are content with “enough”.


Romance is something I’d use for a girl I know or dating but not a girl I just met. I’ve seen too many social media posts about women talking about guys being creepy and stalkers for doing microscopic gestures that show interest. Either that or they make fun of the guy “This weirdo came up to me and asked for my phone number today 😂😂”. But they’ll leave out every other detail of the interaction like her pretending she cared about anything he had to say instead of telling him she wasn’t interested.


I still introduce myself to women whenever I see one who’s checks my boxes but I’m definitely very cautious about what I do and say because I’m not interested in being a meme or social media story. Romance is off the table for strangers. I’ll give a compliment and ask about her day but that’s pretty much it.


Romance isn’t dead but women are doing a lot more to kill it versus keep it alive.

[AmandaYVR]

Points well taken.
Thanks, Dongtai. Always a fair voice of reason.

[Dongtai]

Sorry if my response was aggressive 😂😂. Working on it.

[AmandaYVR]

"Aggressive"? I never think of you as aggressive, Dongtai. There are so, so many other men online who take so much pleasure in chronically attacking and disparaging women, or Democrats, or people who defend minorities or whatever group who is treated with disdain, etc etc etc, as if it's their raison d'etre., their god-given right. I've just spent the last while thinking about how to respond to one on this question, a relatively innocuous question with no blame implied or intended, composing a reply... but in the end I decided, why? Why is he worth it? I try not to block or delete comments, I try to face them head on so they can't claim cowardice or sensitivity. But sometimes an asshole is just an asshole, and just as irl, they are avoided, iced out, no toys are shared, they're booted out of the sandbox. It's not so different. We don't have to stand on the street and be forced to be yelled at by strangers.

So, no. I think everything you say is very reasonable. You are measured in your assessments. I would never lump you in the same category as someone like him.
But it is difficult, to not be affected, to not have it counted as yet another male hater, antagonizer. He couldn't hold a candle to you, Dongtai. Your insights are always welcome.
I think I'm going back to blocking. I don't owe them respect or air time.

[Jamie05rhs]

I totally agree with @Dongtai here. I'm not giving anyone my romance (which is true and genuine and comes out of the depths of my very soul) until I think they're ready for it. This is something I've learned by experience.

[Dongtai]

@AmandaYVR. Wow. Thank you. I needed to hear that. Lately I feel that my awareness about toxic/negative behavior is so high that I focus on it to extinguish it and replace it with positivity, but I think I’m so focused on it that I forget how it can rub off and make me negative and bitter. For example I’ll see a post about someone being hostile towards a “different” group and I’ll insert myself as the voice of reason in hopes of reforming them or at least giving them a different perspective I guess? But it sometimes leads into an argument and it leave me feeling annoyed or negative.

I had a moment like that earlier today. Someone made a post on Facebook, making fun of a married couple which led to commenters joining and adding to the rude comments. I of course felt the need to say something “Smells like toxicity in here. They look happy. I’m not mad at them.” When I explained it the poster basically brushed me off telling me she could post whatever she wanted. It led me to the conclusion that some people are content with being negative or that they’re so comfortable with it that they don’t even realize it’s negative.

I don’t like the feeling of giving up on “people”. Whenever I see bad situation I do try to deescalate and voice reason into those situations without any sort of violence. Especially when it seems like no one else is willing to speak up. I do it offline and online. It feels like some sort of responsibility and if I go against that voice inside me it feels like I’m committing some sort of crime.

But I still need to master my timing and pickings. Knowing when that voice is “needed” while still not letting any negativity I might face affect me.

Sorry that was long 😂

[AmandaYVR]

Yes, I know exactly what you mean. Every day we are online we need to make choices about how to handle these situations.
I know some people say "they're just trolls, ignore them, delete them, block them" but that can't be the strategy in every single case. The chained dog outside in the yard never learns if he is not socialized. He only becomes more vicious. And it is kind, and right, to come to the defence of others, like you do, when you know they have done no wrong. I see injustices all the time and they make me furious and depressed, but we can't all or always turn a blind eye. The difficulty is knowing when and how, isn't it.
It's a tightrope.

Here's some inspiring words from Helen Keller:
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good, that it may prevail. I try to increase the power God has given me to see the best in everything and every one, and make that Best a part of my life.”
Helen Keller
– Optimism (1903)

[Dongtai]

Whoooaaa. That was incredible. I’m saving that quote. Wow. Thank you for that insight. It gave me more direction and a better understanding on this.

[mk200195]

Romance is still around, I don’t think that falling in love will ever completely become extinct, but it is way less common today than it was pre 1960s, certainly in the traditional sense where it was about true love and romance. Even around the first 20 years or so after the late 60s revolution, there were still more romantic couples around than there are today. Today, a very large percentage of the younger population are all about playing the field, experimenting, messing around, keeping variety, sowing your wild oats, or however else you want to word it. Romance is all about passion, deepness, and trust, and we are now living in an age where all 3 of those things are not as common as once before. In the 21st century, more people, particularly younger people, generally have less passion, higher shallowness, and less trust. This is all tied up with how people don’t trust each other anymore. Too many women have gotten their hearts broken when persuing relationships and love, and women cheating on the men has also been on such a rise. It has gotten to where so many people have just thrown their hands up and said “**** it, it’s better to just start sleeping around”. More people now prefer one night stands, casual hookups, and other no strings attatched deals like friends with benefits or **** buddies. Marraige has been on such a decline that even couples that have really fallen in love don’t bother getting married just since they know that the chance of a breakup somewhere down the road is high enough that they don’t want to risk having to deal with all the legal mess and expenses of getting a divorce. Personally I would love it to be like it was once before, but I know there is nothing I can do about it.

