If you talk about, say, 'Romeo and Juliet,' most people will

“If you talk about, say, ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ most people will think of it as a play about the highest form of romantic love. They won’t realize that it is a horrible tragedy. And this notion of a soul mate is so damaging. That isn’t love at all.” Thus speaks Michael Penn, and his words strike like a bell in the night. For they challenge one of the most cherished illusions of the modern heart—that love is destined, perfect, and without cost. He reminds us that Shakespeare’s tale, so often crowned as the supreme image of romantic love, is not a hymn to bliss, but a lament of destruction.

Romeo and Juliet are young, reckless, aflame with passion but blind to wisdom. Their love does not endure through trials—it collapses under them, leaving corpses in its wake. Yet generations have mistaken their tale for an exalted model, a vision of “true love” rather than a warning of what happens when passion overrides patience, family, and reason. Penn calls us to see clearly: what many have called the highest form of romance is in truth a mirror of immaturity, obsession, and tragedy.

This connects to the false idol of the soul mate, the belief that somewhere there exists one perfect being who alone completes us. To bind love to such an illusion is to invite despair, for no mortal can bear the weight of perfection. The ancients themselves warned against this. In Plato’s Symposium, Aristophanes tells the myth of humans once whole, split in two by the gods, forever seeking their missing half. This myth, beautiful in its poetry, has ensnared hearts for centuries. Yet even Plato intended it as allegory, not destiny. Love was not meant to enslave us to the idea of one single half, but to lift our vision toward the good, the true, the eternal.

History offers us many examples of the dangers of mistaking passion for destiny. Consider Antony and Cleopatra, whose love burned so brightly it consumed not only themselves but the stability of empires. Their union, often dressed in romance, was in truth a chain of choices that led to ruin. They are remembered as lovers, yes—but lovers whose story ended in despair. Like Romeo and Juliet, they stand as warnings, not as ideals.

Penn’s insight reminds us that true love is not found in illusions of fate, nor in the frenzy of passion that cannot last. True love is a choice, renewed daily, shaped by patience, humility, and endurance. It is not found in perfect soul mates, but in imperfect people who are willing to walk together through trials, forgiving and growing. Love is not about completeness—it is about creation. Together, two souls build what did not exist before: a bond forged not in destiny, but in devotion.

The lesson here is sharp yet liberating: cast away the myth of the soul mate, for it binds you to disappointment. Seek instead a love that breathes in truth. When you enter love, do not ask, “Is this person the one the heavens ordained?” but ask, “Will we choose, each day, to honor, forgive, and sustain one another?” That is the love that endures beyond passion’s fire, the love that outlives tragedy and grows into legacy.

Therefore, let Penn’s words be a guide. Do not be seduced by the glitter of stories that mask tragedy as triumph. Let Shakespeare’s play teach you what it truly is—a warning. Build your love on stronger ground: not on illusion, but on effort; not on obsession, but on balance. In this way, you will not write the tale of Romeo and Juliet, but the story of a love that survives the years, becoming not tragedy, but triumph—an inheritance of wisdom for generations yet to come.