Role Models? Romeo and Juliet? That Explains All the Deranged Love Mutants

Every year when Valentine’s Day rolls around, I make a special point of trying to scan the horizon for a reasonable example of romantic love, just so I know what we’re all supposed to be celebrating.

Of course, the preceding 364 days I am adrift in a sea of stories about love gone dopey. I refer here to both the whining weepy anecdotes of my various friends as well as those of the never-ending parade of deranged love mutants booked in triplicate on the afternoon talk shows. To say nothing of the stream of stunning examples reported daily.

My favorite:

“A 71-year-old woman was arrested Friday after she allegedly doused her husband of more than 30 years with rubbing alcohol and set him on fire for eating a chocolate Easter bunny she had saved for herself, police said.”

Proving once and for all that when evaluating the success of a love relationship, the element of longevity should not necessarily be the key.

But if that isn’t, what is? It has become increasingly disturbing how few good models of love there are.

This year, we can’t look to the First Couple for any hints. It’s pretty apparent that Hillary is just putting the best face on some kind of marital sciatica. In fact, these past few years every single public couple who ever looked the least bit intriguing bought a ticket for the long slow ride to hell.

I still remember with a shudder when I thought Woody and Mia looked like they had worked out something impressive. Eccentric, yes, but romantic and mature. That was way back in the late ‘80s--when we used to be able to count on England’s royal couples to at least fake a show of romance.

This year, we can’t even count on Tom and Roseanne. Yes, John Tesh and Connie Selleca would like to step up to the plate as our new romantic ideal, but having survived the taping of an embarrassing infomercial is not qualification enough.

So this year, in honor of Valentine’s Day, I decided to reread a true classic--”Romeo and Juliet.”

If you have not had the occasion to do so lately, please allow me to reacquaint you with the details of this timeless model of romantic love.

When we first meet the teen-age Romeo, it is a Sunday night and he has decided to crash a ball just to catch a glimpse of Rosaline, a girl with whom he is desperately in love. Instead, he meets the 13-year-old Juliet. And even though, only seconds before he was deeply in love with Rosaline, now he knows instantly that this 13-year-old girl is the greatest love of his life. Really. She is. He’s not kidding this time.

Juliet has never been in love before. And yes, their two families hate each other. But so what? My parents never liked anyone I went out with either. The important thing is that by Monday afternoon, so beautiful is their love, they go ahead and get married.

Just one day later.

In lieu of a honeymoon, Romeo kills Juliet’s cousin and Juliet goes back home to spend the night at her parents’ house. Of course her parents do not know about the marriage yet, but they are so beside themselves with grief about the murdered cousin that Juliet’s father decides there is no time like the present to arrange for Juliet to marry an older man.

Well, she is 13 and not getting any younger. Soon, she’ll be 13 1/2. However, because he’s an adult and not a hot-headed teen-ager, he really doesn’t want to rush things. So he sets the wedding date for Thursday.

Naturally, the already-married Juliet realizes she must defy her father’s wishes. She is no longer a co-dependent. She has boundaries and as a fully individualed adult, she must stand up to him and tell him her intentions. She takes the most sensible course of action under the circumstances. She pretends to be dead.

This also bodes very well for the future of her marriage to Romeo since we now know that the core of any “love-at-first-sight” attraction is usually “repetition compulsion”--wherein a person re-enacts the identical behavior and problems first seen in the parent-child relationship.

Thank God both Romeo and Juliet killed themselves before we were able to chart their marriage any farther into the future when it most certainly would have descended into scenarios like this:

(Romeo enters parlor)

“Juliet! Juliet! My Light! I’m home! Juliet? Oh, I forgot to tell you that I ate that chocolate Easter bunny that you were . . . Juliet? Juliet? Oh no. Honey. Not dead again. Don’t tell me you’re dead again. Please don’t be playing dead again. You were just dead on Monday. I can’t call 911 twice in one week. It’s too embarrassing. Juliet? Juliet?”

Well, there you have this year’s Valentine’s Day poster couple. A 13-year-old girl who likes to pretend to be dead married to a teen-age murderer who has no trouble falling in love with two different girls on the same Sunday night.

Which leaves us with this slightly comforting fact:

There is no reason to lament today’s lack of viable romantic models. Things are no worse now than they ever were. The only difference is that back then no one watched Oprah or read psychology books. So they didn’t mind calling deranged neurotic behavior “the greatest love story ever told.”

Happy Valentine’s Day.