your topics are balls

None. There are no celebs that I have a crush on. There are a few I guess I'm attracted to, but I find myself more attracted to 'non-famous hot' girls.

And a I fail to see why a crush is any different than a very frustrating form of lust. So, how is it innocent? less rapey? One can lust for someone and not intend to rape/be rapey. even be blunt/uncouth about their lust, and not be rapey.

There is no such things as fabled 'romance'. Only romanticism, and its in our heads, and is pointless and distracting at best, illogical and destructive at worst.

An acknowledged crush would only be frustrating in an immature mind that cannot comprehend not always being able to acquire the objects of their desire, surely.

Things can be frustrating to someone without the ignorance of the fact that attempting to acquire the desired object of interest is a hopeless endeavor. You would not have to be immature to be frustrated at the lack of ability to have something. For instance, I want unending consciousness, I pretty much understand I can't have this. I thus am frustrated. The only thing I can do is to try not to think about it lest I become depressed. (I've obviously just failed to do so)

Lust has connotations of sexual desire - crushes aren't always sexually charged. 

Are you talking about some sort of admiration? Because that is sort of what I suspect you are talking about. Which I almost consider to be just something different from what one would normally define as a 'crush'.

Plus romanticism (if we're talking of like appreciation of the sublime, and focus on the self) has very little to do with "romance".

I've always considered stuff like 'relationship romance' (in other words, "soul mate" type shit) to just fall under the umbrella of romanticism. "appreciation of the sublime, and focus on the self" sounds like something a palm reader or person that claims to see auras to talk about. Unless I'm misinterpreting you. The terminology doesn't really do well to define what you are talking about.

You could just as easily argue that egalitarianism, familial ties, or desire for anything other than base survival are illogical and destructive, by that logic. That's some bleak shit hermano, straight up!

Technically, This would only apply if "you" as a person consider yourself as the sole importance in the universe. It SORT OF could. But you are ignoring "social needs", "mental stimulation" as base survival elements. Even if someone is a selfish asshole, he probably still wants to be around people and do something that stimulates his mind outside of 'basic' survival.

I don't do that anyway. I wont lie, I think if given a clear choice between me and pretty much anyone else when it comes to continuing my or their existence I'd pick mine every time. I look at death as something lovecraftian, a great horror I can't fathom. But if I did not have to make such a drastic choice, even if I have nothing to gain from doing so, I'd help and give to others in immediate need if I'm in surplus or even if it just wouldn't actually hurt my chances of survival or severely degrade my life. Typically more often to those that I know well/care about, like family or friends.

I believe in the concept of lust and basic social bond. (such as a friendship or a familial tie like you mention). and I think a 'romantic' relationship is just the mixture of these 2 things. It's nothing actually 'special' or more meaningful.

Also, I don't understand why looking at things like 'love', and examining and defining them concretely depresses people. I know it depresses me. But I don't know why. It's like I have a bias towards keeping some things 'magical' and poorly understood. If I were to explain the chemicals in the brain associated with 'love' it for some reason depreciates love's value. IDK why. It makes me think that is why religious people discount 'evolution' despite the fact that it could be integrated into their religion. They'd rather that it was just 'god working his magic/divinity' but if you REALLY think about that, that literally is meaningless. Like, what is magic but just phenomena that doesn't follow rules. By magics very nature, it can't exist, or if we were to some how discover 'magic' in the real world, it would suddenly cease being magic, especially if we studied it to understand it, it'd 'just' become another science.

That really sucks, but I think you're taking "immaturity" to be unnecessarily negative here. You are indeed immature if you're frustrated about things which are impossible to acquire. This isn't a slight whatsoever, as a large number of people, regardless of age, have pretty intense emotional immaturity.  Frustration about things that you personally are failing to acquire due to bad choices or incompetence is one thing, genuine depressive frustration about the impossible is quite another (again, this totally isn't a diss - I can empathise with what you're saying, but it has remnants of BDP about it for sure!)

Well, immaturity, indicates one has a place to grow in some way. Its not inherently negative no, but suggesting someone is immature usually means you think with more life experience they will come to light or understand the correct/adult viewpoint. In both cases of types of frustration. I'm sure most people never get over their frustration, thus under this definition most people never mature. If immature/mature isn't good or bad I don't understand its importance.

