Is romance gone from our culture?

There is something I wonder about our culture. I don't know if I am imagining it or not. 

But, listening to oldies (All the way to the 30's and up to the 60's, or maybe sooner), their love songs are very sweet and they glorify love. To our generation, it would typically induce a puke reaction, as if to something fake and overly sugary. 

But see that made me wonder. If culturally, we have de-throned love as an ideal, what have we replaced it with? Seems like maybe, narcissistic power to make other people want us. 

I don't think songs like that existed back then, and now there is a whole genre of them, Where the core value in regards to relationships is status and respect, rather than love and connection. 

Take a moment to reflect on that - not a song or two, but an entire genre of songs with this mentality. 

And what is the direct consequence of it? That the person who is more wanted, yet less interested than the other, is the one who wins the game (See Tyler Swift's 'Blank Space').
Now take a moment and compare the two songs, 'Blank Space' and 'Can't help falling in love' sang by Elvis Presley. 

I mean, we have spent so much time cynically and "wisely" making fun of everything ideal, in the name of "maturity", "realism", "not being a fool", and "real life wisdom", that what are we leaving room to live for? 

Maybe this has to do with our increased independence as a result of the various technological advancements. My intention is not to talk technology down. But to give all the consequences an objective evaluation without forming a conclusion on 'what should be done'. I'm not anti-technology, but when something need be recognized, then it need be recognized, regardless of any prick's agenda. (You heard me, prick. Back off).
so to get back to my point, before I started arguing with imagined people; 

And there is real fear

One of the wisest things I have learned is that people run away from being vulnerable because it is less safe. Because everyone are caught up in the same fear, and they go round and round perpetuating it. So for years I've been challenging myself to be vulnerable when the other person does not let themselves be. Just to see what would happen. At this point I am not so afraid of being hurt by it, but it's complicated to explain why. 

So many people go around pretending not to care about others as a way to preserve their pride. But my philosophy reverses it, because I've come to the understanding that the richest person alive is the one that can love. I think it is an undiscovered fundamental law of nature. We may not realize it consciously, but as human beings we are always drawn to those around us that have the capacity to love... To feel, to get attached to things, to get excited. The other things we respond to are defense values, which we accumulate as a shield to save us from not loving ourselves. 

Now you may think everything I said sounds like a lot of fluff, and what kind of a valentine greeting card did I get this off of. 

But it is true. We just live in a world that conditions us to be the opposite, until it's too late and we face death, and we are terrified of it, because we haven't loved for years and the day to face the loss finally comes. And see, I don't believe in multiple life times. So I rather always throw myself to the wind, take a risk, just to get one step forward fulfilling my life. 

I think the happiest people are those who can love without fear.