I tried to limit it to the ones (of that group) who smiled at me. It saved a lot of grief.
Last edited 6 months ago by laurence scaduto
Sayantani Gupta
6 months ago
My word! What a lot of jargon!
Growing up in pre- Internet times with only books and movies to fall back on for “leisure”, one had an assortment of crushes on fictional characters ranging from Heathcliff to Bingo Little to celebrities like Gregory Peck, but didn’t know there was a name to it.
Does academic theorizing reduce every sweet aspect of simpler times to yet another convoluted array of tongue-twisters?
I’m one of those many women who read Wuthering Heights aged 14 years old,when I was a girl. I’m one of that very rare band who DID NOT fall in love with Heathcliff and thought he was a nasty piece of work. I recently reread the book as I was given a copy as a thank you gift. I saw more in the story on reading it as an adult. It confirmed to me that Heathcliff was indeed a nasty piece of work and nastier than id realised aged 14. I saw too that the heroine of the book is not big Kathy but her daughter little Kathy. Big Kathy I totally recognized on my first reading as one of the mean,sly girls at school. She supposedly has this Grande Passione for her gypsy lover but she CHOOSES to marry the man who can give her local.status,a house,nice clothes.etc. Her daughter little Kathy deludes herself that she is in love with Heathcliffs son because they didn’t have dating apps or boy bands in those days. It is little Kathy who defies Heathcliff and stands up to him and takes the punishment for it. And the true romantic end of the book is not the reunion of the two nasties forever together in the locked up cold,dark old scary farmhouse on the moor,it’s little Kathy going to marry her cousin,the true heir who Heathcliff stole it from in real terms.
Maybe this phenomenon explains why we have so many failed marriages and domestic abuse,it never ends. In the 1970s a new era of seeing the problem,proving refuges and education promised to end all that unenlightened stuff from the past but women just keep on marrying Heathcliff and they always will.
Begging your pardon but I enjoyed my ramble.
By today’s standards however most of the characters of 19th century classics would be considered misogynist and chauvinistic.
In my personal reading of WH at a much later age I actually thought that Edward Lynton was a sweet hero too.
Heathcliff was a complex character and Emily Bronte by the standards of that era did a great job in showing where he came from.
Richard M
6 months ago
I really don’t much mind what consenting adults get up to in private.
But not for the first time I’m moved to comment that I’m glad I came up in a simpler time when you met girls (or boys) in pubs, clubs, parties etc and either fancied each other or didn’t.
The whole sex and relationships thing just seems like so much more hard work these days and very few people appear to be actually enjoying it.
Actually I wrote a ruder version on the lines you suggest-but UH decided to censor it.
The article is quite a sad commentary on our times- and I am glad to have grown up in a less complicated era, when such phenomenon would be described as “romance”.
I confess, I couldn’t read the whole article for similar reasons. After the first paragraph I just could not go on. Made it to the comments section though, obviously.
Xaven Taner
6 months ago
So sad that young people have become a horde of petty bureaucrats who spend the bulk of their time forcing themselves and others into these increasingly absurd boxes. It’s a Western malaise; a symptom of irrevocable decline. If these people are the future, the future is bleak place.
It may not be ‘young people’, that are the problem, but a tiny minority subset of them – young people without a life, coddled by adults who should know better”. The young people I know are actually far more sensible than the generations that came before -focused on their life, work & careers, lower rates of rebellion, unwanted pregnancies, drug and alcohol use etc..
Allison Barrows
6 months ago
This Greek guy, Narcissus, is enjoying one helluva comeback in the digital age.
Yes they think it’s all new, but there is nothing new under the sun.
Steve Murray
6 months ago
I think it’s just a truism that we project a whole load of qualities and characteristics onto potential partners, and probably always have done. All that’s happening is that firstly books, films and television, and now the internet and mobile phones are channelling those same neurochemical pathways which need to find an outlet in ways which provide greater insight into the mechanism.
Duane M
6 months ago
It’s common for kids to have imaginary friends. In the old days, they would grow out of that stage. But now it’s more possible to remain a child, and grow up to have an imaginary partner. Go figure.
laurence scaduto
6 months ago
This is, if I remember properly, one of the original selling points of the internet. “A cure for our loneliness”. Like so many other dreams of a wonderful world of connectivity, things didn’t work out as imagined.
The labelling of the various nuances is just an effect of our strange attachment to the primacy of “identity”; another non-positive unintended result.
At this point, the one question we must answer is: How the hell do we get away from this internet thing?? And back to the point where people’s private lives are (happily) none of my business.
William Simonds
6 months ago
Gosh, but this was so tiring to read. Really? Do we have to consider in depth the cause and effect of every single human proclivity? Do we have to give it a name? Does it have to be formed into a subculture or a subset? Does it have to become a group with a catchy portmanteau?
