Romanticism and Asperger's Syndrome?

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I am a romantic. I can't help it. In a rush of amorous euphoria, I have now declared myself a devotee of the cult of Venus. I know a girl, and I love her too much. Most of the time, I am your typical aspie: reserved, analytical, socially oblivious. Yet I harbor the most intense romantic feelings, and next to nobody knows my secret double life. I am the avowed enemy of all who would betray the one I love, the one whose name rings as a sacred melody. I believe in the triumph of love over all. I believe in the foolish odd against common sense.

My opinion is that the aspie is especially fit for the romantic worldview. We are heedless to social conventions because we do not understand. We perseverate. We have fewer friends. We are uniquely positioned to focus our efforts on the one we adore so.

Do we have any more romantic aspies here?

I thought this was going to be about 19th Century literature, after seeing the title.

Tim

Yes, I've had these all eclipsing feelings of Love. It's perhaps the strongest feelings I've ever experienced.

It's a real pain when it's unrequited. It sucks when you can't explain yourself and you don't have the understanding of how to socially engage the "object of your affections" as that usually comes across as something like stalking.

I've really reigned that side of my nature in over the past few years. It's not good falling in Love with someone who's not your wife!

YES !
I know exactly how it feels.
I'm currently like that with someone I know, my best friend in fact. I wasn't going to tell her how I felt because she was going after another guy, and I had a breakdown because of it... she caught me offguard and asked me if I fancied her.
I'm just slightly depressed that she is with this other guy, but we act like a couple and I see more of her than anyone else, and her the same. I'm just kind of hoping this other guy isn't right for her, and yet, at the same time, I hope her is right for her, because I don't want her to get hurt...

Yes, it sucks.

It stems from the same worldview, roughly.

yeah and it's ballocks when it's unreturned

Yeah, there is a connection. I did some research on it because of Ayn Rand's views on Romanticism in literature (hers differs from Romanticsm in philosophy.) In a nutshell, romanticism comes down to choice, free will, which was reflected in literature via plot. Classicism and naturalism hold that one is destined by fate or events outside of their control. The connection between love and romance comes in through free will and choice.


romance
c.1300, "story of a hero's adventures," also (c.1330), "vernacular language of France" (as opposed to Latin), from O.Fr. romanz "verse narrative," originally an adverb, "in the vernacular language," from V.L. *romanice scribere "to write in a Romance language" (one developed from Latin instead of Frankish), from L. Romanicus "of or in the Roman style," from Romanus "Roman" (see Roman). The connecting notion is that medieval vernacular tales were usually about chivalric adventure. Literary sense extended by 1667 to "a love story." Extended 1612 to other modern languages derived from Latin (Spanish, Italian, etc.). Meaning "adventurous quality" first recorded 1801; that of "love affair, idealistic quality" is from 1916. The verb meaning "court as a lover" is from 1942.

romantic
1659, "of the nature of a literary romance," from Fr. romantique, from M.Fr. romant "a romance," oblique case of O.Fr. romanz "verse narrative" (see romance). As a literary style, opposed to classical since before 1812. Meaning "characteristic of an ideal love affair" (such as usually formed the subject of literary romances) is from 1666. The noun meaning "an adherent of romantic virtues in literature" is from 1827. Romanticism first recorded 1803 as "a romantic idea;" generalized sense of "a tendency toward romantic ideas" is first recorded 1840.

Yes, I am an absolute, complete, and total romantic. During my teens, I struggled tremendously to strengthen my inner logic enough to put some small limits on the emotional side of my nature. It's much easier now, but not entirely different. Van Gogh is alive and well, he just has to put up with Mr. Spock as chaperone.

I am in love with the very idea of being in love...

Back when I was young before my cynic (sp) side kicked in I had a strong love interest in someone. The feelings were much more intense and loyal on my side. A lot of people despised him for his coldness yet I saw a tortured soul beneath ( okay maybe I am still a bit in self-denial about the whole thing) but he was the most brutally honest person I ever met and he actually cared about improving himself ( something I admire and strive for myself) and enjoyed talking in the abstract. Sometimes I miss him but I find time really is the cure all. The person I am now is the not the person I once was. Perhaps that will happen to you. I don't know but in my experience feelings tend to fade much like everything else.

On a side note, I listen to a lot of Mary Timony. Not only is she a fantasist (if there is such a word) but her lyrics are very tragic romantic especially on her Mountains cd.

I don't know if I am a romantic or not.

I'm 21 now, and I have fallen in love before (tho received none in return). The first time it happened, it changed the way I perceive the world, and filled me with immeasurable joy and hope I had never felt before. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, and all my efforts were dedicated to that goal.
BUT, I would not confess to absurdities that some romantics do (no offense intended). I never believed that she was the most beautiful thing in ALL the universe. I knew that my love for her could not "last till the stars turn cold". (How can the dead experience love?) I didn't believe that my love was stronger than everyone else's, because I don't know what others feel.
Most importantly, I don't believe that "Love conquers all." I don't even know what it means!, but I know in my gut, that I can never denounce creativity and ingenuity as attributes that are somehow inferior to love.

