Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 April 1885 — Flirtation and Platonic Love. [ARTICLE]

Flirtation and Platonic Love.

If a fellow felt quite sure that he would be declined when he proposed, what a lot of innocent fun we might have. But that is not the nature' of things. But between the danger of being grabbed up and the danger of being cut out, the present young gentleman’s position is altogether a profoundly uncomfortable one. I was once on the most delightful of terms w-ith a young lady. We laid down a basis of neutrality. Flirtation, freedom, and friendship were the mottoes. We got along swimmingly. She flirted with other fellows, and I—well—l was supposed to be free to flirt with other girls. I never kicked, but she objected to my paying somebody else attention, and—well—l had to give in. Having thoroughly conquered me, she went off and married somebody else, and everybody condoled me on getting left. I made no more compacts. Then there’s that confounded arrangment known as platoniclovc. —Platonic love is a relation in which parties are on the defensive. It is a condition intermediary between happiness and misery. When you are ptatonically related to a girl you are in constant worry in case she is in love with somebody else, while you hope to goodness she is not so far gone on you as to expect you 'to marry her. The platonic relation is one created to minister to the emotional, as distinct from the matrimonial wants of human nature. It satisfies the craving all men and women have to hug one another without responsibility and without prejudice. It is eternally selfish. It really allows nothing to the other party. It serves to fill up the gaps between the fits of grand passion. Of course I know that people who believe in platonic love will say it is nothing of the kind; that it is based on liking and respect, and all sorts of pure thngs. All the same, if you will excuse me, I am not going to confide my future happiness to a young lady who has a platonic affection for any other Aoung man. There is noth ng in which theory and practice are so widely different as platonic love. I know it.— San Francisco Chronicle.