From what I can recall of my fuzzy memory is that romantic love is a relatively new concept. Birthed in the Late Renaissance ... Romanticism stays for muse, fine arts, thinking about life and it's meaning, watching the stars etc. etc: leisure time
I guess we humans coupled also the performances on the theatre stages with the notion that those feelings of pleasure which other people can give ourselves should be extended into the intimate realm of two people. Since there was all this cultural leisure times available for a relevant amount of people (aristocrats and leaders) things were born, unknown to peoples before that time. As aristocrats (elites nowadays) were high influentials the culture changed and the intimate love was created.
I think love has a much larger meaning and realm than this romantic two-people-thing. Take love between a mother/father and the new born, love for nature and its creatures and love for all sentient beings (the Buddhists do distribute). It's relational. The classic couple and marriage is just one part in this huge system. It's related though to all other parts.
It's impossible to love someone more in the beginning than later, since you know them less in the beginning than later.
I'd say the better you know yourself the better you already know the other. You even know the strangest stranger just passing by on the sidewalk. But of course, getting to know the other also means to watch his habits, his speciality in doing things and perceiving the world. As this highly differs in every individual on a subjektive level, the only one who is being tricked by the differences and suffers from this differences, is again: you. We know already of the constructing mind, don't we?
Dis-appointments arise when I miss the point in time to meet the acknowledgment I can develop towards my mans self-view and accept that he might not be where I am in time and maturation process. Talking helps including serious questioning and deep interest in the view of my loved one. One could call this interest in the (well)being of the other already "love". Conflicts are the spice of a relationship where I can either succeed or fail. Where friction happens, the potential of mutual understanding is always there.
Sorry, I let myself being carried away :)
Thanks for the comment!
It's a story one often hears these days, about how 'romantic love' was concocted in the 18th century or thereabouts. But I'm pretty sure one can find pretty romantic tales much earlier than that. Helen of Troy and whatnot. ... Dunno, I'd need to look much more into that, but from personal experience, it seems unlikely that all the things I feel/felt is a result of cultural brainwashing.
Did it sound like brainwashing to you? It was not meant in that sense. What is felt by me is resulting from a mixture of cultural influences - some of them I might be not aware of, some others I am - and my choices leaning on what my preferences are in developing a love affair towards intimate and people in general. Would it be correct to say that this also counts for you?
Sorry, no vote, I must recover.
Stay well.
I didn't mean it in reference to your comment, but in reference to what I feel other writers or commentators are saying, for example this video.
I was actually thinking last night when I lay down to bed, that I remember having my romantic feelings from very early on, from my earliest "sexual" fantasies. It's possible I was influenced by (Russian) fairytales my mom was reading me, but then again I don't remember any fairytales having anything to do with sexual love.
Overall, I'm inclined to think that most of it is innate rather than external, just like most of our inclinations when it comes to sex/love.