Make Marriage Great Again (religiously, legally and socially) and the romantic goodwill between the sexes will follow. That’s the only way out, I’m afraid!
I agree. My husband and I met on Twitter like a decade ago (I know...) but the end goal for dating, the way we understood it, was always marriage and a family. Our romance would not have ultimately gone the way it did otherwise (married 7 years this summer, fourth child on the way).
I wanted to hear Freya much more than her!! The woman on the right reminded me of all the girls in school who talked way too much—because they had the personality to command the room—and then asked why I was so quiet. lol
Same but sometimes it’s best to let these people keep on talking, they only expose themselves as being narrow minded. That lass lost all credibility very quickly 😂
Romance isn’t dead… but the idea that you can slowly grow to love someone seems to be. As a man who’s now been on dozens of dates (from an app) I can say that women mostly tell themselves (and others) that they want “honesty, and communication”. They REALLY want chemistry, and if the first date isn’t oozing with it they’re out.
Not all romance is dead. My 23 yo son made his girl the sweetest video game for Valentine's Day. They're long distance at the moment and they'll play it together later today.
Equality has killed romance. In every romantic movie, it's the boy/man that has to risk everything, the stupid one. Climb to the moutaintop/castle/tower or the obstacle and the woman will fall in love with you. Now, the men are unwilling to take the risk of facing the dragon. The nostalgia is for these stupid/brave men. As I watched the video, I'm grateful to my wife and kids even more. The women in the video long for something their mothers/grandmothers had but they looked at those things as women were forced into it or didn't have a choice. welcome to modern romance. Now women have to climb the mountaintop/castle/tower (risk).
Haing veen married to my soulmate for 30 years and now being single.... Romance isnt what it was when I was a younger man.... Women are too complicated at this point and time.... For the Love of God transcends all things.... Come Lord Jesus Come...
Romance is, above all else, erotic mindfulness. Mindfulness of any kind is on life support. We are all living in dissociated distraction and need to dedicate greater effort to staying present.
Once again, thanks for your great insight into modern romance.
I agree with everything you said.
As a 73 year old, I went through the key dating age in the 1970s when we didn't have any computers let alone dating apps and all dating was instigated by face-to-face contact with people and, generally, a lot less rush about the whole process.
As with many young people, I was shy and found the process daunting - particularly that initial contact - but I was someone who had a number of friends who were girls so I was well used to having normal conversations with them. And, when it came to that initial romantic move, it was a situation where failure was guaranteed unless you took that first "risky" step.
And, after all, it was only the risk of an ego deflating rejection which happens all through life anyway!
There was a reasonably active social scene within the large engineering offices in which we worked so we all got to know each other in normal social situations and, after sitting opposite each other every day for 9 months, I tentatively asked Heather if she would would like to go out with me to visit an old country pub ... fortunately, she said yes and we spent hours just chatting with each other. By the end of the evening (21 April 1978), we were an item and have been ever since!
As you can see it was a slow getting to know each other romance, which worked well for us and I'm sure that faster progress would have been more difficult and felt more risky.
The comments about parents reactions to people getting attached too young sound misguided to me (we were 26 and 22 when we started dating) but I understand where their concern comes from.
In my family I saw lots of divorces - parents, sister, aunts, cousins - and was determined to choose wisely (as far as anyone can tell!) to avoid that happening to me. So I was never just looking for a decorative woman on my arm to show how successful I was but rather, I wanted a partner who I could share my life with (and I struck really lucky by finding both in the same person!)
I will conclude by saying that - obviously - I'm an old-fashioned romantic who agrees with your views on dating apps, etc. I really don't like to see women (or men) being presented as competing commodities. We're all people who can only be judged by slowly getting to know them in person.
No romance is not dead so long as human courtship is a universal. It is not dead then so long as evolution exists and cannot “die.” And that’s just the science.
We have stories. Our lives are stories and our loves are stories and although all the above end, they also cannot “die.”
Whether you saw Serendipity twenty years ago evolve into LaLa Land ten years ago and evolve into Marriage Story more recently, stories were said to be by the Linguist Philosophers to be “how the mind is structured.”
