Love is an emotion that is based on an opinion of women that is

Host:
The old café sat like a forgotten confession booth at the corner of a narrow, rain-drenched street. The night pressed close against the fogged windows, and the faint hum of a gramophone spilled the sound of an old jazz ballad — slow, smoky, full of heartbreak that never quite learned to heal.

Inside, the world glowed amber and quiet. Mismatched chairs, the smell of coffee, rain, and regret, and two figures caught in the soft cage of lamplight.

Jack sat slouched in the booth, his grey eyes half-lidded behind the rising tendrils of cigarette smoke. He wore that weary smirk of a man who’d lost more illusions than he cared to count. Across from him, Jeeny, her long black hair glistening with rain, stirred her coffee with slow, deliberate motions — like someone circling an idea she hadn’t yet decided to believe.

On the table between them lay the quote, scribbled on a napkin in blue ink.

Jeeny: (reading softly) “Love is an emotion that is based on an opinion of women that is impossible for those who have had any experience with them.” — H. L. Mencken.”

Jack: (chuckling) “Ah, Mencken. The grand cynic. The man who mistook bitterness for wisdom and called it truth.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe he just saw too clearly. Maybe he realized that what people call love is often built on fantasy — not on who a person really is.”

Jack: “That’s not clarity. That’s defeat. If love dies the moment you meet reality, then maybe it wasn’t love to begin with.”

Host:
The rain tapped against the window, rhythmic and relentless, as if punctuating every word. A couple laughed softly in the corner, their shadows merging on the wall like ink in water.

Jeeny: “But don’t you see? That’s Mencken’s point. He’s saying that love, especially a man’s love for a woman, is an act of idealization — a blindness that reality eventually corrects.”

Jack: (raising an eyebrow) “So love is a delusion, and experience is the cure?”

Jeeny: “Experience doesn’t kill love — it changes it. It strips away illusion. What most people call ‘falling out of love’ is just the shock of seeing someone clearly.”

Jack: “And what’s wrong with clarity?”

Jeeny: “Nothing. But clarity doesn’t comfort. Illusion does.”

Host:
A pause settled, heavy and electric. The smoke from Jack’s cigarette curled upward in fragile spirals — the ghost of thought dissolving in air.

Jack: “You sound like you’re defending disillusionment.”

Jeeny: “I’m defending truth. Mencken wasn’t mocking women — he was mocking how men romanticize them. He saw love as worship built on ignorance. Once you know the human beneath the halo, the god dies.”

Jack: “You think knowing kills beauty?”

Jeeny: “No. I think knowing tests whether beauty is real.”

Host:
The light flickered, briefly illuminating the reflection of the rain in Jeeny’s eyes — two small storms, burning quietly.

Jack: “So you agree with Mencken? That love can’t survive knowledge?”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “Not quite. I think shallow love can’t. The kind that mistakes perfection for affection. But the deeper kind — the kind that survives knowing — that’s not illusion. That’s grace.”

Jack: “Grace? That’s a church word.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But love and grace are twins. One sees the flaw and loves anyway.”

Jack: (leaning forward) “Then maybe Mencken was half-right. Maybe the first kind of love — the worshipful, blind kind — is impossible for those with experience. But the second kind, the one that’s messy, humble, human — maybe only experience can teach that.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Love without illusion is rarer, harder, and far less poetic.”

Jack: (grinning) “But far more honest.”

Host:
The gramophone crackled, the song shifting to something slower — Billie Holiday’s voice melting through the air, rich with ache. Outside, lightning flashed briefly, lighting up the café walls like the inside of a broken heart.

Jeeny: “It’s strange, isn’t it? How we chase the kind of love that’s easiest to destroy — the kind that depends on who we think someone is, not who they are.”

Jack: “That’s because the fantasy is easier to love than the person.”

Jeeny: “And yet the person is the only one who can love you back.”

Host:
The two of them sat there in silence for a long moment, the kind of silence that has its own dialogue — two minds circling the same truth from opposite sides.

Jack: “Mencken was afraid. You can hear it in his words — that terror of vulnerability disguised as wit. He called himself a realist because he didn’t want to risk faith.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe he risked it once and lost.”

Jack: “And so he condemned the emotion to protect his pride.”

Jeeny: “That’s the tragedy of cynics — they think disbelief is armor when it’s really a wound that never healed.”

Host:
The candle between them burned low, its flame trembling in the draft from the half-open window. The rain softened into mist, a hush over the world.

Jack: “Do you think love can ever be both — illusion and truth?”

Jeeny: “It has to be. Illusion draws us close; truth keeps us there.”

Jack: “And when truth disappoints?”

Jeeny: (gently) “Then maybe that’s when we finally stop trying to love the idea and start loving the person.”

Host:
Jack’s eyes lowered. His voice came quieter, almost like confession.

Jack: “You know, I used to think love was something you feel. Now I think it’s something you choose — again and again, even when it hurts.”

Jeeny: “Yes. The emotion is the spark. The choice is the fire.”

Jack: “So Mencken’s love died in the spark.”

Jeeny: “And never learned the warmth of the flame.”

Host:
Outside, the storm was ending. The streetlamps glowed softly through the thinning mist. A few passersby hurried by, their reflections wading through puddles that shimmered with light.

Jeeny leaned back, her voice quiet but certain.

Jeeny: “Maybe Mencken’s mistake was believing that knowledge destroys mystery. But real love — the kind that grows after disillusionment — is the only mystery that remains.”

Jack: “Because it sees clearly — and still stays.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host:
The final notes of Billie Holiday’s song faded into the dim hum of the night. Jack crushed out his cigarette, the smoke trailing upward like the last ghost of argument.

He looked at Jeeny — really looked — and there was a flicker in his eyes, something tender and unresolved.

Jack: “So love isn’t blindness.”

Jeeny: (smiling softly) “No. It’s sight — without surrender.”

Host:
The rain had stopped completely. A faint breeze slipped through the open window, carrying the scent of wet earth and new beginnings.

And in that quiet café, H. L. Mencken’s cynicism dissolved — not into denial, but into understanding:

That love begins as illusion, but becomes truth only when the veil falls,
that experience doesn’t end love — it refines it,
and that to know someone and still choose to stay
is the only kind of worship that survives time.

Host:
The clock above the counter ticked softly. Jeeny smiled, stood, and wrapped her coat tighter.

As they walked out into the cool air, the world glistened — reborn, imperfect, and beautiful.

And though Mencken’s words lingered like smoke behind them,
it was their silence — shared, knowing, unafraid —
that answered him best.