SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER 1

Romantic Love is a Hoax!

Emotional Programming to 'Fall in Love'

    While it lasts, romantic love is a wonderful delusion.
But if we attempt to build our lives around this feeling,
we are certain to be disappointed
because romantic love is an artificial emotion
that we have 'picked up' (like a germ) from the surrounding culture.  

    One early reader of this chapter was so infuriated
by the idea that romantic love is an illusion
that she tore up this part of her book.
She did not want to give up one of the most beautiful fantasies of her life.

    Especially younger readers seem to want to believe
that the powerful emotion they feel called "romantic love" is something real.
Romantics want to believe
that they have 'tapped into' a deep truth of the universe.

    This chapter is intended to cause disillusionment about romantic love.
Romantic love in each relationship
will disappear soon enough without any external help.
But it sometimes leaves very deep wounds in its victims.  
Philosophical disillusionment might be better than emotional trauma.
(The intellectual discovery that romantic love is a hoax
will probably never lead to irrational suicide,
as sometimes happens when romantic illusions collapse.) 
And when this chapter takes away the popular illusions about romance,
it does so in the context of a long book devoted to better ways of loving.

    This chapter traces the beginning of romantic love to 800 years ago.
The French troubadours made up this delightful emotional game.
And it has been modified and passed down to us
by all of the elements of popular culture.  

    Some pages are devoted to exploring just how movies, songs, & novels
have managed to program almost all of us so that we will 'fall in love'.

    But the news is not all bad.  
Once we abandon the illusions of romantic love,
we can begin to base our new relationships on reality rather than fantasy.


HOW READING
"Romantic Love is a Hoax!  
Emotional Programming to 'Fall in Love' "
MIGHT CHANGE YOUR LOVE-LIFE
    Probably you will open this chapter as a believer in romantic love.  
But if the magic of historical investigation and philosophical argument
convinces you that your feelings were programmed into you,
then you might initially be quite upset
—because you put so much trust in that artificial emotion.  
Some people make the mistake of getting married
while still under the influence of romantic illusions.

    After a period of anger and disillusionment, however,
you can put your new understanding
into immediate action in your loving relationships.
If romantic feelings are make-believe,
can you build loving relationships on more solid foundations?

    If you abandon your early romantic illusions,
you can begin to love based on real information
rather than projected fantasies you learned at the movies.
Your new relationships can emerge from
mutual respect and understanding
rather than culturally-prescribed feelings.  
You might even begin the long process of becoming more Authentic,
which is the basic theme of this whole book,
New Ways of Loving: How Authenticity Transforms Relationships.
Revised 6-7-2007; 8-4-2007

    If you would like to read the first two pages of this chapter, click this title:
"Romantic Love is a Hoax! Emotional Programming to 'Fall in Love' " .
The first page includes the table of contents for this chapter.


Go to the index page for New Ways of Loving:
How Authenticity Transforms Relationships .

Go to a complete listing of resources critical of romantic illusions:
The Romantic Love Portal .


Go to the beginning of this website:
An Existential Philosopher's Museum .







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The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by the University of Minnesota.