Necessarily sentimental

A response to Telf's response to my 25 things list.

"...was my correction hideously unromantic, as has been suggested to me?"

Yes it was. That isn't necessarily a problem, and doesn't necessarily mean I don't understand where you're coming from in the change you suggested. But it was definitely unromantic (maybe not hideously, as that's a very subjective adjective to use).

"Is it dreadful to... [allow] for the potential temporality of [a relationship], or is it acceptably practical, given the possibility of any particular relationship breaking down?"

Again, "dreadful" is a very personal choice of wording, but I would say that not referring to someone as "the person you are in love with", instead opting for the indefinite rather than the definite article ("a" rather than "the") simply because you want what you are saying to be accurate, is to potentially come across as jaded towards the person you are with and their feelings. Is it worth seriously offending someone you care about for the sake of technical accuracy?

In reference to "the possibility of any particular relationship breaking down": would you also argue that you should never say "see you tomorrow" to somebody because of the possibility of them dying in many different ways before you see them next?

"Perhaps it is bad form to specifically draw attention to the fact that nothing is certain, and everything must end"

I don't know about bad form, but I would say it's a fairly nihilistic approach to life. If you're applying it to relationships, why not everything else, and if everything is ultimately fragile and temporary, then why bother with anything?

"... is it a good idea to pretend that the current situation (however good it is) is necessarily the situation that will persist for as long as all involved live?"

I would say that this is attributing a greater scope to the human mind than is actually realistic. I have trouble thinking about what I'll be doing in a few months, let alone for the rest of my life. Therefore I would say that to live life in manageable pieces of time, rather than considering whether the current state of affairs will last until the end of your life, is a fairly reasonable choice. I would also say that to change the way you think of your life due to the fact that from one day to the next you can't predict what will happen, what will change, what will begin and what will end, is a fairly weighty burden to carry. I don't consider this to be pretending; I consider it to be pragmatism and, ultimately, a human way of thinking.

"the phrase... [seems]... to assign a uniqueness to the subject, implying (in my mind) that there will only be one such person, and that the author will not fall in love with anyone else."

Again, if we are approaching the subject of love entirely technically, then I can understand where you are coming from. But I would take issue with approaching love with any technicality. To me, stating that I have found "the person I fall in love with" is the same as saying "the person I want to continually be in love with", as there's nobody else that I want to be in love with and I don't see that changing. It's not about there only being one person or not, but about the fact that I don't want there to be another person.

This may be slightly disparate as a cohesive entry, but I felt that Telf's response to my original point warranted from me a lengthier response than just a comment. Essentially, whilst I can empathise with the point of view from which Telf was writing, I still stand by my original wording because of the way I feel, and I suppose because ultimately I am a romantic person, and a person in love.