A few years ago, I wrote a three part series on romance based on 3 questions that were asked:

1. “What do men feel is romancing?”
2. “I think laying next to someone, my head on his chest, running my nails down his body, kissing him gently and smiling should be enough?” [For a man to feel romanced].
3. What do I feel is romancing?

I used the essay to bring out concepts by answering the questions and using that structure to offer my observations and anecdotes of essentially a culture that I found to be non-romantic

My further experiences at this land down under have brought forward new observations that have challenged the concepts that I had initially brought forward. This intrigued me it for while the pattern was similar I felt as if I was missing something. What made this even more challenging was the extra caution I had to take approaching the people here. For a while just uttering a sentence or two, such as a simple greeting or a price enquiry at a store was enough to be greeted with a threatening “bloody yank.” response that often lead to a refusal of service, or worse having to deal with an angry crowd if the “bloody yank” comment was made loud enough to be overheard by others.

For a while I tried to develop a more muttered less enunciated very soft style of speaking yet even that did not even work all the time. It finally dawned at me what was happening when a shop attendant asked me “You are not from around here are you?”. I looked and commented that she must have known that from the accent. To my surprise she said no, she knew I was not from around here when she first saw me, even before I had spoken to her. As it turns out I was smiling. “People don’t smile around here.” Turns out she was a migrant from Europe, so she knew. I was a bit flabbergasted so I spent an entire week on a main street watching people. Sure enough, I did not see anyone smile, save for two people walking together. Upon seeing this I approached them and started to talk to them only to find out that they were not from Australia, but from New Zealand.

These little insights have helped me approach Australians. I don’t smile, I don’t talk much and if I have to, one of the first things I tell people is that I am from Canada. I have eased this up somewhat as now people know me and while I may not have the accent I am becoming well versed with the local colloquialisms and jargon used. Still I do have to be careful, one time I was at a restaurant and the table beside me had a half dozen people seated at it. From the conversation going on there it looked like it was a farewell party for a service man going off to Afghanistan or Iraq. I was not paying much attention to it until they decided to talk about killing an American (but only if the service man was going to Iraq), preferably shooting him into the back. It is these recurring events that keep me constantly on my guard here.

Fortunately I have been able to eventually make some friends, and they have been able to provide at least some idea of where they are coming from. A year ago, feeling a bit more settled here I presented some electronic Valentine’s to some friends and I added someone I knew to the list, an Australian woman I had met locally. The reaction was one that I had never ever encountered before. I had to define and justify my actions of sending her a Valentine. “Why are you sending me a Valentine, we are not having a amorous relationship?” While I went on to explain and justify that explanation with substantial research, the response almost had the tone not only of ignorance but also that of an attack. It must have awaken some sort of awareness about the culture here, because over the next year I observed some very interesting reactions towards romance here that have led me to think that I have been missing something with my original 3 part essay. I revisited that essay on romance to see what it could be, and lo and behold I think I may indeed have discovered something new, a valuable insight into the culture here.

So, with the pure love light and life that is the flow of the life itself I will open up again, briefly to share some of my observations I have made over the last year towards this topic, but first as a review here is a (mildly edited) past blast repost of the 3 part essay on romance vis a vis a non-romantic cultural point of view.


A Short Essay on Romance Part 1

Question 1: What do men feel is romancing? Of course for that matter, what do women feel is romance? What is romance, the process, it’s underlying intent? Perhaps it is appropriate to start with a simple definition:

Romance,

• woo: make amorous advances towards
• have a love affair with
• the group of languages derived from Latin

Culture as pointed out by the third concept within the definition has a great influence on romance, as the word originates from the group of languages derived from Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish for example. I have had the pleasure of being intensely exposed to both romantic and non-romantic cultures and the differences of those cultures are night and day to me and I am sure many others who have had that fortunate experience will tend to agree. There is at the heart of the French culture the idea of “la joie de vivre” (the joy of live or the joy of living) when bringing up a dialogue of romance.

To woo, and have a love affair with another person is more individualistic, although culture can indeed play a great role. While I cannot answer the question of what do men feel is romancing on an individual basis, I can point out trends I have seen from direct observation and discussions, and while there are similarities between romantic and non-romantic cultures there are important distinctions of expression and feelings, at least from what I have seen.

From a romantic culture’s perspective, I gain an image of a couple walking through a flower laden field, two hands meeting like butterfly wings, harmonious with the subtle breeze and the song of birds as two pairs of lips will embrace for a kiss of bliss upon our Gaian face.

From a non-romantic culture’s perspective, I see a different scene, a car pulling up on the edge of the field, a guy staggering out flustered, grabbing the flowers violently, pulling them from their roots yelling back at the passenger, “here, these look good, you happy now?” and climaxing into a roaring screech of tires along the gravel road as the departing car kicks up a small cloud of dust.

