It's not a pretzel at all. You're just overcomplicating things. I'm not talking just about asceticism either.

There's the mainstream culture that reveres romantic love. Then there's an intellectual counterculture that includes ascetics, monks, gurus, philosophers, artists, comedians, and so on, which holds romantic love in contempt. Those social outsiders needn't renounce all worldly affairs to look at love with skepticism rather than reverence and deference.