From: ibshambat@gmail.com   
      
   In America, many women – especially the feminist kind – disliked me. I   
   came to the conclusion that the reason for that was conflict of expectations.   
   Both my mother and my grandmother were superwomen, and I got used to female   
   beauty and goodness    
   without myself being especially attractive physically or personally. So many   
   women saw me as a bottom-feeder.   
      
   However I did have things to offer the women that I was with. One was   
   affection and passion. Another was appreciation. Another was quite good   
   poetry. Another was addressing their concerns. And of course when I was making   
   good money in the computer    
   industry I had that to offer as well.   
      
   One benefit of this state of affairs is that bad women avoided me. I did not   
   have what they wanted. The women I did attract were the artistic and   
   philosophical kind. As such, these were frequently accused of being crazy or   
   evil. However they were all    
   beautiful, intelligent and exciting. Some lived in mansions and some have been   
   homeless; but all were amazing as romantic partners. And all had experienced   
   completely unfair mistreatment.   
      
   They, like me, were the romantic type. In contemporary society the romantic   
   women become punching bags, and the romantic men get treated as criminals. We   
   all had a strong influence from Romantic poetry and literature. We applied the   
   concepts to things in    
   our lives. It worked when we found one another. The result, besides beautiful   
   shares, was also good poetry and art on both sides.   
      
   Now romantic attitudes have come under a lot of criticism. Apparently it is   
   unrealistic, narcissistic or childish. It is not narcissistic; it is about   
   valuing the other person rather than about valuing yourself. It is not   
   unrealistic; people's    
   convictions have a large role in shaping the reality of their lives, and   
   people who base their actions on such beliefs make these beliefs a part of   
   social reality. Nor is it childish; I have known marriages that started with   
   love at first sight and were    
   going strong when the partners were in their 80s.   
      
   Then there is the claim that it is antisocial. Do not tell that to the World   
   War II generation. They built a very successful society while in many cases   
   basing their matches on romantic love. Maybe such things become antisocial in   
   societies that want to    
   snuff them out; but societies do not have to be that way.   
      
   Another claim is that it is nature's way to get you to do its bidding. Is that   
   such a bad thing? Is it a bad thing furthermore that such matches should lead   
   to marriage and family? Most people will want to have families. Most people   
   will want to have    
   children. It is much better that this be done within the context of a   
   relationship where people love one another than within a relationship in which   
   people do not.   
      
   Probably the most ridiculous claim I've heard on the subject is that it is   
   misogynistic. That claim is a Big Lie. That claim is precise inversion of   
   truth. A misogynist is somebody who hates women. A man who writes poetry for   
   women is not a misogynist;    
   he is the opposite of a misogynist. He is a man who loves women, or at least   
   the women for whom he writes poetry. To claim anything to the contrary is   
   absurd.   
      
   Then there is the claim that the people who are attracted to such things are   
   narcissists or sociopaths or perverts, and that these people can't love. Even   
   ones who can't feel love – as we are told about sociopaths - can choose to   
   act in a loving manner.   
    Use your mind for what your heart fails to do. As for “narcissists” and   
   “perverts,” many of them do very much love. Ayn Rand is regarded as   
   narcissistic, but she was passionately in love more than once. And of course   
   many of the people who were    
   involved in 1920s and 1960s would be now regarded as perverts, but many of   
   them were very loving, as we see for example in the Great Gadsby, the Beat   
   poetry and Pink Floyd.   
      
   When something is under attack in society, its manifestations are at a   
   disadvantage. This reinforces the false claim that there is something wrong   
   with it. Especially when partners are young, inexperienced and not versed in   
   social manipulation, their    
   relationships can be easily poisoned or destroyed by people versed in such   
   things. This leads to situations such as the one that I had in 1995, when I   
   passionately loved a woman only to have her stepmother tell her that I was   
   using her. Completely untrue,   
    but it appears that she believed it. Some say that love is the most powerful   
   force in the universe, but in fact love is quite fragile. Its value is its   
   beauty, not its power, and the correct place for power is to protect the love.   
      
   One thing that I have seen in some situations is what I call the Iago   
   behavior. Sometimes a man would genuinely love a woman, only to have his bar   
   buddies or his family stuff his head with paranoid nonsense and convince him   
   that the woman is doing the    
   wrong thing or that the woman is evil. In many case these people would claim   
   that the man owed it to other men or even to God to tramp women down. This   
   would destroy even the most loving relationships and lead them to become   
   abusive. Then of course the    
   feminists would look at this behavior and say that it means that men are evil   
   or that love is a racket. In fact the problem was neither with men nor with   
   love. The problem was with the ugliness that surrounded them and which was   
   more experienced than    
   were they.   
      
   I want to see romantic love vindicated and becoming a fertile ground for   
   better family life. This will create better family situations. As for the   
   people with strong romantic influence, it will give them a reason to live and   
   to excel, bringing into the    
   civilization a rightfully disaffected constituency.   
      
   I want people growing up now to avoid situations such as what I had in 1995.   
   To that effect I offer my arguments on the subject. Use these arguments to   
   defend your relationships and make your relationships blossom for life.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)