I disagree. A 'crush' (in my definition anyway) is a much more simplistic ideal than lusting after/wanting to have a relationship with someone. You don't tend to ever imagine that a 'crush' is going to lead to anything - and yeah, I'd define it totally as admiration. Maybe admiration tinted with an amount of (self idealized anyway) connection with something about them.

OK. Then its a mere difference on semantics on the part of crushes.

Actually you're totally misinterpreting me, yeah. You mentioned romanticism, which is in its entirity about one's appreciation of the sublime - a concept which, of course, as a city-dweller I found absolutely ridiculous (being awed by nature, wtf is that all about?) until I actively forced myself to step outside of my comfort zone. It's not palm reader shit; the sublime is the very basis of that genre of literary art. I was most notably drawing out the fact that you (erroneously?) mentioned romanticism when I felt you should have said romanticisation ho ho ho!

Romanticism has nothing to do with love or romance whatsoever. It's a discipline entirely focused on the self and one's place within the world. Soul mates are certainly not part of it. Like you're right - romanticist terminology such as 'sublime' and 'the self' don't really fit in with the idea of romance, but that's because they have nothing to do with it. My mentions of those terms were just my way of totally jerkishly saying "hey buddy, romanticism isn't anything to do with love!" XD!!!

ok. romanticisation. I have not heard this term. I was thinking of romanticism as in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism

The immediate thing that made me think it was dumb in general, outside of my initial assumptions, was this line: "In part, it was a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature."

I'm not saying that they're negative things at all - I chose those three things specifically because I find them important (no brainer on the 'more than base survival shit' hehe). My point was that egalitarianism is as technically real as romance, but it's still something that we aspire to achieve in our lives, however unnatural and man-made a concept it is. Plus social needs are a huge part of base survival (according to Mazlow anyway).

Egalitarianism, to me, seems like both a goal and a solution though. And its a concept with no 'tradition' tied to it. Its coming about (arguably) despite strong in grained resistance to it. Romance has just been around for ever. And it always has some dumb and pointless customs and traditions attached to it and our culture pushes inadequacies for the sake of and in the name of romance. (ok, yeah its a comedy website, so anything they say should be read with a grain of salt, but it displays this point perfectly: http://www.cracked.com/article_19230_the-5-least-romantic-keys-to-happy-relationship.html)

I feel exactly the same way about death man. It's the one thing which truly terrifies me, and I honestly don't know if I'd be able to risk my own life to save someone I cared about. I like to think I would, but it's doubtful given my abject cowardice.

Romance says you should be willing to sacrifice yourself. If you hold meaning in the concepts surrounding romance and actively seek it, you should acknowledge that you are living a lie not in a truly romantic relationship in you are in what you claim to be a 'romantic relationship' but doubt your ability to sacrifice yourself. Unless you believe that you can just pick and choose elements of romance that you like and just ignore the other ones that you don't.

Well yes, I'd also agree that a relationship (one that lasts anyway) owes a lot more to convenience and mutual benefit than it does to abstract concepts like romance for sure. My umbridge was with the idea that romance itself either didn't exist or wasn't worth creating/pursuing. While the whole idea of 'meaningful' or 'special' is like entirely subjective, I would argue that a romantic relationship has the potential for much greater intimacy, connection, and enjoyment than a looser arrangement such as a fuck buddy or friends with benefits. That, in turn, makes it seem to have more worth in my eyes, which would again in turn make it seem more 'special' to me.

It doesn't really 'exist' in any sense. And I think pursuing what is believed to be 'romance' by most people to be, in general, a bad thing. its sets up unrealistic expectations, it causes conflict in happy non-romantic relationships, and it creates unnecessary 'seriousness' over who fucked who and when and why.

Like I've had fuck buddies over the years and I can genuinely say that I feel the romantic relationship I'm currently in has a lot more meaning/worth/specialnesslols to me than anything I've ever experienced before.

Wish I had a fuck buddy. I don't know exactly how one gets one. Anyway, glad to hear you are happy with your current relationship.

