The following thesis focuses on the characteristics of romantic relationships under neoliberal capitalism. The first part of the text explores the effect of labor market flexibilization on personal relationships. It also includes a description of a new kind of self-
understanding that is formed in the cultural climate of neoliberalism, the so-called entrepreneurial self, and links it to the change in how people view romantic relationships in general. The importance of the entrepreneurial self (in this context) follows from its
incessant imperative to work on oneself and its tendency towards personal growth, which lead subjects to seek help in psychotherapy. Precisely in (couples) psychotherapy is where characteristics of contemporary romantic relationships reveal themselves directly and in their clearest form, hence the thesis includes descriptions of various psychotherapeutic tips, guidelines and techniques. The second part of the text focuses on all the aspects of forming, maintaining and understanding romantic relationships, alongside an analysis of
communication between partners and their treatment of emotions, which in the neoliberal context start to incorporate a kind of market logic and exhibit a tendency for rationalisation in service of productivity. It explicates some salient features of neoliberal capitalism, such as the entry of market-based logic into non-economic spheres of life and the intensification
of processes of individualisation, intellectualisation and rationalisation. It sheds light on contemporary practices of choosing a partner which abandon the principles of romance and falling in love in favor of methodical selection, and focuses on the importance of
dating as a phase that precedes the exclusive romantic relationship and in which partners - because of the nature of online dating - present themselves to each other as commodities to be sold. The main part of the thesis focuses on the ways in which emotions, communication and arguments in a relationship are intellectualised. Emotions, expressions of affection and romantic gestures come to be seen as objects, subject to
analysis, optimisation and exchange, which furthers a conception of love as something that partners can be taught through practicing and adhering to certain rules. The last part of the thesis analyses the so-called intimacy discourse, which replaces the idea of
romantic love, and explains why love - under the constraints of individualisation, commodification of non-economic spheres of life and the pressures of the neoliberal labor market - seems to hurt.
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