it really does bother me how no one can seem to answer the question “what even is romantic attraction, really.” like some people are like “it’s who you wanna kiss and cuddle <3” and I’m like ok well kisses and cuddles can be either sexual or platonic depending on context. “It’s who you feel passion/desire/arousal for” well that just sounds like sexual attraction which you can have without even knowing somebody so I fail to see how that’s romantic. “It’s who you want to go on dates with” I go on dates with friends all the time plus “date” is a social construct anyway there’s really no innate difference between a date and hanging out. “it’s who you have deep feelings for” great news for you that can be literally any type of relationship. my friend told me she defined it as “who you wanna give roses to” and I’m like do u hear urself??? like the more I talk to people the more I’m convinced romance and romantic attraction is an elaborate socially fabricated illusion that has no real defining characteristics. and like there’s nothing Wrong with it being a constuct but why people are so attached to defending the supremacy of it is something I cannot for the life of me figure out
OP you just put into words what I’ve been trying to sort out for the last 10 years
The struggle of describing romantic love has been a theme in literature for thousands of years. This isn't really a thing about romantic love so much as it's a thing about it being difficult to put into words experiences that are so subjective.
Like, describe "red". You could describe things that are red, or tell me the properties of light that we call red, but you haven't really described what it means to look at redness. That doesn't mean "red" is a social construct, at least not more than any arbitrary human category.
