Loote-jee,

I am myself a huge admirer and a silent consumer of the compassionate, probing and informative inquiries you bring to Sajha.

>The older you become, the closer you tend to come in terms

>of reality and all these hopeless romanticism that you see or

>hear in music or ghazals starts to sound 'fake' (sorry for the

>word-- i am still equally passionate about art and music) to

>some extent…

Couple of things. First off, what you call ‘fake’ is also a ‘genuine’ thing in its own right, Hoina ra ? And in romance, it sure is. Nobody deceives nobody in romance. Both parties know pretty well the truth (genuine part) of the fake they exchange. Yes, younger people too.

Fakeness makes the stuff more presentable. That’s all.

Fakeness of the commercial world (wink wink) is not the same as the fakeness of the romantic world. The first one is deception and only the giver knows about it, the second one is art and both the giver and taker know about it ;-)

Something certainly happens/changes when you become older/mature. However, I am not sure if it is only ability to know or come closer to the terms of reality. As your chances, prospects, reactivity diminishes and the relative cost of romantic love increases, they might have their own effect on how you think.

So, it is equally possible that adults are in “denial” (to a certain extent at least) about romantic love rather than “knowing” how fake it is.

It’s time for some psychologist to intervene this debate, I guess.

Happy hangover of St. Valentine’s Day to all hopeless lovers !

Nepe