Why Love Sucks So Bad.

I’m not much for psychological mumbo-jumbo so I’ll just come right out and ask the question just like you would: “Why does love suck so bad?”

Such an interesting question and the answer shouldn’t be easier. We all experience love. Rich or poor. American or Zimbabwean. We all know it’s crappy. Ergo, we should all know why.

Nope. We don’t know why love stinks, it just does.

It must be like going on a cocaine bender. It starts with feelings of ecstasy and euphoria, leads to heightened desire, and rapidly ends with you — broke, vomiting and nursing a hell of a headache.

But that’s really a false analogy. With cocaine you are alone in your misery. You are the cause of it. You brought it on yourself. And you are left to deal with it by yourself. (Well, you and an army of rehab counselors who are solving your addiction with coffee and cigarettes.)

In love, however, there is always some ass on the other side of it. Is that too blunt?

But you know what I mean. You’re left crying for years over something that your partner stopped thinking about maybe five minutes after it was over? (Probably months before it was over.)

At least we sometimes get to share this love experience with our friends. For instance, that sweet neighbor down the street. You know the one. She’s pleasant and cute and always admired your house and told you how beautiful your kids were.

Now you live in an apartment while she sets your dining room table for holiday meals and goes to Disney Land with your husband and kids.

That’s love. No, that’s L O V E, as in that big, giant statue in Manhattan.

It’s not any better for single people. One brief nocturnal encounter and many women are registering everywhere from Tiffany’s to Walmart. Men on the other hand usually thank their partners for the incredible pleasure they gave them by quitting Facebook, changing their cell numbers and, if necessary, moving to the United Arab Emirates.

And those are the successful relationships. We all know love can end much worse than that. There is a reason why the FTD man and the STD man both have wings on their feet.

Was there ever an era when love was good?

In the beginning, the Bible teaches us, the first man on earth had some guy snaking on his chick. (Are you too dense to read a metaphor, or did you think they were really talking about a reptile with vocal chords?)

Yes, the wisdom of our fathers tells us that love has sucked from the get go. But even if you are not a Creationist you must wonder why humankind never evolved to eliminate love? We’ve grown from the cave to the condo, from shoeless hoofing to the rocket ship, from crude wall drawings to complex literature.

And yet how come we can’t move past something as archaic as love? From generation to generation human beings wander into the same blunder.

Why? No sense of history, that’s why.

Love is a lot like those blind mice who blithely sniff their way to the trap. They are allured by a primal need that leads them right into their spring-loaded doom.

Not one rodent, not ever, witnesses the calamity and runs back into the hole behind the stove and shouts: “It’s a trap! If you smell the cheese, RUN!” They never squeak a word of warning.

I’m a man, not a mouse (or so my mother says), so I’m here to sound the alarm for you: If you meet a person who is kind and attractive, who is respectful and intelligent and makes you feel good about yourself…. Step. Away. From. The. Cheese.