Romantic cultures view romance an expression of a harmonic balance of exchange and reception from either partner. That is why the French kiss is so important, it is the penultimate expression of accepting and yielding. Yet recently, the newly emerged non-romantic cultures have moved away from this harmony so that now, romance is a chore, and the equal ebb and flow split with one partner constantly demanding the other trying to fulfill the requests. It is this newly emerging stream, the one of a non-romantic culture that I will be looking into further during the course of the essay.

The question “what do men feel is romancing”, is a bit like asking Henry Ford what color he can provide you with for a car. His answer will be of course “any color as long as it is black”. This is the same for most expressions of romance, no matter what you do as a man, you often get the same style of answer with perhaps another request, indicating that what you have done is simply not enough and possibly never will be enough.

This is a far cry from the source of romance and perhaps it will serve to take a brief look at some of the aspects of the source of romance, a cornerstone of nature itself. Since romance stems from love and love is much too important for it to have it’s origins from the human domain lets have a look at the ancient romantic experts themselves, the flowers and how they are treated by humans when dealing with romance.

There is an accepted social view that a man giving flowers to a woman is a romantic gesture although there are other reasons for giving flowers. The gesture may be expressed at any point during an exchange, as a prepared or spontaneous process. For some people, it the underlying intent that is equally or even more important than the result of the process.

There are endless variations of giving flowers with romantic intentions. They could be fresh cut flowers from the market, flowers from a garden, or flowers from the neighbors. It could be an icon of a flower anything from a figurine or photograph of a flower to a poem or essay about flowers. It could be an environment of flowers, a walk through a garden full of flowers, a field embellished with flowers. It could be a single flower to express that unique sensation you feel. The variation of giving flowers is endless. Similarly, there is an endless variety of replies from a woman, but they all say the same thing. Consider some examples, noting the almost essential requirement of adding one or more comments indicating that it is not adequate, not enough and/or it requires more:

What lovely fresh cut flowers. They are much nicer than the ones from the guy who gave me only a dozen.

What lovely flowers from your garden, thanks for being such a nice guy and a true friend which means of course I will never ever get intimate with you.

You don’t have a garden and you are cheap, you stole these flowers didn’t you? You have issues, you need to get over yourself immediately.

What a pretty flower figurine, I will put it with my collection from the many other guys who have bought me such figurines.

Nice pictures of flowers from the net, do you have any with a woman being satisfied by a half dozen guys?

Thanks but your poem about flowers has no cadence nor rhythm. You should have figured that out 99 poems ago.

I don’t like your essay on flowers, it’s too wordy and boring

Achoo, you are a real asshole, you should have known before hand I was allergic to flowers why did you take me to this garden?

Who can enjoy flowers when this field is mosquito infested? I am getting sun burned. You have been less than perfect so take a hike....alone.

You are giving me this flower to express the unique sensation between us? Whatever.

While the replies may vary they essentially involve saying the same thing be it inadequacy, rejection, competition, stay away and so forth. Any way you look at it you have hoops to jump through.

This brings us back to the analogy of the car, no matter what color you may ask for, you will always get black. So it really doesn’t matter on the one hand what men of a non-romantic culture feel is romancing, the reaction will be the same so they better get used to it. It will never be enough and it will be criticized, often without any suggestion on how to improve or change it to what is desired. Since this is the classic romantic response men must feel romantic about it since they really don’t have a choice about it.

Another source of romance is music. Music is the language of romance and love, and like love, music is much too important to have it’s origins from the human domain. To understand this reaction clearly, and more importantly how to use it to your advantage, one needs look no further than one of the virtuosos of language, birds. Birds will used songs as part of the repertoire for attracting a mate and this is one area where humans have maintained this romantic expression throughout it’s infancy. Be it under the balcony of a moonlit star or a drunken attempt at a kareokee bar, songs can still touch and vibrate the empathic chord. Of course the exploration non-romantic culture has taken music to darker less harmonic areas but music is still a major challenge for non-romantic cultures to supplant.

An area where non-romantic humanoid cultures have been more successful creating disharmony is competition. Since competition is much too important a concept to have come up with by man, it is worth looking at what some consider the king of land mammals, the lion. It has a decorative mane, and two males will definitely compete for the affections of a female.

Early human traditions appreciated this romantic aspect of competition.It was the brave knight who climbed the highest mountain, swam the deepest seas and flayed the dragon that got to be intimate with the princess. Yet once again, the non-romantic cultures have moved away from this so that today this is no longer the case. You have to be a real bird brain to use romance on a woman from a non-romantic culture expecting that will bring you intimacy with her. Non-romantic cultures have moved away from to this point and instead of going to the source, use it as an external solution. I will elucidate more on external solutions during the second part of the essay but for now, using romance to woo a woman is essentially a recipe for an intimate prelude with someone else. If you want to get laid, sit back, watch the romantic moron do his work, and make your move when the romantic fool is gone to get a drink. Let’s add this concept to the examples that were exposed previously:

-What lovely fresh cut flowers. They are much nicer than the ones of the guy who gave me only a dozen. Then again, he did also give me a car so I slept with him.