The internet has not given rise to all these variances and fringe proclivities…it has simply given them a platform and a megaphone where they can be harvested, amplified, and turned into something far beyond what they actually are…which I think is just the abundant variations that exist between and among people.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Ah! But give something an ‘-ology’ and there’s a career and money to be made researching it. Papers to write. Seminars to organise. Chairs to be endowed. Appearances on radio, TV, and Blogs.
Lindsey Thornton
6 months ago
As I was reading this article I kept thinking of my own literary character crush; so relieved to hear it’s not pathological to feel attracted to Mr Darcy. Phew!
Much of the modern transgender universe comes from the love of, if not falling in love with the trials and the journeys of digital characters in the universe of computer games.
It´s not my domain but I hear that equivalent fetishes often happen with Japanese Manga and from the old ´dressing-up´ in comicbook/sci-gi conferences comes the desire for the young to transform themselves into virtual avatars.
The cult of Harry Potter was responsible for much of the specificity of these syndromes, some of which might well involve the displacement of sexuality in the embrace of imaginative identity creation.
CF Hankinson
6 months ago
Very interesting. I think those more recent, extreme, forms of fictiosexuality reveal hidden truths about romantic love which surely was always invested in fantasy.
The knack was to find a suitable person who enabled you to cast a dream web of desire on them in meatspace (as those captured in the virtual world call the everyday). I just had to throw that bit of jargon in it makes me smile in fear and wonder.
Good piece I enjoyed it.
I think people,human beings,us,have always fallen in love with people who don’t exist in reality. Some of them were/are the Gods or God. The most importantly aspect of the Christian faith ( I’m not qualified to speak of other faiths) is not to know lots of facts and figures about the society and world of 2000+ plus years ago (but that is interesting),it’s to see God and Jesus as people and be in a relationship with them,to love Jesus,something I find difficult), Once books became a thing people have been falling in love with both authors and characters forever. How fabulous it is to discover that someone who lived maybe 500+ years ago from you had the same ideas or opinions on much in life as you do or even totally changes your perspective on things. It’s time travel. I think it’s quite legitimate to fall in love with a past person. I had quite a thing going for Robert Louis Stevenson in my 20s.
I’m a tautolosexual: I’m only sexually attracted to people I want to have sex with.
Thank God I read all the way to the end of your post. For a second there I was imagining tortoises!
They’re great to exchange texts with, although a bit slow in responding; but then they turn up in a shell-suit…
Boom, boom!
I tried to limit it to the ones (of that group) who smiled at me. It saved a lot of grief.
My word! What a lot of jargon!
Growing up in pre- Internet times with only books and movies to fall back on for “leisure”, one had an assortment of crushes on fictional characters ranging from Heathcliff to Bingo Little to celebrities like Gregory Peck, but didn’t know there was a name to it.
Does academic theorizing reduce every sweet aspect of simpler times to yet another convoluted array of tongue-twisters?
Heathcliff the Bronte character or Heathcliff the cartoon cat?
Maybe both??! Just joking.
Obviously the Bronte hero.
Why obviously? Heathcliff the human is an awful guy. The cartoon cat looks to be the better catch.
Nope.
Helloooooo!!! Heathcliff is one of the original Eng Lit hotties. You have Mr Darcy for the ‘good boy’ crush and Heathcliff for the ‘bad boy’ crush.
He was nasty and a bully and right useless. No wonder domestic abuse never ends.
I’m one of those many women who read Wuthering Heights aged 14 years old,when I was a girl. I’m one of that very rare band who DID NOT fall in love with Heathcliff and thought he was a nasty piece of work. I recently reread the book as I was given a copy as a thank you gift. I saw more in the story on reading it as an adult. It confirmed to me that Heathcliff was indeed a nasty piece of work and nastier than id realised aged 14. I saw too that the heroine of the book is not big Kathy but her daughter little Kathy. Big Kathy I totally recognized on my first reading as one of the mean,sly girls at school. She supposedly has this Grande Passione for her gypsy lover but she CHOOSES to marry the man who can give her local.status,a house,nice clothes.etc. Her daughter little Kathy deludes herself that she is in love with Heathcliffs son because they didn’t have dating apps or boy bands in those days. It is little Kathy who defies Heathcliff and stands up to him and takes the punishment for it. And the true romantic end of the book is not the reunion of the two nasties forever together in the locked up cold,dark old scary farmhouse on the moor,it’s little Kathy going to marry her cousin,the true heir who Heathcliff stole it from in real terms.
Maybe this phenomenon explains why we have so many failed marriages and domestic abuse,it never ends. In the 1970s a new era of seeing the problem,proving refuges and education promised to end all that unenlightened stuff from the past but women just keep on marrying Heathcliff and they always will.
Begging your pardon but I enjoyed my ramble.
Yes, you are right about what you say.
By today’s standards however most of the characters of 19th century classics would be considered misogynist and chauvinistic.