[bobalife]

Love this! :) I completely agree. Unfortunately, this occurs a lot now in our dating cultural today. I guess changes can happen when people choose to have more of an open mind and heart of those chances with love and romance~

[ineedatan]

I believe the desire to be loved and have an everlasting romance isn't dead as it's human nature to be loved and desired. What's fading or "dead" is the concept of what people understand/think is romance. I'm definitely not in the traditional courtship generation that I'd hear of how my grandparents met and came to last 65 years of marriage.

I'm in that selfish generation where most care to "experiment" and "test" attraction, fulfill lust, mess around with emotions... etc. Committment, honesty and the desire to build one another up in love is rare as I live in a toxic era with media (reality dating shows, hookup apps, cellphones which make emotional cheating/lusting that much easier... etc.) that distorts romance.

Traditional human interaction and connection is what needs to be "revamped" in my opinion. I can't keep count on my fingers the couples I'd see outdoors at a park /beach /cafe /restaurant that'd be doing their own thing glued to their damn screen and not interacting with one another on a deeper emotional level!

[Jjpayne]

I think spending so much time making love a science with dating apps that you don't have the space to experience people you just pull them left instead of getting the opportunity to find out for yourself. The odd part is there might be people that you could have a long lasting relationship with that you simply pushed left based on what you knew about them before meeting them. Romance has been made into a series of pictures and words. We need more safe dating interactions in person again. That's my view on it anyways

[AmandaYVR]

That was excellent, Jj. Completely agree.
Algorithms are now deciding - or at the very least hugely influencing - who will be together.

[Jjpayne]

Thank you Amanda :)

[Lliam]

I relate to:
“We come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.”
- Sam Keen

“Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”
- Robert Heinlein

A lot of romantic stuff is pure schmaltz. But I actually am a romantic at heart. Deep infatuation is possibly the most wonderful thing a person can experience. I think it is what inspires the schmaltziest of poetry. True love goes beyond that. True love goes deeper than schmaltz. It takes over where infatuation leaves off.

[Can-I-Get-A-DoOver]

I was just contemplating this very thing a few days ago! I heard “has love gone out of style?” in a song. I concluded it has after 3 years of online dating apps. Men don’t seem to want a long term relationship, at least after they’re done with having and raising families. They don’t want romance. They want sex by the third date or they’re gone.

[Jamie05rhs]

That's sad. I'm sorry.

[Be4rdy]

Men do actually want relationships. We just dont want crazy women

Also women never reply so can't always blame it on guys not wanting it, women are just as bad...5 years on tinder can barely get a reply

[AmandaYVR]

I feel for you. Things don't seem good. There's no patience anymore, for one thing.

Fyi, here are some related polls I have done, prior:
Guys (single men): what do you want: a relationship, hookups, or nothing right now? ↗
If you are/were looking, would you prefer an actual relationship, or a casual hookup? ↗
What level of commitment are you seeking in a relationship? ↗
Are you in a purely sexual relationship that you would like to be more? ↗
Girls, Single ladies: why are you not in a relationship? ↗

@Be4rdy Tinder is a meat market and everyone there knows it, so a no-reply there really doesn't mean much. It's more illuminating/significant on the actual dating sites (where I know it is also a problem, but means more.)

[Jersey2]

The internet has destroyed romance in many ways... porn, tinder type sites, nudes pictures sent, fuck buddies hookups, swinger and fetishized hook up sites, pressure to do more, pressure to not be feminine or masculine. The coldness taught to the young, the harshness of the internet and the lack of romance in movies and tv.

[TraceyByrd]

Damn right pssht 💯

[Guanfei]

Romance died the day we started considering that chivalry was sexist.
We live in an era in which courting and being romantic is considering annoying, we have to have everything immediately, whether it is sex or relationship. An era in which people have such expectations and requirement that nothing matters more than look and money.
Would you take time for romance, for courting, for love, when you know people can breakup, change partners, cheat, and it's considered more and more as normal, as "freedom"?

[curiouscuriouser]

Today's dating scene is actually pretty depressing. I see people in their 30s and 40s single, divorced or generally unable to speak with opposite gender, out of shape and almost given up on dating altogether. Knowing how to make your partner happy is a bit of love and skill and hard work. I feel like nobody is willing to commit or do the hard work so just use sex as a crutch but long term is only gonna make you unhappy.

[AmandaYVR]

Good points.

[AlwaysBelieving]

I hope it isn't

No I don't want romance to be dead. I'm what most would call "a hopeless romantic" (who came up with that phrase anyway?).

