Love is in one way a necessity for all human beings in order for them to feel a sense of belonging and that they are appreciated. This is the reason why falling in love can be instant, at first sight in some case. People who do not even recognize each other can spontaneously end up falling in love. However, love and feelings of appreciation are tough to do away with. This could be because of the emotional attachment that comes along with love. Some people take as long as ten years to get over their previous lovers. Love comes along with obsessions where lovers do outrageous things to secure their love or relationships. The play written by Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet is a case in point. The play is about two love birds, Juliet and Romeo, who despite their feuding family backgrounds, are extremely in love. The two had so much affection for each other that they did almost everything together. A closer look at love and one would realize the extreme ends of love. Love can lead to happiness but equally, it may lead to misery and sorrow. In fact, most love relationships end in bitterness and hatred. This is why love can be referred to as a fallacy, because it is at times an illusion that leads people to doing unrealistic things.
Juliet’s family is against her relationship with Romeo and does everything in their ability to stop the relationship. It is however subject to debate whether there is anything like love in real life. Love has so many links to fallacies, which many people treasure, believe and hold onto. Furthermore, love can be linked to fallacies because of its unpredictable nature. It is hard to tell the kind of person one falls in love with. Romeo and Juliet are so much in love that they ignore their backgrounds and family protests to go on with the relationship. This is the true definition of love. Romeo and Juliet have genuine feelings for one another and demonstrate this by standing by each other until the time of their demise. This proves that there are cases where love can be genuine as long as the couple understand one another and focus on their love life to make t successful. However, in the present world and in reality, genuine love is rarely witnessed since people tend to be focused more on their selfish interests rather than those of their partners.
Infatuation is a situation or feeling where people get attracted to one another mainly because of the looks. Many people mistake infatuation for love hence; making it a fallacy. This is because it is hard to predict the kind of person one falls in love with. Attraction towards someone just because of their looks is not love. In Bruno Mars’s song, “Grenade”, the singer suggests that he would sacrifice his life by catching a grenade for his lover. The song is basically not practical because everything the singer says he can do for his lover may lead to his demise. Jumping in front of a train and catching a grenade are not practical. This is a clear illustration that love is a fallacy and is never about reality. People who claim to be in love always make false and unreal statements that are entirely impractical. People should therefore control their emotions when dealing with matters of love in order to avoid disappointments.
Love is made up of fantasies that are inexistent in reality. The emotions of romance that people feel or tell one another are often inaccurate and inaccurate. People get false perceptions about love; raise their expectations so high that they end up in big disappointments. Other people believe that love natural and predetermined for everyone. Max Schulman, in his story, “Love is a Fallacy”, focuses on an individual who pursues a lady and explains the logic and reasons behind love. Ironically, the man is rejected at the end because of the lady’s reasons which are also logical. The story is fictitious but illustrates the reality about how logic can lead to dubious relationships and also avoid the same relationships.
It is evident that there are many people who believe in perfect relationships and love like that between Romeo and Juliet. People set their expectations high, giving logical and realistic reasons for their falling in love. However, acting on these reasons is impossible. These logical fallacies can be used to illustrate the fact that people have different perceptions about love. Some people use logic rather than emotions to woo potential partners. For instance, a law student whose perception is that lawyers need to marry gracious, beautiful and intelligent ladies identifies Poly as a potential wife. The student has further assumptions where he believes beautiful and gracious ladies can be transformed into intelligent people to make potential wives for lawyers. However, he believes intelligent women cannot be transformed to be beautiful. However, logic aside, love does not involve calculated moves; it is about physical and emotional feelings between two individuals.
Romeo fights everything that comes between him and his love, Juliet because they had passionately strong feelings for one another. Their love has nothing to do with logic; it is entirely based on emotional attachment and affection. Shakespeare could have exaggerated the love. There are very few such situations in reality where people love each other to an extent of dying for one another. It the story, Love is a Fallacy, the attraction of the law student to Polly is not emotional at all. Instead, he expects the girl to excite the emotions in him. On their date, he does not talk about romance or feelings; he talks about logic fallacies about love. The fallacies are not shared by Polly though since she seemed interested in a romantic relationship. The story of Love is a fallacy and that of Romeo and Juliet are two extreme ends where the two scenarios clash completely.
There are those people who believe that love is about emotions. They believe that love is something natural and that the fantasies about love can be realized if they meet the appropriate partners. The play, Romeo and Juliet, is written by Shakespeare in his attempt to show how people do unbelievable things in the name of love. In reality, love is a deception and a fantasy. It cannot be realized to some extents. People always use fallacies when making decisions on love matters because they are logical and realistic. For instance, in the story, Love is a Fallacy; the young law student has logical reasons when he tries to court Polly. Polly too has her own logical reasons when turning the student down. Therefore, love is skewed towards fallacies because fallacies exist in reality.
Works Cited
Fisher, Helen E. Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love. Illustrated. New York: Henry Hol, 2004.
Roger, Friedman. Nash May Talk- Oscars in Last Leg of Voting. 13 March 2002. 25 June 2012.
Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet. n.d.
Shulman, Max. Love is a Fallacy. 8th edition. Boston: Bedford St Martin, 2008.
