the discourse of longing

Romanticism is often accused of being impractical, yet it tends to manifest in the most practical currency we have – our time, our labour, our willingness to be inconvenienced. A bouquet may be a cliché, but leaving work early to accompany someone to a doctor’s appointment is never mistaken for theatre. The real risk isn’t in the gesture itself,... See more

Romanticism often compels us toward small, seemingly irrational gestures, acts of private theatre that make no sense on a spreadsheet yet much in the landscape of meaning: changing the restaurant you frequent because a conversation soured there; retiring a favourite dress worn on the night of an unforgivable quarrel; keeping an old métro ticket... See more

Perhaps what people really want is social, cultural, even linguistic permission to risk earnestness without ridicule.

A love letter kept in a drawer, a photograph faded at the edges, a toast raised each year on an anniversary... these are gestures of affection and also improvised rituals of preservation, ways of smuggling something fragile and mortal into a semblance of permanence. They insist that the intensity we once felt will not be entirely lost to time, that... See more

Grand gestures don’t have to be cinematic; most of them happen off-screen, in the silent economy of effort and attention. Sometimes they’re logistical: rearranging a calendar to attend a performance that matters to someone else, driving across the city in rush hour to hand-deliver a forgotten document. Sometimes they’re linguistic: the text that... See more

There’s a generational sneer against Romanticism, especially online where sarcasm has become the native tongue and sincerity a social liability. “Main-character energy” is now both an aspiration and an insult: people want to feel chosen, singular, yet mock anyone who dares to look as though they believe it. I hear it from younger friends, and the... See more

We mock Romanticism in theory yet consume it in bulk, binge-watching love stories, quoting torch-song lyrics, planning weekends around destination weddings. The posture is ironic, the appetite sentimental; we want to feel deeply but also to appear impervious, indulging the fantasy while keeping a cynical alibi in case anyone accuses us of believing... See more

Women especially learn to sand down their edges, keep enthusiasm in check; a tremor of feeling can be mistaken for a crack in authority. Even in friendships, declarations of affection are often softened with jokes or delivered as memes so no one risks sounding earnest. To say I missed you plainly instead of burying it in sarcasm is, under such... See more