fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2785 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2785 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

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02.

[Tenth Kingdom]

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03.

(Orange is the New Black)

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04.

[Dresden Files author Jim Butcher, Shannon Butcher]

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05.

[Panic! at the Disco. Brendon Urie]

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06.

[BBC Robin Hood]

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07.

[Chasing Life]

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08.

[Rooster Teeth]

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09.

[Hawkeye 2012]

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10.

[Legend of Korra]

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11.

[QI]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 045 secrets from Secret Submission Post #398.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Why do people think romance and romantic relationships are so important? Why is it a default assumption that one's romantic partner must be the center of your universe?

I seemed to upset a friend of mine when I said I don't care much about romance and don't really need or even want much in my life. She seemed worried for my boyfriend because he was obviously no where near the center of my universe, as have some other people. My boyfriend, meanwhile, says he's grateful he's not at the center of my universe (and I feel the same way towards him) - neither of us would really like that kind of pressure.

I know that a lot of this is just due to the media representation of romance and what not, but still - why have so many people fallen so hard for this particular media misrepresentation? It seems like such an obvious constriction on one's life and soul, why is it so prevalent? o.O

I think a lot of it is just a cultural thing. People leaving their childhood homes to build new families with a romantic partner. There's a huge cultural focus there.

True, that wasn't an angle I thought of (mostly because I tend to think of people as living on their own or in group homes/with roommates before 'building their own homes'/families upon marriage or some other form of settling down in the long-term).

To some people, their SO really is the most important person in the world. That doesn't mean it's ok to assume everyone should be like that, of course. We all have different priorities.

It's cultural. Mostly, it's because of the creation of the nuclear family, and when families are told they ought to be totally satisfied by their nuclear family bubbles (and the way western society facilitates this arrangement), it makes it really hard to have a fulfilling life if your SO isn't the most important person in your world.

Not so coincidentally, this is indirectly the cause of probably quite a lot of divorces -- the fact that for some people, their SO *isn't* the center of their universe, and the isolated, bubble-like way nuclear family units are often constructed means that a situation where your SO isn't the most important person in your life is usually a very unhappy situation, because your SO is the only person you are really allowed to spend most of your time with and share a lot of your life with in a nuclear family arrangement. And it's a completely artificial arrangement. Not that it's a *wrong* with the nuclear family arrangement in the least, mind you -- it's an arrangement that's actually very convenient and very frequently desired -- IF it suits the relationships or the people within it -- but "frequently desired" doesn't mean "fundamentally suited to everyone." And for that matter, it's a pretty recent creation.

For example, the weird (when you think about it) fact that the whole debate over gay marriage is over whether romantic same-sex couples are similar enough to straight romantic couples, and that their romantic feelings are enough like the feelings of straight romantic couples to justify whether it's okay for them to have the same rights as straight couples. The answer is, obviously, "of course!" but that also opens up more questions: What if I don't have *any* spouse whatsoever, of the opposite OR the same gender? What if I never get married and want my totally platonic best friend who I've been best friends with for 50 years to be the one to have all the same rights to visit me in the hospital and stuff as my theoretical spouse would have? Would I have to marry her in spite of not having romantic feelings for her, a la Alan Shore and Denny Crane on Boston Legal?

For that matter, why is marriage a romantic thing anyway? Can't two people swear "till death us do part" without the part where they like to have sex with each other or kiss or cuddle or hold hands or have romantic dinners or find each other attractive or even just have passionate romantic feelings for each other (if they're asexual)? Why not two friends who have decided that they really like doing everything together and living their whole lives next to each other, and the only thing living apart gives them is inconvenience and wasted rent money?

Or on the flip side, the idea that romantic couples should live together, or it's not "real." What if I'm perfectly happy living by myself and sleeping over at my romantic partner's house only...say...three out of seven nights a week? What if we love each other truly, madly, and deeply, but are just so really, really, really not suited to living together that we'd drive each other insane and wind up breaking up if we tried? Why would that make our relationship incompatible or somehow in limbo or incomplete? It's probably not an arrangement that would work for a whole lot of people, but what about the people it DOES work for?

And the idea that a family should be headed by two people who are fucking each other or at least romantically involved with each other. Why? What exactly makes a family headed by two people who are fucking each other more valid or healthy than a family headed by, say, a responsible adult guy and his responsible adult friend who have decided to adopt the first dude's sister's orphaned kids or something? Why is this seen as something imperfect or non-ideal or whacky? It can't be any less ideal than two romantic partners trying to have sex quietly while their kids sleep across the hall from them, can it? Or less ideal than a kid of divorced parents being shuttled back and forth between their mother-and-step-father's house and their father-and-step-mother's house twice a week?

There are just sooooooooo many weird, totally arbitrary conflations and logical fallacies when it comes to romance that it can make your head spin if you actually stop and think about it too long.

And it's all basically a massive failure to understand that "what's preferred by a majority of the population" =/= "what's right for and preferred by 100% of the population."

Different things work for different people.

Like you, I'd hate it if I had a man breathing all over me all the time and wouldn't leave me the f alone from time to time.

I think people get upset because it's what they've been told for the longest time, that romance is the biggest thing ever, that now they must question their own lives and own decisions, and ask themselves if they are where they actually want to be where that particular subject is concerned.

How it got to be so popular... well, it's very appealing and sweet if you don't think too much on it. If you have problems and someone else can make them go away (or make it seem that way temporarily), then wouldn't you want that person in your life? Not to say everyone in a relationship is incapable of solving their own problems, but I can see how that kind of thing is appealing. And then people just kind of ran with it.

[ SECRET POST #2785 ]

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