Yes it's time for a resurrection. Though, can we change the name (hopeless romantic).

Can't we make it hopeful romantic?

[AmandaYVR]

Yes, good idea!
Ah, that's a good thing for me to look up.

A hopeless romantic is a person who holds sentimental and idealistic views on love, especially in spite of experience, evidence, or exhortations otherwise.

WHERE DOES HOPELESS ROMANTIC COME FROM?
In Marie Price La Touche’s 1855 novel Lady Willoughby, a mother urges her son not to pursue a “hopeless, romantic attachment,” concerned he will thwart his prospects in life and work by rushing into marriage with an unworthy girl out of callow, foolish love. A 1917 article in the British magazine The Nation quotes a Mrs. McDonald to describe Charlotte Brontë as having a “tragical, hopeless, romantic love, that asks for nothing but acceptance.”

These early pairings of the modifiers hopeless and romantic suggested a passionate (romantic) yet ineffectual (hopeless) love, and anticipated its modern form, a hopeless romantic. The particular phrase appeared as early as 1926 in a short story collection, Georgian Stories, where it portrayed a character named George “as a hopeless romantic” who was “very much in love,” though others felt that as attractive as his love interest may have been, the relationship was not in George’s best interest.

Here, a romantic is a person with lofty, sentimental, idealistic views on life and love. It’s been used as a noun since the early 1800s. Hopeless characterizes the person as “incorrigible” or beyond the point of changing, suggesting the person knowingly persists in spite of risk, previous failure, or others’ cynicism about the possibility of true love.

Hopeless romantic spread as a phrase and character type in literature and literary magazines in the 1920 and ‘30s and was used for individuals who easily, recklessly, or repeatedly fall in love or chase after love for love’s sake, even when it’s impractical, unwise, or unseemly.

www.dictionary.com/.../

[madprofessor]

Women want a gentleman and have him treat her like a lady. Well, I'll be one if you'll be a lady and give me a reason to be a gentleman. Don't have a bunch of spinning plates, or let your vag meet every guy you do, don't play games is a good place to start. Do those and Ill be a gentleman.

[AmandaYVR]

That's very fair.

[BCA6010]

I miss there being significant value on a relationship. It's almost all hookup culture now, which I don't consider worthwhile. Honestly though, I don't see it changing any time soon. There is a very concerted effort to dismantle the traditional family, not just as an institution but also as a structure, and as long as that's being pushed, people will run with it as it suits them.

[BlueScorpio]

I still believe in love and romance. Love/romance isn't dead, the problem is people give up too easily, try to hard, don't try hard enough, or communicate well to find the real thing. Too many people jump in and out of relationships with the wrong people yet wonder why they still haven't found true love yet.

[Rocco7070]

When I go to the trouble of happily being romantic , its alive. Im sorta weak for romance. Its a seldom done but sometimes I want it romantic, no colored lights or classy drinks maybe no props, just dark whispers and relaxing in quiet and being real. maybe a couple of ovary yeilding lies. I love romance sometimes.

[BlueEyedBirdWatcher]

Romance is corrupted to the point the media labels abuse and violence as romance. Romance is what the main characters do to get laid.

Even when it isn't abusive media still values relationship drama with big fights and crying.

But even if we assume romance is a good thing.

I think it should be restrained, relationships can't be built on just love. People need to make sense together.

Romance should be something on top of a good relationship.

[hellacray]

When I was younger I liked the idea of romance. Like I would see stuff in TV shows and movies where guys would do certain things to impress the girl of his dreams.

What they didn't show tho is how much the stuff costs. And that after putting in the effort she will want more. Or if she's a leech, she may just go with a different guy after you're done with your romantic gesture.

And that's another thing when people talk about romance it's always the guy that puts in the effort to be romantic. What the hell does the girl do? Hell I would love it if a girl surprises me with a romantic gesture.

Yeah screw romance. If romance isn't dead I say we shoot it until it's dead. And if it's already dead well then I say let's dig it back up and shoot it some more.

[Grond21]

The last option, definitely! People have made it shallow and Hallmarked it, but deep passionate romance will never die. It'll just be forgotten by a generation, and then the next generation rediscovers it

[AmandaYVR]

I like it.
I had to look up that word...

Hallmarked:
verb; past tense: hallmarked; past participle
stamp with a hallmark.
designate as distinctive, especially for excellence.
The hallmark of something or someone is their most typical quality or feature.

[Grond21]

Ahhh, that's funny, because I was using it to signify a Hallmark movie.
But that definition works too.

[Unit1]

I'm convinced, that love is either dead or never truly existed.

Is true love dead?

[AmandaYVR]

Ok, I wrote more on this topic on your question than I did on my own now. So be happy about that!

[scorpy04]

Romance is very much confu@ed with If you love me you would also with me Romance exist but is drowning in the sexual revolution We have forgotten how w used to just go out with no expectations except to have a wonderful evening together Sex is not a necessary a sign of love which confused it seems to be Romance each other know each other Feel that special connection then you can progress with no sex but making love