You should consider the possibility that that is part of the problem. Romanticism is all very well in the fields of architecture, music, & soft furnishings, although it isn't to everyones taste,but when it gets into the soul it brings forth monsters. I'd guess you were one of those who believed in the 'Golden Age', & that it had returned with the Incarnation of GMJ.

Now you know it didn't, you owe it to yourself to find out what really does make sense. I recommend Daniel J. Boorstin's 'The Discoverers' (subtitled... a history of man's search to know his world & himself) as a fascinating & well written explanation of how we got here from there.

There's no point in feeling nostalgia for a past which was based on a lie, no matter how great it felt at the time. If it was 'real love' that you felt then it was misguided, but what is love anyway?

That's a question which it's beyond my powers to address at the moment.