Is Romance Enough?

It's not enough because it is not love. 

Romance can be sentimentality run amuck. Well, I'm probably overstating it a bit. I still remember the card I found on my pillow a couple of months after Paul and I started out relationship. He had a key to my apartment and popped in one afternoon on his way past and left it there for me to find that night. I see it now. I don't see him though. We split up a year later.

That relationship was as romantic as it could be. I was working for a greeting card company at the time and you can imagine the number of cards he got from me... all at a discounted rate of course. I've still got a stack of them in my draw ready for the next lover.

So all the romance in the world couldn't sustain that relationship. We were hardly out of each other's eyes. From the day we met it was shocking to think we wouldn't be spending the night together. "WHAT??? You want to go back to YOUR place???"

It seems we were looking at this romantic liaison as a full compliment of the Maslow Hierarchy. When all it was was our separate need to be loved.

When we look at romance as an end in itself we miss out on the true meaning of love. Today's world is  expecting an immediate satisfaction and fulfilment of all desires. Just imagine you are at your computer searching on Google for a book you want.

You see a result and click on the link. It begins to load on your screen. It pauses, blank screen. All of three seconds has passed. What do you do? If you are anything like me you click back to the results and click on the next most likely link... hoping, no expecting it to load immediately.

Instant gratification. By the way there is new operating system you can put on your phone. It has some "added functionality".  You can identify all the latest film reviews for all the cinemas in your current locality. "Oh. This is a must have. How do I get it?"All humans seek love. Abraham Maslow developed his Hierarchy of Needs detailing the kinds of things humans want...

• Firstly the physiological:food, water, sleep sex, breathing as a first need.
• Secondly he says we need safety: security of employment, morality, family, health, resources.
• Thirdly, Love and belonging/connecting.
• Fourthly, Esteem: self confidence, self-esteem, respect of other and from others.
• Fifthly Maslow suggests is the nirvana: Self-actualisation - creativity, spontaneity, calmness, acceptance of things  for what they are, sense of morality.

All humans seek love... 

and a great thing to want. Many people use love as a way of getting all those other things. The expectation is that if I love someone I will get love, respect, food, sex, intimacy, respect, friendship, family, shelter... all my problems will be solved if only I could find love. Or money.

It turns out that this is not true. I know it from personal experience and I have read many stories of other people's experience as well as heard many clients tell me it's not true.

At first, clients don't realise it. Clients come in and ask me why their loving someone doesn't give them what they want. It is only after a few conversations that they come on, sit down and say...

"You know. I was thinking about our chat the other day and it occurs to me that no matter what I did for (Bob, Mary, Harry, Ronald, Elizabeth, John, Arnold, Blaise, Philip, Mary, Elle, Richard, Stephen, Dimitri, Ronan, Jody, Jerry, Kris, Kylie, Tim, Andrew, Vickie, Tom, John, Andy, Amelia, Vikaas...) the relationships was never very good.

"I tried and I tried and it seems nothing made it better. I changed jobs, cities, suburbs. For a time it was ok but it always turned to mud. What was I doing wrong? Why didn't that work"

"What do you think?" I would ask."

"I did too much I think. I lost myself in pleasing (her, him, them)."