No one in their right mind would want that diagnosis. Because "love" makes things messy. It destroys deep-rooted friendships in a single afternoon -- the sparks fly and the person you thought you knew for years is suddenly different in an almost "magical" way. But the magic disappears. You destroy one another, but the sparks are still too hard to put out once you let them latch on. Love has tainted history from that twisted encounter between Helen and Paris; the burning passions of youth have incinerated entire empires. And then it's also a lie. It's a lie we tell ourselves, and worse, one that we tell other people with those three words we always want to hear. So we lie, and we trap ourselves and innocent victims; and should we see through the lie and want to end it, we end up lying more -- cheating more. Or feelings fade, but the pain still remains and we are never the same for it. And after centuries of letting it govern our lives, it's time we stopped romanticizing romance, and stopped lying to ourselves about what this "love" can and cannot do. It's time we said, "Down with love."
-Gal