So if you don’t believe the human mind is “dead” or that the death of storytelling itself will ever be possible so long as our species exists, then no, no, romance, the ultimate and most important human story of all cannot die and never will.
No matter what little fun movements or decades or sociological fits and starts try to sabotage or make us forget it for a time, not believe in it for a time.
No matter your religion or lack thereof it is “The Hound of Heaven.” And it will never stop pursuing you to make its existence known as long as we breathe.
Could we get a summarized written form of the video? I know it's anachronistic, but I hate having to watch/listen to YouTube videos, but appreciate your writing and thinking and would love to learn about what was discussed.
In describing the model man that they would be attracted to, females have drifted to expectations that often exceed reality. In describing the model woman that they would be attracted to, males still seem to own long-standing expectations that females no longer accept as reality.
The relationship between a man and a woman is – for most people - likely to be the finest fruit that life has to offer. And that when things go wrong, they are often better understood as resulting from a kind of Faustian tango between the sexes than as a simple case of one sex always doing wrong by the other. All just timeless truths and plain common sense you might say - and Yes perhaps these timeless truths have ever obtained in the kitchens and bedrooms of our Western society. But they are ones that have been conspicuous by their absence in the groves of academe and in the fourth estate in recent decades. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/shall-we-dance
Not dead, just facing an uphill battle in the age of social media and accompanying narcissism. To love is to will the good of the other (Aquinas). Could we put our phones down? Put the other person first? Set our standards high, and if the other person doesn't meet them or inspire us to raise ours, then move along? We might all benefit from a 2nd run at this topic, but with Freya interviewing her grandparents instead.
Make Marriage Great Again (religiously, legally and socially) and the romantic goodwill between the sexes will follow. That’s the only way out, I’m afraid!
I agree. My husband and I met on Twitter like a decade ago (I know...) but the end goal for dating, the way we understood it, was always marriage and a family. Our romance would not have ultimately gone the way it did otherwise (married 7 years this summer, fourth child on the way).
Here's the semi-dramatic "don't try this at home, folks!" story.... if anyone is desperate for a dispatch of hope from the internet age. Cheers to love, risk, and commitment. https://luminousandliminal.wordpress.com/2018/11/05/grand-laughter/
You did great Freya, you and the guy with glasses seemed to be the only ones taking it seriously and the ones who weren't drunk.
The girl with the half bowl trim is very judgemental
Yep, just started watching she's already annoying me.
Let’s hope she finds a gooden in the ‘dumpster’ 🥴
I wanted to hear Freya much more than her!! The woman on the right reminded me of all the girls in school who talked way too much—because they had the personality to command the room—and then asked why I was so quiet. lol
Same but sometimes it’s best to let these people keep on talking, they only expose themselves as being narrow minded. That lass lost all credibility very quickly 😂
Romance isn’t dead… but the idea that you can slowly grow to love someone seems to be. As a man who’s now been on dozens of dates (from an app) I can say that women mostly tell themselves (and others) that they want “honesty, and communication”. They REALLY want chemistry, and if the first date isn’t oozing with it they’re out.
It’s a strange time to be alive 😂
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/serenity-self-indulgence
Not all romance is dead. My 23 yo son made his girl the sweetest video game for Valentine's Day. They're long distance at the moment and they'll play it together later today.
Equality has killed romance. In every romantic movie, it's the boy/man that has to risk everything, the stupid one. Climb to the moutaintop/castle/tower or the obstacle and the woman will fall in love with you. Now, the men are unwilling to take the risk of facing the dragon. The nostalgia is for these stupid/brave men. As I watched the video, I'm grateful to my wife and kids even more. The women in the video long for something their mothers/grandmothers had but they looked at those things as women were forced into it or didn't have a choice. welcome to modern romance. Now women have to climb the mountaintop/castle/tower (risk).
Haing veen married to my soulmate for 30 years and now being single.... Romance isnt what it was when I was a younger man.... Women are too complicated at this point and time.... For the Love of God transcends all things.... Come Lord Jesus Come...
You were excellent. The switch from being a partner to having a partner was so well observed. We were singing your praises in the back row!