In my personal reading of WH at a much later age I actually thought that Edward Lynton was a sweet hero too.
Heathcliff was a complex character and Emily Bronte by the standards of that era did a great job in showing where he came from.
I really don’t much mind what consenting adults get up to in private.
But not for the first time I’m moved to comment that I’m glad I came up in a simpler time when you met girls (or boys) in pubs, clubs, parties etc and either fancied each other or didn’t.
The whole sex and relationships thing just seems like so much more hard work these days and very few people appear to be actually enjoying it.
Actually I wrote a ruder version on the lines you suggest-but UH decided to censor it.
The article is quite a sad commentary on our times- and I am glad to have grown up in a less complicated era, when such phenomenon would be described as “romance”.
It will probably pop up in an hour or two.
I confess, I couldn’t read the whole article for similar reasons. After the first paragraph I just could not go on. Made it to the comments section though, obviously.
So sad that young people have become a horde of petty bureaucrats who spend the bulk of their time forcing themselves and others into these increasingly absurd boxes. It’s a Western malaise; a symptom of irrevocable decline. If these people are the future, the future is bleak place.
It may not be ‘young people’, that are the problem, but a tiny minority subset of them – young people without a life, coddled by adults who should know better”. The young people I know are actually far more sensible than the generations that came before -focused on their life, work & careers, lower rates of rebellion, unwanted pregnancies, drug and alcohol use etc..
This Greek guy, Narcissus, is enjoying one helluva comeback in the digital age.
Yes they think it’s all new, but there is nothing new under the sun.
I think it’s just a truism that we project a whole load of qualities and characteristics onto potential partners, and probably always have done. All that’s happening is that firstly books, films and television, and now the internet and mobile phones are channelling those same neurochemical pathways which need to find an outlet in ways which provide greater insight into the mechanism.
It’s common for kids to have imaginary friends. In the old days, they would grow out of that stage. But now it’s more possible to remain a child, and grow up to have an imaginary partner. Go figure.
This is, if I remember properly, one of the original selling points of the internet. “A cure for our loneliness”. Like so many other dreams of a wonderful world of connectivity, things didn’t work out as imagined.
The labelling of the various nuances is just an effect of our strange attachment to the primacy of “identity”; another non-positive unintended result.
At this point, the one question we must answer is: How the hell do we get away from this internet thing?? And back to the point where people’s private lives are (happily) none of my business.
Gosh, but this was so tiring to read. Really? Do we have to consider in depth the cause and effect of every single human proclivity? Do we have to give it a name? Does it have to be formed into a subculture or a subset? Does it have to become a group with a catchy portmanteau?
The internet has not given rise to all these variances and fringe proclivities…it has simply given them a platform and a megaphone where they can be harvested, amplified, and turned into something far beyond what they actually are…which I think is just the abundant variations that exist between and among people.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Ah! But give something an ‘-ology’ and there’s a career and money to be made researching it. Papers to write. Seminars to organise. Chairs to be endowed. Appearances on radio, TV, and Blogs.
As I was reading this article I kept thinking of my own literary character crush; so relieved to hear it’s not pathological to feel attracted to Mr Darcy. Phew!
Not at all! Am a co- sharer of the same fantasy!
But is to think Heathcliff.is attractive.
Much of the modern transgender universe comes from the love of, if not falling in love with the trials and the journeys of digital characters in the universe of computer games.
It´s not my domain but I hear that equivalent fetishes often happen with Japanese Manga and from the old ´dressing-up´ in comicbook/sci-gi conferences comes the desire for the young to transform themselves into virtual avatars.
The cult of Harry Potter was responsible for much of the specificity of these syndromes, some of which might well involve the displacement of sexuality in the embrace of imaginative identity creation.
Very interesting. I think those more recent, extreme, forms of fictiosexuality reveal hidden truths about romantic love which surely was always invested in fantasy.
The knack was to find a suitable person who enabled you to cast a dream web of desire on them in meatspace (as those captured in the virtual world call the everyday). I just had to throw that bit of jargon in it makes me smile in fear and wonder.
Good piece I enjoyed it.
I think people,human beings,us,have always fallen in love with people who don’t exist in reality. Some of them were/are the Gods or God. The most importantly aspect of the Christian faith ( I’m not qualified to speak of other faiths) is not to know lots of facts and figures about the society and world of 2000+ plus years ago (but that is interesting),it’s to see God and Jesus as people and be in a relationship with them,to love Jesus,something I find difficult), Once books became a thing people have been falling in love with both authors and characters forever. How fabulous it is to discover that someone who lived maybe 500+ years ago from you had the same ideas or opinions on much in life as you do or even totally changes your perspective on things. It’s time travel. I think it’s quite legitimate to fall in love with a past person. I had quite a thing going for Robert Louis Stevenson in my 20s.