Re-imagining vs De-centering Romance

In this article, I will attempt to argue that when re-imagining and/or de-centering romance, you cannot meaningfully do one without doing the other.

• Re-imagining romance would be changing your own internal perception/conceptual understanding of romance.
• De-centering romance is suspending romance as a central goal of your life.

What is romance?

• For the purposes of this article I will be taking the “Monogamous Hierarchical Conception of Love” (See: Relationship Limiting Beliefs) as romance, which is to say that “you have one person who you dedicate the most of your time, love, and attention to”.
  • Supremacy Principle: Romantic love is the highest possible love/good
  • Primacy Principle: Romantic love/your partner comes above everything else
  • Centrality Principle: Romantic love should be at the center of your life (building life around your partner)

With this definition of romance, romance is by definition central to your life.

• It is seen as something that should absolutely be striven for.
• Each person has their own orientation of romance and some don’t have the taste for it.
  • These people in my mind have already de-centered romance by accepting the premise that romance is not the highest possible love/good (at least for them).

What would it look like to de-center romance but not re-imagine it?

• “Romance is the highest good, but I do not hold it as a priority”
  • What is the time scale of not wanting it/de-centering it?
    • “I do not want it right now” is just temporary or until the “right person” comes around
      • I would argue this isn’t really de-centering, but just a redirection of focus. The goal of romance hasn’t changed, it just is that you aren’t currently working toward it.
      • In other words, the structure of your life hasn’t really changed, just how you go about your daily life, and if you haven’t restructured anything, the center hasn’t moved anywhere.
    • “I do not want it forever” reads as re-imagining to me
      • Depending on what reasons you decide for not wanting it, it will go against one of the three principles I described earlier
• I think that de-centering romance without re-imagining it is to pretend romance doesn’t exist

What would it look like to re-imagine romance but not de-center it?

• All of the principles of the Monogamous Hierarchical Conception of Love are pretty centering, but I suppose the Supremacy Principle is the least centering
  • With the Centrality and Primacy Principles still intact, this would mean that you still want to organize your life around your partner and that they come above everything else, but that something else is a higher good than romantic love.
    • Then doesn’t it seem silly to follow Centrality and Primacy if there is something else better that you could be focusing on?
• The principles are heavily intertwined with each other, so you can’t really isolate one and try to change it
  • Therefore I don’t really think it’s possible to try to re-imagine romance without removing some of its centrality

What does re-imagining AND de-centering romance look like?

• You could take actions that you might have only reserved for your partner and instead do them with whoever you feel like you would want to with.
  • Romance is Personally Constructed and Necessarily Exclusive
• You realize that you don’t have to organize your life around the idea of romance and/or your partner. You can build it around friends, family, work, hobbies, whatever you want!
• You can date/connect with people if you want, but not have to feel bad about being single either!