Romance requires effort

The argument

Romantic love, while not a natural feeling or expression, has become real because people enjoy the idea of romance. Just like how making music takes time, effort, purpose, and practice, romance takes effort and purpose to put into practice for those we care about. Once we put romance into practice enough, it becomes second nature in relationships. We as intelligent beings can practice romance in any of our relationships in the same way music might come naturally to someone who devotes all of their time and energy into mastering it.

Context

The vast majority of people in relationships find it difficult to include romance on a regular basis.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics reply that this argument concedes too much to the other side. If romantic love is 'not a natural feeling' and exists only because we practise it, that makes it a cultural construct or performance — which is closer to saying it is not real, in the sense the debate cares about (a genuine, felt emotion), than that it is. The music analogy cuts against the claim, since music is a human artifact, so likening love to it suggests love is invented rather than intrinsic. And much love is experienced as spontaneous and involuntary, without the deliberate effort the argument makes constitutive of it.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Calling romantic love a deliberate practice rather than a natural feeling arguably makes it a constructed performance, not a real emotion, which weakens rather than supports its reality. [Rejecting P2] The music analogy implies love is a learned human artifact — a point that leans toward invention, not authenticity. [Rejecting P3] Much romantic love is felt as spontaneous and involuntary, without the sustained effort the argument treats as essential to it. [Rejecting C] 'Real because we make it real' redefines 'real' as 'enacted,' which does not answer whether romantic love is a genuine feeling.