-What lovely flowers from your garden, thanks for being such a nice guy and a true friend which means of course I will never ever get intimate with you but rather I will go back to my abusive unemotionally available boyfriend.

-You don’t have a garden and you are cheap, you stole these flowers didn’t you? You have issues, you need to get over yourself immediately. I am never going to talk to you again. Now leave so I can make a shrine to the guy who made me do despicable things years ago.

-What a pretty flower figurine, I will put it with my collection from the many other guys who have bought me such figurines. It will be cute beside the huge one I have had recently.

-Nice pictures of flowers from the net, do you have any with a woman being satisfied by a half dozen guys? I might recognize some of them.

-Thanks but your poem about flowers has no cadence nor rhythm. You should have figured that out 99 poems ago. That is what you should expect, negative criticism. I will point out what you do wrong, but how to do it right, I will never let you know.

-I don’t like your essay, it’s too wordy and I got bored quite a while ago. I have to go now, you have got me all hot and wet and some guy with one liners just showed up.

-Achoo, you are a real asshole, you should have known before hand I was allergic to flowers why did you take me to this garden? Now I have to go see the doctor for a prescription....mmmmm he is nice, and drives this great black Lamborghini.

-Who can enjoy flowers when this field is mosquito infested? I am getting sun burned. You have been less than perfect so take a hike....alone. You have broken my heart, but I am sure somebody will fix it by the time I get back to the parking lot.

-You are giving me this flower to express the unique sensation between us? Whatever, as soon as you are gone for a bit, I am going to get jumped by some guy who wants to be a fuck buddy.

There was a time that giving flowers was a gesture to entice someone to you. There was a time when singing a song would entice someone to you. There was a time when climbing that mountain brought you to someone special. These were internal gestures, the flowers were picked by the suitor, the song composed and sung by the player, the mountain climbed by inspired legs.

The non-romantic culture has externalized these features. Flowers and music are bought and while competitors are brought to their knees, with a semi-automatic there is no need to aim very accurately. No wonder relationships don’t last. The romantic instead of being a living person to be recognized, is now used as an external too.

So while a bird will most likely mate with the bird who has shared the songs, gathered twigs with you, helped with selecting a private spot and actively participated with the making the nest you have to be a real bird brain to try this with a modern day non-romantic culture.

It is simple to test this out, and shortly after writing the original essay I went out and tested this once again, at a social event. There was a woman I knew was prime for intimacy (having recently broken up with her boyfriend) that would be attending. I did not have to try hard, nor long to get results. I started my experiment by greeting everyone I met (male or female) at the gathering with a compliment. This was the control. I made nice simple comments like, great handshake, nice dress, interesting watch. When I got to her, I inquired about her drink when she told me what she was drinking I said “looks like a classy drink for a classy lady”. She gave me that distinct reaction “I am not listening” and turned and walked away. No one else that I paid a compliment to that evening walked away although the majority being couples, people who were involved with a partner. To them, I was probably being friendly, to her it might have seemed friendly, that being the case we would have kept talking. If she was from a romantic culture and saw it as flirtatious she would have kept talking. Ah, but this was a typical non-romantic cultural event and instead of going for the whiff of romance I offered her, she externalized it. For the rest of my time there I watched as she stood center stage surrounded by (unavailable) women, waiting for the other guy to show up. I did not pursue the chase of course and since nobody else did all the romantic work she went home alone (I found this out afterwards). I might have been inclined to continue doing more romantic prelude work, as there were a number of single guys who were probably waiting for the right moment to pounce, but as I am still on the periphery of this culture, I decided otherwise. There was also the danger of being romantic actually working here. That would have been disastrous for me as my private spot for intimacy at the time was not yet complete (shudders at the kharmatic consequences someone would have to go through for not providing satisfaction after inviting someone private).

Just on the odd chance though that there are women here that might actually grasp the concept of becoming intimate with the same guy that is romancing them, I did some reconnaissance the next day and found a superbly romantic flower garden. Creating intimate privacy requires extreme care and consideration to allow for the many contingencies, especially when your intent is to satisfy your partner. You have to be persistent as well as patient, half measures just don’t cut it.

So “what do men feel is romancing?” Until now I have had two answers to the question. One from the romantic culture is simply following the harmonious joy of live expressed by most of nature. From the humanoid non-romantic cultural subset of nature, I have taken the approach that it doesn’t really matter, the romantic is externalized. They are a tool to be used, whatever a romantic does will never be enough for personal resonance. When they are entirely spent providing what is needed for a potential mate that mate will take off with someone else. It is at that time, for example when the romancing male goes to get a drink or is momentarily distracted that he should expect to see her leaving with the other guy, the two of them getting into a car and driving off into the night. That is how it works and is simply a variation of the famous romantic story of Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand that is still applicable today.

I have looked at what men feel is romancing a woman, and while I have not looked at what men feel is being romanced by a woman, you should be able to see that it really doesn’t make a difference what they feel, they need to get used to what they get.

This concludes part 1 of the edited essay.

• Past Blast Part 1 - CEX 09:05:00 02/25/2008 (0)