As Valentine’s Day comes around again, the words love & romance are very much in the air. Is this just an annual blip; a commercial hiccough in the unromantic, divorce ridden Western world? Or, is there always a need for love & romance in the lives of a modern man or woman?

Having been around since the middle of the last century, I’ve witnessed some rapid social changes which would suggest that both love & romance are far less important than they once might have been. The last 50 years have seen an inexorable rise in selfishness, fed by a commercially driven “must have” attitude; true love is selfless. So how can true love thrive in a world swamped by selfishness?

Admittedly, the odds against a lasting relationship have become increasingly overwhelming in some countries in recent years. And, as Shakespeare writes in his wonderful poem, “love isn’t love that alters when it alteration finds”. If that is so, even when society appears to be stripping love of its importance, & fashions are diminishing love as a feature of modern life, true love will fend off those trends & fashions, & reign supreme.

A problem is, though, the herd mentality of a consumer society, where thinking & being different are not that common, dictates that most will follow whatever the fashion is. Divorce seemed to start as a Hollywood fashion a few decades ago, spread into mainstream American society like a plague, & onward across the Atlantic to the shores of the UK, where our equally herd like population rapidly followed suit.

As divorce & living alone became as much the “norm” as being married & in a family, the colourful feathers of love & romance were being plucked. The proud peacock, & the peahen it was trying to impress, were left naked & hung out in their bare skin.

You can have love without marriage, of course, but the divorce statistics are a symptom of a society where love has lost its aura. At least, in public love has lost its aura. But in private, what are people yearning for? Divorce & other relationship break ups? Or a loving relationship in which true love can flourish without a care for what society & peers think?

As some one who writes full time for the internet, I get to regularly see statistics on what people are searching for online. They are a great indicator of what’s on the minds of the population. The figures I see probably reflect ½ the searches done in the US, so these figures should be doubled to get an indication of the numbers making a particular search in the US.

The broadest search about love is, not surprisingly, “love”, & my latest statistics show over 1.2 million people made that search last month. The next most popular related search with the word love in surprised :o me, & is “love poem”. Now poetry is something I had thought was just about dead; far from it… However – it’s perhaps something people like to keep to themselves. In actual fact, “love poem” is consistently one of the top searches on the internet. Last month it was, in my statistics, 328,000 followed by “love quote” with well over 200,000 searches.

Those stark statistics seem to reflect that, somewhere in the hearts of millions of Americans, & no doubt other nationalities too, lies a yearning for love & romance, even if it does go against the herd instinct. One day a new fashion will bring that back out into the open, & people will be more openly proud of being in love, & being happy :) again.

So when you’re searching for all those Valentine’s Day gifts this year, buy from the heart & see if you can assist to start a new trend. You never know what might happen. Once a critical mass appreciate love as being the most significant thing in life, a new fashion will be born, & the rest of the herd will follow.

Well, it is a nice thought; but maybe not this year. You can still do your part, though. Approach Valentine’s Day, & every other day, with an open heart, & see how the chemistry of love reacts in your life. Never mind what virtually everyone else is doing.

This love & romance article was written by Roy Thomsitt, owner author of the Romeo & Juliet Valentines website, where you can find a new romantic story & Valentine gifts for men & women.