Romance is, above all else, erotic mindfulness. Mindfulness of any kind is on life support. We are all living in dissociated distraction and need to dedicate greater effort to staying present.
Hi Freya,
Once again, thanks for your great insight into modern romance.
I agree with everything you said.
As a 73 year old, I went through the key dating age in the 1970s when we didn't have any computers let alone dating apps and all dating was instigated by face-to-face contact with people and, generally, a lot less rush about the whole process.
As with many young people, I was shy and found the process daunting - particularly that initial contact - but I was someone who had a number of friends who were girls so I was well used to having normal conversations with them. And, when it came to that initial romantic move, it was a situation where failure was guaranteed unless you took that first "risky" step.
And, after all, it was only the risk of an ego deflating rejection which happens all through life anyway!
There was a reasonably active social scene within the large engineering offices in which we worked so we all got to know each other in normal social situations and, after sitting opposite each other every day for 9 months, I tentatively asked Heather if she would would like to go out with me to visit an old country pub ... fortunately, she said yes and we spent hours just chatting with each other. By the end of the evening (21 April 1978), we were an item and have been ever since!
As you can see it was a slow getting to know each other romance, which worked well for us and I'm sure that faster progress would have been more difficult and felt more risky.
The comments about parents reactions to people getting attached too young sound misguided to me (we were 26 and 22 when we started dating) but I understand where their concern comes from.
In my family I saw lots of divorces - parents, sister, aunts, cousins - and was determined to choose wisely (as far as anyone can tell!) to avoid that happening to me. So I was never just looking for a decorative woman on my arm to show how successful I was but rather, I wanted a partner who I could share my life with (and I struck really lucky by finding both in the same person!)
I will conclude by saying that - obviously - I'm an old-fashioned romantic who agrees with your views on dating apps, etc. I really don't like to see women (or men) being presented as competing commodities. We're all people who can only be judged by slowly getting to know them in person.
Keep up the good work!
No romance is not dead so long as human courtship is a universal. It is not dead then so long as evolution exists and cannot “die.” And that’s just the science.
We have stories. Our lives are stories and our loves are stories and although all the above end, they also cannot “die.”
Whether you saw Serendipity twenty years ago evolve into LaLa Land ten years ago and evolve into Marriage Story more recently, stories were said to be by the Linguist Philosophers to be “how the mind is structured.”
So if you don’t believe the human mind is “dead” or that the death of storytelling itself will ever be possible so long as our species exists, then no, no, romance, the ultimate and most important human story of all cannot die and never will.
No matter what little fun movements or decades or sociological fits and starts try to sabotage or make us forget it for a time, not believe in it for a time.
No matter your religion or lack thereof it is “The Hound of Heaven.” And it will never stop pursuing you to make its existence known as long as we breathe.
No not ever.
Could we get a summarized written form of the video? I know it's anachronistic, but I hate having to watch/listen to YouTube videos, but appreciate your writing and thinking and would love to learn about what was discussed.
In describing the model man that they would be attracted to, females have drifted to expectations that often exceed reality. In describing the model woman that they would be attracted to, males still seem to own long-standing expectations that females no longer accept as reality.
The relationship between a man and a woman is – for most people - likely to be the finest fruit that life has to offer. And that when things go wrong, they are often better understood as resulting from a kind of Faustian tango between the sexes than as a simple case of one sex always doing wrong by the other. All just timeless truths and plain common sense you might say - and Yes perhaps these timeless truths have ever obtained in the kitchens and bedrooms of our Western society. But they are ones that have been conspicuous by their absence in the groves of academe and in the fourth estate in recent decades. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/shall-we-dance
Not dead, just facing an uphill battle in the age of social media and accompanying narcissism. To love is to will the good of the other (Aquinas). Could we put our phones down? Put the other person first? Set our standards high, and if the other person doesn't meet them or inspire us to raise ours, then move along? We might all benefit from a 2nd run at this topic, but with Freya interviewing her grandparents instead.
Valentine's Day: still the worst. If women want romance, they should inspire it in their man, Women do not know how to do that.
You could watch the movie Beavis & Butthead Do America for some more guidance on this topic.