You got a bit deep for my pot addled brain at 4:30am in the morning here hehe. Like you're totally Keatsing it up (amazing!) with your "Newton destroyed the rainbow" vibe, and I like totally agree with you on this. But it's really hard not to analyse things when you have the potential to do so, ESPECIALLY if you're the kind of person who gets depressed about this kind of shit.

Stupid question: Who is Keatsing? And yeah, I should clarify, that I'd never advocate NOT examining things like 'love' and stuff with equally special/mystical/magical/divine elements just because it depresses me. Doing that would be irresponsible. I will not stick my head in the sand because reality makes me sad, is my point.

I actually get MORE this way when sleep deprived (I talk a million miles a minute). Never been high before though, but I'd probably be similar if not more pronounced in that way when high.

I'm sorry if I'm kind of a kill-joy.

Oh for sure dude. Like my current relationship started out with WILD OBSESSION and being unable to get over the fact that someone wasn't into me. I'm totally not excusing myself from this aspect of immaturity at all, but it's something that has been tempered by actually getting what I want XD! A large swathe of people never get over this, true, and it isn't an ethically good/bad thing, but it IS a functionally good/bad thing. If it negatively affects you to the point of frustration then it is a bad thing as it's damaging your enjoyment in life :<!

Well. OK then. *shrugs*

You suck! XD! That line should make you think it is WONDERFUL!!!!

It represents 'sticking ones head in the sand'. I said I refuse to do that on pretty much any topic. Its potentially destructive. And I don't wish to believe in a lie. Scientific rationalization is honestly to wordy if you think about it. 'scientific rationalization' might as well just be 'rationalization'. Science isn't a belief system. Its a method/process of study and understanding. You can theoretically scientifically 'prove' anything given you abuse/rig the system itself or maybe use some logical fallacies. However, in general, its the most reliable process we know. To me, that sentence in wikipedia might as well be "Romanticism is when you stop asking questions or studying, and use your initial assumption/hypothesis as your end result."

Take my father for example - he's deathly afraid of clowns. He has a pathological fear of them, to the point where he flipped the fuck out at college when a clown doll was brought in for them to analyse. If his partner was being accosted by clowns he would literally be unable to defend her. Does this make him unromantic in any other aspect? Every other gesture is just a case of him picking and choosing?
 
 No way. He's unromantic because he's a cold, cynical, oftwise selfish man. NOT because he's unwilling to fight clowns to save his girlfriend XD!
 
 Besides, if (as I'm sure you'd agree) romance is a subjective man-made concept then who is to say that WILLING-TO-DIE forms a core aspect of it?
 

It's subjective. But then I question the use of romance as some unifying definition if its so flexible. At that point it becomes annoying semantics. But that is just it, semantics are important. If 2 people have a discussion/argument about something, have identical veiwpoints but think they disagree because of word choice and their individual semantics, its just a waste. Its sort of why I feel before any argument/discussion can reasonably be had, definitions have to be understood across the board. I find this rarely ever happens. Espeicaly when people have these discussions in person or over the phone rather than in the form of text where everything can be examined and explored, and everyone is held accountable for what they say, and everyone has as much time as they want to intelligently put their thoughts together. More political discussions should be had in text. /even more off-topic
 

It exists in the sense of each person defining what it means - ergo it exists as much as things like 'hope' or 'love' or 'justice'. Admittedly it doesn't have a tangible and definable reality for the mostpart, but existence doesn't have belonging to the physical plain as a predicate surely.
 

physical plain is the only 'plain' where someone can be arguably wrong or right. Outside of that, everything is just concepts/constructs/semantics. 'hope' or 'love' or 'justice' are all terms that can easily have different definitions for different people, meaning that really, what one needs to discussed are the definitions before anything else can be said and progress can be made.

I hear what you're saying about the unrealistic expectations, but why are they SO unrealistic? It isn't actually that HARD to be romantic and shit.
 

