Romance Is Personally Constructed and Necessarily Exclusive

Why analyze romance?

Romance is an interesting object of inquiry to me because I think lots of people don’t think about it too deeply. Carrie Jenkins-Ichikawa has an idea related to this phenomenon that she calls “romantic mystique”, where people fetishize the idea of the supposed unknowability of love. People think that if they think too hard about love that it might disappear or somehow lose its specialness, and many people don’t want to live in a world without love. Love and romance holds a very special place in people’s minds, one that’s perhaps a bit overhyped in my opinion.

What Romance Is Not

The following are things that are frequently associated with romance, but for some reason or another are neither sufficient nor necessary conditions for something to be considered romantic:

1. Love
   • You can love people in a non-romantic way, i.e. your family or friends.
2. Partnership
   • Partnership can be done non-romantically and it might be even better if the partnership is non-romantic.
     • Detangling Romance and Partnership
     • Romance as a Bad Organizing Principle
3. “The One Above All”
   • This is highly related to the “Monogamous Hierarchical Conception of Love”
   • Polyamorous people can have multiple romanic relationships
   • Monogamous people can have a romantic relationship that isn’t the highest relationship in their life
4. Candlelit dinners, cuddling by the fireplace, and long walks on the beach
   • These are things that are considered romantic by society or individuals, but these are all activities that inherently have no quality called “romance”, and can all be done in non-romantic contexts.
   • However I think that this kind of class of actions gives us the greatest insight into defining romance.

How can we define romance?

I think that romance is not “real” in the sense that it exists mind independently, but that doesn’t really matter because it does exist for the person who thinks it.

• In this way, platonic vs romantic differentiation is possible, but it just varies between people.

I believe that romance is a personally defined niche of actions reserved for a certain person/people.

• The reservation for certain people is what makes it special (necessarily exclusive).
  • Exclusivity does not mean just for one person, but it can be.
• While romance is certainly socially constructed/mediated, more than anything it is personally constructed.
  • Personal preferences, dreams, internal narratives that have been informed by social conditions, but are very individually dependent.
  • The idea of staying together forever, being interdependent, building a life together, working through issues are all examples of actions that are commonly included in romance.

The niche of actions is maintained by personal boundaries.

• The personal boundaries are what make romance special/exclusive compared to other things.
  • Scarcity = specialness/value
• It depends on what is special/saved for your partner/romantic prospects.
  • Some people only want to cuddle, have sex, live with, and/or have children with someone that they are romantically involved with.
• It could be also be a level of influence or consideration that you give the other person in your life.
• If there are no relevant differences in the actions in the class of friendship vs romance, then I do not think that they are distinct classes.
  • There can be overlap, but at the same time, there must be differences.

For someone non-monogamous, the category of romance can still arise via personal boundaries.

• Hierarchical polyamory is the most clear example of this, where one partner has more influence/consideration than the others.
• Even in non-hierarchical polyamory, a person could choose a boundary where they only have sex with romantic partners.
• For a Relationship Anarchist, this distinction (likely) does not exist.
  • The whole point of RA is that there is no hierarchy.
  • There could be a revealed class of actions that happen to be saved for a specific class of people, but if it is unintentional/coincidental then I don’t think that it can be counted as creating a niche of actions.

Downstream Consequences

Romance is still beautiful and lovely for the people involved, there is nothing inherently bad about saving certain kinds of actions for certain people.

• I believe that romance is different but ultimately not intrinsically better than other forms of love.

• Romance is what you make of it, literally, so I want to show people that if you have inflated ideals about romance that seem unachievable, then you have the power to change how you think about it.

• Romantic attraction/feelings/desire is wanting to engage in romantic actions with a specific person
  • Romantic actions are actions of that personally defined niche
  • I think confusion about romantic attraction is usually not whether or not you want to do romantic actions with someone, but if you can.
    • “Do I want to stay with this person forever?” versus “Could I stay with this person forever?”
  • Passion may fade over time as it is more of an emotion, but romantic desire doesn’t need wane over time
• Romantic relationships are relationships where you engage in those actions with someone
  • Romantic partners are people who you engage in those actions with
    • It does not rely on rituals like asking someone out
  • Romantic love is love with a romantic partner
    • I think that the main difference between “romantic love” and “other” kinds of love is just depth of feelings
• I think that someone having no personally defined romantic niche can be considered aromantic.
  • Ways of Being A-Spec
• Two peoples ideas of romance can be misaligned which can cause relationship issues/general incompatibility