Romanticism vs. Realism

There are hundreds of ways to look at a person, depending on the message you want to send through or the feelings you are experiencing. When it comes to attraction, it can be quite entertaining to observe the manner in which people react when in front of a person they feel attracted to. Although it has been scientifically proven that the initial flutter in the stomach, the instant heartbeat augmentation and the uncontrollable sweating are tightly linked together, attraction can be perceived differently from person to person.

These various ways to look at a person can easily be gathered into two categories: the romantically oriented attraction and the realistically oriented attraction. Either one is factual, intense and guides the person that is experiencing it to react in a certain way.

When talking about the romantic attraction, it is said that the person that feels it is a dreamy, idealistic one, who will instantly find himself or herself in the arms of the presumptive lover, travelling alongside them and spending tender moments together. They are prone to experience intense moments especially because of their imagination and ability to detach from the real world. These are the basic features of the romanticism attraction.

On the other side, the realistic attraction is simple, almost dull from what some may say. The thing is that a realistically oriented person will catch a glimpse of an attractive person and they will either think of a manner in which they could persuade them, or simply indulge in the sight and remain unnoticed. Although this type of attraction is characteristic mainly for those who are not hopeless romantics, they have many chances to live real dreams with their loved ones if they develop a way to express their feelings.

There have been conducted countless studies to determine the factors that cause a person to feel either romantic or realistic attraction towards another one. Knox and Schacht have decided that “romantic love is characterized by such beliefs as <love at first sight> and <love conquers all>.” Furthermore, they have performed studies which involved both men and women to determine which one of the genders is more romantic. After creating a survey and carrying it out to one hundred people (60 men and 40 women), I have gathered that a percentage of 76% of the women are hopeless romantics, and only 43% of the men admit to have this personality feature.

Medora, Larson, Hortacsu and Dave have created an interesting scale which anyone can complete for self-assessment purposes. This test will successfully determine which type of attraction you develop when taking a glimpse of someone you find agreeable. In the survey I have conducted, I used several of the questions that were listed in this quiz, which is the main method that led to the success of this observational study. Some of the most significant queries I have used are: “When you are in love, you are usually in a daze.”, “Love is more of a feeling rather than a relationship” and “Somewhere there is an ideal mate for most people.”

Like previously stated, I have tried to combine both romantic and realistic oriented questions to obtain the best results for my survey. The final results of my study reveal the fact that a number of 30 women are the victims of romantic attraction, whereas only 10 of them use their grey matter to determine whether they should or should not pursue a person. On the other side, a total of 26 men have admitted thinking with their heart rather than their brains when falling in love, opposed to the other 34 that are prone to experiment the realistic form of attraction.

All in all, independent of the way a person may look at another one, there are two main types of attraction and they are romanticism and realism. Although different in every way, they both express extremely intense feelings and they both are the representation of one’s preferences.