Romance means a narrative - a story. Instead of “I ate a tuna sandwich”, we might say, “I savored a delicious layered lunchtime retreat from hunger”. Romance allows us to savor, to create meaning, to make sense and beauty from direct experience.
In relationship, romance is also a story. It is our projection, our hopes and expectations of another. It is not direct experience. Because it is a story, experience eventually dissolves the story; sometimes into something very beautiful and real, sometimes into the knowledge that the story was more fun than the reality.
Practices that increase awareness, or life experience itself, begin to dissolve even the beginning of romance. Like any projection of the mind or desire of the body, it is possible to become aware of the creation of a narrative right away.
When this awareness begins to arise as a stable state, it becomes very difficult to sustain a story instead of direct experience. The movie becomes less and less believable. Then what may happen in the future, how much the other holds you in high regard, and promises made begin to lose the power of truth. What is left is direct experience of the other.
Often, the other is seen as the source of love, which is why they seem so attractive. Love though, is not the emotional response to desire or the need to make permanent a state of temporary happiness. Love is the field of awareness in which the story of romance is created. When this recognition happens, romance loses its power like the craving for sugar does when we are truly nourished.
Waking into the field of awareness that is absolutely supportive of your life and has no need for meaning or story to be attached dissolves the addictive need for romance, for romance was the proxy for the field of loving awareness itself.
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