What is it With Love?

The great William Shakespeare once said, “To say the truth, reason and love keep little company together now-a-days.” Truer words were never spoken! So what is it about love that makes intelligent, sensible people into witless, imprudent fools?

I, myself, am no exception to the foolhardiness of love. My poor heart has been stretched, squeezed and popped so many times that it’s a wonder it is still beating. With my ingénue sense of hope, I walk clumsily through my days falling in love with everyone I meet. This is not to say that I have a relationship, or even a conversation, with most of the people I fall in love with. Rather, I hold in my mind a wonderfully idealistic view of who everyone I encounter is in their own lives. In my wild mind, everyone, from the man who bags my groceries to the fellow who tears my movie stub, is an friendly, happy and romantic being just waiting to share his love with me.

I play out these beautiful, poetry-laden conversations with my fantasy Joes all day long. This one smiles crookedly at me, so he harbors a secret passion for French cuisine and is just dying to cook me up a soufflé au fromage. That one says, “How can I help you?” in a voice so smooth it can only be used to sing me a gorgeous and delightful love song.

No matter who they are or what they are doing, I can find something to love in everyone, a fact that leaves me extremely open and vulnerable. I dig around in the recesses of my mind, searching for the inherent goodness in every man and woman I come across. Because of this, I wander through the supermarket and the drug store and the deli with a silly grin pasted on my face for every person I meet. Every outing is a new opportunity for love and every new face inspires a fresh round of make-believe confabulation.

But no matter how silly this is or how irresponsible I am with my heart, I would rather walk around as an over-loving sap than as a hardened emotional statue. So perhaps Mr. Shakespeare was right, love and reason cannot take up residence in the same heart, but is a silly, unreasoning heart such a bad thing afterall?