I think your list of goals people try to achieve through engaging in romance is woefully incomplete. Humans function better when they’re deeply attached to other people, on all sorts of levels. Romance and (non-solo) sex are nearly the best way of creating those attachments. (Filial relationships might be even better. So you might not need romance as long as your parents are around.) Lack of such attachments shortens lifespan, causes depression and has a bunch of other terrible effects.
If you think the companionship to be found in romantic relationships is comparable to that of deep friendships, I’m sorry, but I really don’t think you know much about romantic companionship. There’s an attainable depth of romantic love where you say “I’ll spend my life with you even if you become a cripple tomorrow and I give you everything I have, including all opportunities for romance with anyone else ever, and if you feel the same towards me that’s the best thing that’s ever happend to me” and actually mean it. (And it isn’t infatuation if it’s still there after a couple of years.) Can you imagine such a state of mind? Because that’s among the things you say you’re trying to get rid of, and I find that hard to understand except by supposing you’ve never felt that. I have a lot of very deep friendships, including people I would literally kill for, and none of those come close to actual, capital L, Love.
While I agree that going for aromanticism foregoes the chance for the deep kind of Love I’d like to point out that
that kind of mutual attachment seems to be relatively rare (I seem to remember that only a smaller part of all romantic relationships are mutually that way, and for me it makes sense probabilistically and psychologically)
and in the cases where it isn’t mutual it is much less satisfactory for either party than the state you describe (I’m reporting from own experience having been the deeply attached party being happy to do everything and happily enduring a lot until breakup)
strictly hg00 doesn’t really forego this state permanently. Actually he may make himself more desirable that way and with the additional productivity end up in a position where he might decide differently later on.
SSRIs have aromanticism as a (rare-ish) side effect, allthough Scott Alexander didn’t mention that in http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/ssris-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/ . He says it is super easy to get a SSRI prescription.
I think your list of goals people try to achieve through engaging in romance is woefully incomplete. Humans function better when they’re deeply attached to other people, on all sorts of levels. Romance and (non-solo) sex are nearly the best way of creating those attachments. (Filial relationships might be even better. So you might not need romance as long as your parents are around.) Lack of such attachments shortens lifespan, causes depression and has a bunch of other terrible effects.
If you think the companionship to be found in romantic relationships is comparable to that of deep friendships, I’m sorry, but I really don’t think you know much about romantic companionship. There’s an attainable depth of romantic love where you say “I’ll spend my life with you even if you become a cripple tomorrow and I give you everything I have, including all opportunities for romance with anyone else ever, and if you feel the same towards me that’s the best thing that’s ever happend to me” and actually mean it. (And it isn’t infatuation if it’s still there after a couple of years.) Can you imagine such a state of mind? Because that’s among the things you say you’re trying to get rid of, and I find that hard to understand except by supposing you’ve never felt that. I have a lot of very deep friendships, including people I would literally kill for, and none of those come close to actual, capital L, Love.
While I agree that going for aromanticism foregoes the chance for the deep kind of Love I’d like to point out that
that kind of mutual attachment seems to be relatively rare (I seem to remember that only a smaller part of all romantic relationships are mutually that way, and for me it makes sense probabilistically and psychologically)
and in the cases where it isn’t mutual it is much less satisfactory for either party than the state you describe (I’m reporting from own experience having been the deeply attached party being happy to do everything and happily enduring a lot until breakup)
strictly hg00 doesn’t really forego this state permanently. Actually he may make himself more desirable that way and with the additional productivity end up in a position where he might decide differently later on.