Nowadays love is a matter of chance, matrimony a matter of money

Host: The rain had been falling since dawn, thin and cold, slicing through the gray morning like a dull blade. A narrow café, tucked between two bookstores, smelled of wet paper and burnt coffee. The windows were fogged, the air thick with the low hum of a jazz record that kept skipping on the same note, over and over — like a heart that had forgotten how to move on.

At the far corner, Jack sat, his coat damp, his hands wrapped around a cup of black coffee that had long gone cold. Jeeny sat across from him, her fingers tracing a ring of condensation on the table, her eyes distant but alive, like an old song she refused to forget.

Between them lay a folded newspaper, its headline half-hidden under the edge of the cup: “Celebrity couple files for divorce after six months.”
Beneath it, scribbled on a napkin in Jack’s sharp handwriting, the quote:
"Nowadays love is a matter of chance, matrimony a matter of money, and divorce a matter of course." — Helen Rowland.

Jeeny: “She wasn’t wrong, was she? A century later, and it still feels the same.”

Jack: “Feels worse.” — He leaned back, his voice gravelly, eyes fixed on the window. “At least back then, people pretended to care about love. Now it’s just a contract with better lighting.”

Jeeny: “You make it sound like love is a failed business model.”

Jack: “That’s exactly what it is. You invest, you expect returns, and when the stock drops — you liquidate. Efficient, heartless, civilized.”

Host: The rain beat harder against the glass, blurring the streetlights into soft tears. Jeeny watched him for a moment, then smiled, a small, defiant curve that broke the room’s heaviness.

Jeeny: “Maybe people just forgot how to believe in permanence. We’re too busy protecting ourselves to surrender.”

Jack: “That’s the myth, Jeeny. We say we’re protecting ourselves, but really we’re just shopping. For the next high, the next validation, the next person who makes us feel less ordinary. Love’s no longer a bond — it’s a brand.”

Jeeny: “You’re so damn cynical, Jack.”

Jack: “Realistic.”

Jeeny: “Cold.”

Jack: “Honest.”

Host: The word hung between them, like a match burning without flame. Honest.

Jeeny: “You call it honesty, I call it fear. People are afraid of what love demands — the kind of vulnerability that doesn’t make sense in a market where everything has a price tag.”

Jack: “You think love ever made sense? Look around. We swipe, we scroll, we categorize souls by proximity and profile pictures. That’s not fear, that’s evolution.”

Jeeny: “Evolution doesn’t always mean progress. Sometimes it’s just adaptation to emptiness.”

Jack: “Beautiful line. You should post it — might get you a few thousand likes.”

Jeeny: “You joke, but that’s exactly what I mean. Love isn’t something we feel anymore, it’s something we perform. We’ve turned romance into content.”

Host: Jack laughed, but there was no humor in it. Just a hollow echo of someone who’d seen too much and felt too little. He took a slow sip, as if trying to taste belief but finding only bitterness.

Jack: “You know, my parents stayed married for forty years. Forty. But they barely spoke. Just routine, ritual, and resentment. Is that what you want to defend? That kind of love?”

Jeeny: “No,” — she said softly. “But at least they stayed. They believed that something was worth preserving — even when it hurt. Now people quit when the feeling changes. As if commitment is a subscription they can just cancel.”

Jack: “Maybe that’s because they finally learned honesty. Why stay in misery for tradition’s sake?”

Jeeny: “Because sometimes loyalty is what saves the feeling. You can’t expect love to survive without the shelter of endurance.”

Jack: “Endurance or denial?”

Host: The record skipped again, repeating a single piano note over and over, like a heartbeat stuck in memory. Outside, the rain slowed, but the tension inside the café only grew.

Jeeny: “Tell me something, Jack. Have you ever really been in love?”

Jack: (pauses) “Once.”

Jeeny: “And?”

Jack: “It ended. Like everything else.”

Jeeny: “Why?”

Jack: “Because I couldn’t afford it.”

Jeeny: “You mean emotionally?”

Jack: “No. Literally.”

Host: Jeeny’s eyes softened, the words sinking like stones in still water. She understood now — the cynicism wasn’t born of pride, but of pain.

Jeeny: “So that’s what you mean when you say matrimony’s a matter of money.”

Jack: “Yeah. You want love? Great. But love needs a place to sleep, a table to eat from, a roof that doesn’t leak. And those things cost money. Once the bills come, romance leaves through the back door.”

Jeeny: “That’s not love’s fault. That’s society’s disease. We’ve tied worth to wealth so tightly that we can’t even tell one from the other.”

Jack: “Maybe. But tell that to the guy working three jobs while his wife wonders why he can’t take her to Italy like her friends’ husbands. Love doesn’t survive comparison.”

Jeeny: “It could — if we remembered that it’s not supposed to compete.”

Host: The rain had stopped completely now, leaving the glass streaked with ghosts of what had been. The sky was a dull silver, the kind that neither promises nor forgives.

Jeeny: “And divorce — ‘a matter of course,’ as Rowland said — that’s what breaks my heart. How easily we now call it ‘closure.’ How quickly we rename failure as freedom.”

Jack: “Maybe it’s both. Maybe freedom is what comes after failure. People change, Jeeny. And the idea that one person should complete another forever — that’s poetic, but it’s not real.”

Jeeny: “But without that poetry, Jack, what are we left with? Just transactions? Love that ends when the bank balance dips or the thrill fades?”

Jack: “Maybe that’s all love ever was — a temporary fever that we romanticized into eternity.”

Jeeny: “No. It’s more than that. It’s a choice. A daily one. Not chance, not money, not course — choice. To stay. To forgive. To rebuild.”

Jack: “And what if one person keeps choosing, and the other doesn’t?”

Jeeny: “Then it’s still love — just not mutual. Even that has its own kind of beauty.”

Host: For a moment, there was silence. Not empty — but full. The kind of silence that knows too much. The café seemed to listen, the world outside holding its breath.

Jack: “You really believe that? That love survives even when it’s one-sided?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because love’s value isn’t measured by how it’s returned — but how deeply it’s given.”

Jack: “That’s beautiful — and terrifying.”

Jeeny: “All real things are.”

Host: The clouds began to break, letting a faint light slip through — a fragile, trembling beam that fell across their faces, revealing the smallest smile on Jack’s lips.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right, Jeeny. Maybe I’ve just been… tired. Tired of watching people use love like a credit card — easy to swipe, easy to cancel.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe we start by being different. By not confusing comfort with connection, or lust with longing.”

Jack: “You think that’s enough to fix the world?”

Jeeny: “No. But it might fix us.”

Host: Her words lingered, soft but steady, like the first light after a long storm. Jack looked at her — really looked — and something in his eyes shifted, the armor of logic cracking just enough for hope to breathe through.

Outside, the street glistened, a mosaic of reflections — the world still broken, still beautiful, still trying.

And in that quiet corner café, as the last note of jazz finally stopped skipping, two people sat in silence, each holding a piece of truth — that love, in all its frailty, still mattered, even when the world had forgotten how to keep it.