There is so much wrong with this article, Nehring's book, and especially with the vast majority of responses to both it simply buggers the imagination. Passion hasn't died, many people have simply burned out on what they believe passion should look like. They've modeled too much upon the classics and pop culture, which often are far too interchangeable, and very little on love and depth. It is this latter from which springs passion and ignites both love and romance, not to mention the often baffling institution of marriage, among those who understand a romantic relationship has mostly to do with two people who value and cherish each other for a whole host of reasons utterly unrelated to sex, yet paradoxically can make sex almost supernatural when it does enter the picture.

Erich Fromm, in 1956, published a modest little book titled "The Art of Loving." For a while it created a stir among the thinking classes, but as thought went out of vogue so did the book, although it is still out there. I would heartily recommend it to anyone puzzled over his or her inability to find passion and romance in the world of people around them. One might add, after Fromm's little book, Cervantes' "Don Quixote." Love and depth are inseparable. Love and sex are also inseparable, but not necessary to each other's survival as with love and depth.

The article, Nehring's book, and the majority of the posts here strongly suggest very few people understand the subject they are discussing. As one who has been married and divorced three times I feel uniquely qualified to lend a ringing endorsement not only of marriage but also passion and romance. None of my marriages were failures. Each served its purpose while it lasted. Like life, we don't always get what we want but, as Jagger and Richard remind us, we sometimes get what we need. Often more than once. The fact that this experience can be used as a foundation for an ultimately solid and relatively stress-free, almost utopian sort of relationship is lost on those who don't realize that many times marriage or intense relationship is no different than dating, a process of accumulating experience which can someday be applied to a deeply rewarding, powerfully, deeply loving and gratifying relationship, state and church be damned.

Moving past the material acquisitiveness and marketing mentality we have been fed for decades might be a start toward discovering the inseparability of love and depth. All the rest is posturing, farce. To borrow from Becker and Fagen, "The things you think are precious I don't understand."

Seriously.

Thank you. That was me. Once again the Saloon somehow managed to have me logged in without having me logged in. Just wanted you to know I appreciated your comment, and wonder if my screen name will show up or not this time. Is always a surprise either way. What's up with that? Perhaps I should ask one of the parties responsible. Yeah, that probably would make sense. :)