Don't get me wrong, romance isn't always unrealistic. but the mere fact that it SOMETIMES IS makes it unfair and destructive. Like, if someone say has some sort of weakness that directly effects any element of romance, they can be easily perceived as unromantic and 'unjustly' dismissed as someone to be in a relationship with. Remembering dates (anniversary), having money/skill in money management for pointless gifts (diamonds), and playing/tolerating awful music (no example, I don't listen to romantic songs). Are all simple skills, but there are perfectly relationship-fine people who can't/don't deal with any/some of this. So its seems arbitrary to base a relationship on 'romance'. I don't really HATE romance, just like most PC gamers don't really HATE consoles. I just think its unfairly/erroneously popular as a standard. I suppose I react that way to romance with hyperbole, and as if I was a hipster. (*shudders*)

On the last point (who fucked who and when and why etc) maybe I'm a little unorthodox in terms of my romantic relationship as we're currently (and have been for years) in what's known as an 'open relationship'. Sex isn't the be all and end all of our relationship by any means - it's more driven by the emotional connection and feelings (omg soppy bs lols). I don't even find sex itself to belong to the concept of romance really. That's not to say that in the last four years I've ACTED upon this open status, mostly due to a combination of being utterly content now and very lazy, but being romantic doesn't mean you HAVE to buy in to the jealous and obsessive BS that often comes with a serious relationship that's 'romantically' themed!
 

HAHA! I would be HAPPY to be in any relationship such as this. Hell, I'm straight, but I'd be perfectly happy in a 3+ person relationship where AT LEAST 1 person is a (at least somewhat attractive) girl. Not the jealous type, or the type to be grossed out by the male form. (which is ironic, considering the first interaction I had with you on this forum was you giving me a warn for an dumb homophobic post)

I think it's harder if you're heterosexual, to be honest, although that might be like a stereotypical and prejudiced point of mine to make. Regardless though, having a fuck buddy is something I found largely unfulfilling and negative to be fair - the organic evolution of that kind of situation is to form closer bonds and be in a relationship, which kind of defeats the point of having one entirely, and if ONE of you feels that it should be growing then the whole thing kind of falls apart!
 

I suppose I can comprehend the 'unfulfilling' aspect. But I'd like one to 'hold me over'. and it would be at least partially fulfilling. One's sex life isn't the most important element of one's life, but its CERTAINLY NOT UNIMPORTANT. It growing into something 'more' would be fine assuming it all stays 'open'. Oddly enough though I'd probably be the same as you. Too lazy to get any new 'tail' anyway. Though if my partner were so awesome as to assist me lol. (My assumption is that'd be weird though for my partner. (not me, I'd help them if I could))

 

KEATS man! I turned his name into like a verb XD! Yeah, basically Keats wrote a lot of what you were saying in your final point a while back when you were talking about the depreciation of value of love etc if you try to break it down, analyse or explain it. Keats wrote a really long and wonderful poem called 'Lamia' which basically totally deals with that theme. You should really check it out! It also has a go at Isaac Newton for 'destroying the rainbow' (i.e. explaining it so it isn't magical any more XD!!)
 

Oh. I'll look him up.
 
 

You aren't a kill-joy, a lot of stuff you've said is really interesting and I don't 100% disagree with at all. It's coming from a negative place though (but then, isn't like BEING REALISTIC synonymous with being negative? XD)

Being realistic isn't necessarily being always negative. But I certainly can understand why it seems that way to some. Really, when you are being realistic, you are hoping for the best, but assuming the worst, and maybe in the end being pleasantly surprised when things didn't fall apart (maybe because you were assuming the worst).
 

Ideally you'll meet a nice girl tomorrow who makes you want to do BS like buy them flowers and write them shitty poetry, and come back to the forums soon after and post "DUDE ROMANCE IS GR8 LOLS!!!", thereby vindicating my position as a romance-afficionado XD!
 

I wish. Though honestly, I'm going to a anime and gaming convention on march 11th with a friend (assuming I have money to do so) maybe I'll meet a nice pretty nerdy girl there and isn't there JUST for the anime/fighting games/WoW :P that I could hook up with. Though I suppose I shouldn't be so picky.

Though I'd be surprisingly lucky. Since this will be my first convention ever (unless you count GDC, which I don't)

And I have other issues with my own cowardice that keeps me from going after girls (rejection, acting like a buffoon in front of peers when talking to them, and potentially scary/violent jealous boyfriends).
 
 

@dada & geodude:
 
 
 Don't be chubby chasers guys. Don't be chubby chasers...
 

lol wait, I thought the heart wants what the heart wants?