I would say that it least 95% of it is with a good deal of wishful thinking thrown in.

No. But it depends on what you mean by “romantic love”. If you mean the Disney-like model, that’s more of a modern myth and impossible standard, and may be a reason why some (many?) people may do something along the lines of have a very strong initial attraction which they think is like what they expect due to our myths of love, then when that wears off and they continue to contrast their myth expectations with reality, they decide to divorce.

But that does not mean “romantic love [is] just lust in disguise”, at all. There are many ways love relationships can show up, and romantic feelings come in a variety of forms and are not all lust, and different types of “romantic love” can be quite nice and valuable and may have little or nothing to do with lust. Lust may or may not be present with or entangled with or part of romantic love, or not. They’re different things which don’t exclude each other.

Lust is different from passion which is different from romantic love which is different from mature love, and they’re all words for a wide variety of feelings and ideas. Trying to over-simplify things leads to misunderstandings.

If you want to seriously upgrade your understanding, one good book I’d recommend (title might sound a bit condescending, but isn’t meant that way) is How to Be An Adult in Relationships), which discusses both the cultural love myths, and different stages of relationships, and many other helpful topics and useful exercises and so on.

Lust is the starting gun of romantic love, but true love is a marathon which demands selflessness, compromise, shared values and goals, honesty tempered by tact, and much much more.

If only I had known this a long time ago.

@travelbabe24 – suppose it is. Is that a problem?

Think anthropologically. The primary motivation for coupling is to fund suitable mates to breed with and increase the size and the strength of the tribe. That was (among other factors) based on lust (and pheromones). Males looked for females they could impregnate. And so on through the cycle.

Love (and specifically romantic love, and courting, etc.) came later, In some civilizations, love still isn’t part of the equation. Only family/tribal identity.

Lust is the most primal urge, because it leads to the survival of species.

Yes, hence the saying that “Immature love is hot, mature love is warm.” Lust burns hot and fast love burns warm and steadily.

I don’t think so. I think there are many people who do form very deep connections and chemistry with other human beings. Think about how distraught we get when and if our significant other dies.

Once again, notions of “romantic love” vary with the individual. But In my life I’ve witnessed far too many examples of people smitten (or stricken) to the point of ruining their lives. Women clinging to men who beat them, men throwing their life long fortunes away on women they know care nothing for them. Eminently sensible people, surrendering to acts of blatant stupidity, while legendary cheapskates lavish opulent extravagance on particular bimbos. There’s little point in trying to make sense of it. You can only pray that if and when it happens you, the object of your affection shares (at least a little) your yearning, and if not, pray to God that they have the decency not to play you for the fool you’ve become.

(For one, Fluther detest polls, even though 98% of the questions are de facto or quasi poll questions)

Well, off the preponderance of the evidence many who believe they are in love or in a deep seated infatuation, long-term lust, of a caring situation with passion maybe, but there are no true roots there. If you go into a relationship expecting to receive something back in like manner there maybe is no true love there. If you love someone, you love them, no matter if they do not love you back, and you don’t keep score of what wrong or hurt they done to you, and you excuse it, not bring it up at some future disagreement. People have more love for their children or pets than they do for their spouse. Lust is like fine sawdust, or lint, at a flame and it almost combust; it is gone so fast you hardly had time to view the flame. Lust masquerading as love is like a stack of newspaper, it will burn for a minute, certainly long enough to see the flames and feel the heat, but certainly not lasting. True love is like a fat almost green log, you have to use kindling and work it, to get the bigger twigs to burn to ignite the log, but once you get the log burning, it will burn for some time. Even then, you have to keep adding logs or the flame goes out. True love wants to do over and above for the object of that love no matter what, and if the other person thinks likewise, then they are trying to outdo the good they are doing for the other. If it comes to ”She no longer cooks for me I am not washing her car”, ”He doesn’t remember my birthday, I am not giving him any sex or access to my body”, ”I got her expensive gifts for Christmas, her birthday and our anniversary and she bought me crap, see if I buy her *anything else*”, ”He goes off fishing with his buddies all of the time and won’t go to the theater with me, I will belittle and clown him in front of anyone who will listen, etc. there is no deep-rooted love if it is predicated on what you get out of it or in return. The romantic love you speak of does exist, most could not see it if it were a big red barn they were walking passed.

Not in my experience. I’ve been ‘in lust’ many times, with no feeling of romantic love attached – even when I’ve acted on the lust. I’ve been in love just three times, and the differences between the two states of being are immense. (As a frame of reference, I’m 48 years old.)