In my social life, I try to be a romantic, and some say I push it too far.
On several occasions, I have been told to stop pursuing a relationship with the one I love, usually by one of her friends acting on her behalf, which I resent because it suggests that I am not even worthy to hear her reject me in person. These friends tell me that I am foolish for not seeing that she doesn't love me. I have many objections to this, that might categorize me as a romantic.
1. When I tell a girl I love her, it's not because I rationally weighed the odds of my success with such a girl. I didn't choose to fall in love with her. If you criticize me for following my heart against the odds, you should criticize every fairy tale character who does the same.
2. Just because she doesn't love me, doesn't mean it's impossible for me to change her mind.
3. Even if the effort to change her mind is futile, it at least shows that I genuinely cared, and was not being insincere.

It seems that no matter how hard (or how little) I try, I cannot find mutual love, so sometimes I think I would be better off if I had no love-related hormones in me all; no romantic side. Then I would not be perpetually confounded by a system that scolds me, belittles me, and mocks me. I would also be less inclined to gripe about my feeling, as I have just done here.

At least they have common conversational ground - ears

For some reason, I am effortless in being romantic and charming to people in general. I dunno. My mum is very deep and yearns for giving her love to everyone, I think I probably gained some of that. The hardest I am finding is, well, I am only 25 years old and I am so protective of my heart. The girl I will finally meet MUST have a heart of gold, but are so many out there and most don't have a heart of gold they're rare, not that I have girls queuing outside my front door (that would be very scary!) but I have a certain magnetisism which is effortless, I think when they look into my eyes they see unbounded love, care and VULNERABILITY!

To a certain extent, aspies, because of our positive traits when it comes to the female species do we need to learn to put our foots down more often, do all women want to walk all over us i.e take our lovely traits and use our vulnerability to suit them...

Ha! I though so too.



Roughly, yes. Really the concept of passionate, unrequited love and being "in love with love" was very much in fashion in the 16th and earlier 17th century, preceeding the great Romantic Era by about 200-150 years. What made the Romantic Era different was the idealization not of love, per se, but of the subjective, irrational, intuitive and undefinable side of humanity. It was a countermovement against the Enlightenment and its values of reason and measure. Romanticism encompasses a LOT more than passionate love, but it did place exceptional virtue upon passion itself. Historically, Romanticism gave way completely to Existentialism, which is little more than crestfallen Romanticism. What is "irrational" and "subjective" yet "essential" to own's humanity" for the Romantic begets "absurdity" "cynicism" and often times "despair" in the Existentialist. So once you've gone from the enthrallment of unrequited love to the darkness of disillusionment you know you yourself have make the philosophical evolution from Romatic to Existentialist.

I started out an Existentialist, only to realize that I was just a wannabe Romantic who had lost heart very early on in life. My Romantic leaning had beencruelly beaten down throughout my chidlhood by parents and teachers overly focused on the "pragmatic," yet I never lost that fascination of that "other" side of human experience - the chaotic, the mysterious, the anarchist, the intuitive. I just didn't see how it connected to the concrete, mundane and predictable. In other words, I was a cynic about the very things that evoked genuine passion in me. I was a cynic about my own passions. How screwed up is that? Truth is, that's rather typical of Post-Modern intellectual types. That's why Post-Modernism is marked by so much irony. Unlike Victorian Era irony that was a weapon against social convention, we Post-Moderns are cynical about our true selves, which inclines us to irony, often irony that's a weapon against ourselves (the self-loathing self). And they wonder why so many of us are depressed....

For me, all the philsoophical mumbo-jumbo is very enlightening. I understand better why I'm so unhappy, unfilfulled and intellectually and spiritually restless, why thee was always some part of myself that longed to revolt against everything in my life. Fundamentally, I'm wounded in a way that turns me against that "Romantic" side of myself. Perhaps it's partly due to my AS, which makes me intimidated by those parts of myself I can't readily deduce by logic or control through reason. But I think also a lot of it has to do with my upbringing and my environment. These are not times that nuture a Romantic soul.

Now that I'm more aware of these things, I've taken strive to tap into and free my Romantic self. It a bit of my raison d'etre these days. I even have a muse who has inspired some of my writing...and yes, I have "amorous" yet unrequited feeling for him that I keep secret frrom others. It's a bit strange though - while I don't think I'm happier now than I'm going in touch with my Romantic side, I do think I'm freer and with that freedom, I stand a better chance at finding happiness.

AspieMartian, what you describe is the Romantic philosophers, as opposed to the Romanticism in literature (At least, according to Rand.) I'm curious, do you have any references that link Romantic writers (like Victor Hugo) to the Romantic philosophers (Byron, Keats, etc.). I'd be interested in those, thanks.

Romantic to the bone. I am constantly going on at a friend telling him that romanticism and gentlemen are extinct, and how terrible it is. He will say, "I'm a gentleman" and then say something totally wrong.

Yeah, unrequited love hurts more than most things. Got it right now, as it happens. Bugger.

The worst part is, not knowing how, or not being able to, express my feelings to that particular girl, my head compensates by being a giver. I swear if I ever somehow manage to be with her, I will be broke from all the gifts I give to people as my way of being nice or whatever.

Do have a touch of the romantic ideal view of life.

Talking of being a gentleman (going off topic a teensy bit here), anyone see Al Murray on Saturday night and his take on this. Marvellous.