In America, many women – especially the feminist kind – disliked me. I came to the conclusion that the reason for that was conflict of expectations. Both my mother and my grandmother were superwomen, and I got used to female beauty and goodness without myself being especially attractive physically or personally. So many women saw me as a bottom-feeder.
However I did have things to offer the women that I was with. One was affection and passion. Another was appreciation. Another was quite good poetry. Another was addressing their concerns. And of course when I was making good money in the computer industry I had that to offer as well.
One benefit of this state of affairs is that bad women avoided me. I did not have what they wanted. The women I did attract were the artistic and philosophical kind. As such, these were frequently accused of being crazy or evil. However they were all beautiful, intelligent and exciting. Some lived in mansions and some have been homeless; but all were amazing as romantic partners. And all had experienced completely unfair mistreatment.
They, like me, were the romantic type. In contemporary society the romantic women become punching bags, and the romantic men get treated as criminals. We all had a strong influence from Romantic poetry and literature. We applied the concepts to things in our lives. It worked when we found one another. The result, besides beautiful shares, was also good poetry and art on both sides.
Now romantic attitudes have come under a lot of criticism. Apparently it is unrealistic, narcissistic or childish. It is not narcissistic; it is about valuing the other person rather than about valuing yourself. It is not unrealistic; people's convictions have a large role in shaping the reality of their lives, and people who base their actions on such beliefs make these beliefs a part of social reality. Nor is it childish; I have known marriages that started with love at first sight and were going strong when the partners were in their 80s.
Then there is the claim that it is antisocial. Do not tell that to the World War II generation. They built a very successful society while in many cases basing their matches on romantic love. Maybe such things become antisocial in societies that want to snuff them out; but societies do not have to be that way.
Another claim is that it is nature's way to get you to do its bidding. Is that such a bad thing? Is it a bad thing furthermore that such matches should lead to marriage and family? Most people will want to have families. Most people will want to have children. It is much better that this be done within the context of a relationship where people love one another than within a relationship in which people do not.
Probably the most ridiculous claim I've heard on the subject is that it is misogynistic. That claim is a Big Lie. That claim is precise inversion of truth. A misogynist is somebody who hates women. A man who writes poetry for women is not a misogynist; he is the opposite of a misogynist. He is a man who loves women, or at least the women for whom he writes poetry. To claim anything to the contrary is absurd.
Then there is the claim that the people who are attracted to such things are narcissists or sociopaths or perverts, and that these people can't love. Even ones who can't feel love – as we are told about sociopaths - can choose to act in a loving manner. Use your mind for what your heart fails to do. As for “narcissists” and “perverts,” many of them do very much love. Ayn Rand is regarded as narcissistic, but she was passionately in love more than once. And of course many of the people who were involved in 1920s and 1960s would be now regarded as perverts, but many of them were very loving, as we see for example in the Great Gadsby, the Beat poetry and Pink Floyd.
When something is under attack in society, its manifestations are at a disadvantage. This reinforces the false claim that there is something wrong with it. Especially when partners are young, inexperienced and not versed in social manipulation, their relationships can be easily poisoned or destroyed by people versed in such things. This leads to situations such as the one that I had in 1995, when I passionately loved a woman only to have her stepmother tell her that I was using her. Completely untrue, but it appears that she believed it. Some say that love is the most powerful force in the universe, but in fact love is quite fragile. Its value is its beauty, not its power, and the correct place for power is to protect the love.
One thing that I have seen in some situations is what I call the Iago behavior. Sometimes a man would genuinely love a woman, only to have his bar buddies or his family stuff his head with paranoid nonsense and convince him that the woman is doing the wrong thing or that the woman is evil. In many case these people would claim that the man owed it to other men or even to God to tramp women down. This would destroy even the most loving relationships and lead them to become abusive. Then of course the feminists would look at this behavior and say that it means that men are evil or that love is a racket. In fact the problem was neither with men nor with love. The problem was with the ugliness that surrounded them and which was more experienced than were they.
I want to see romantic love vindicated and becoming a fertile ground for better family life. This will create better family situations. As for the people with strong romantic influence, it will give them a reason to live and to excel, bringing into the civilization a rightfully disaffected constituency.
I want people growing up now to avoid situations such as what I had in 1995. To that effect I offer my arguments on the subject. Use these arguments to defend your relationships and make your relationships blossom for life.