Is romance real?

Dearest cherubs:



You must forgive me, because when I feel called to write upon such subjects, it's usually after a couple of glasses of wine on a Sunday evening. :-)



But now that I am single, after a long period of being married, I find myself contemplating this sociological phenomenon called romance.



What the heck is it, I wonder?



It may perhaps only belong to young people. Or, it may be that it only belongs to those who believe in it. I'm just not sure, and I don't feel qualified to judge. I'm not sure that I've ever been in love.



I think I've been in limerence (please forgive the spelling, I can't find a dictionary that has this word in it, yet I know it's a real word). Limerence is the scientific term for the feeling that we experience sometimes when we meet somebody and we find we can't really think or behave rationally or at least with a semblance of reasonable behavior. We stammer, we pull at our hair and look down or up, and bat our eyelashes. This is limerence. Friends, I guess I find that limerence at this point in my life is highly undesireable. I confess to you that I have no desire to experience limerence ever, ever again.



I seem to desire friendship. Friendship to me seems ultimately to be desired. It is so easy to love a friend. You get together, you share views, experiences, worries, triumphs, failures and concerns. All of this is done without judgement, without rancor, without demands. You just are, you just can be, you are of support to one another without having any hidden agendas.



Is friendship enough?



Ah now this is the ultimate question. I do not know if friendship is enough. I am hoping that it is, but I have a nagging suspicion that it is not. I do not know what causes this nagging feeling. I wonder if our society poses this necessity to conform. I am at my core, a nonconformist. But I do not reject society's mores out of habit. I attempt to examine these things. I attempt to ask questions and to seek answers.



The other day I went to hear one of society's great dissidents, Noam Chomsky. He was brilliant, as I knew he would be. But he also struck me as quite vulnerable (he is now 80 years old), quite charming and deeply connected to the human condition. Is that what one must be to be a truly great human being? Perhaps, perhaps that is true. I wonder if Noam Chomsky was ever in love?



My dears sing out okay? I write only to pose questions, not to demand answers.



Warmly and with love, Margaret