Romantic love is a trap designed to get two people to overlook

In the words of Mark Manson, a voice often unafraid of piercing illusions, there is uttered a truth both harsh and liberating: “Romantic love is a trap designed to get two people to overlook each other’s faults long enough to get some babymaking done. It generally only lasts for a few years at most.” To many, these words sting, for they strip away the glitter and poetry that civilizations have draped upon love. Yet within this statement lies a lesson older than any myth: that nature has its designs, and passion is but the fire it uses to draw two souls together for the sake of life’s continuation.

The ancients spoke of this paradox often. The Greeks named the god Eros, who pierced mortals with arrows of desire, causing them to burn with longing beyond reason. They saw in this frenzy not lasting peace, but a storm that consumed judgment and filled the earth with children. They distinguished this passion from Agape, the enduring love of friendship, duty, and sacrifice. Thus even in the ancient world, it was known that romantic love is fierce but fleeting, meant to begin the story of union, not to sustain it forever.

What Manson calls a trap is, in truth, nature’s cunning. By blinding lovers to each other’s faults, it allows them to come together, to bond long enough to create and nurture new life. But like spring’s first flowers, this bloom of passion is not eternal. When the fire dims, what remains must be built by choice, by commitment, by daily acts of devotion. The wise see this not as despair but as a call to maturity: romance begins the dance, but it is loyalty, friendship, and shared labor that allow the dance to continue.

History itself offers countless examples. Consider Napoleon and Josephine: their affair began in flames of desire, letters burning with longing. Yet in time, the passion waned, and the bond fractured beneath ambition and disillusion. Compare this to the marriage of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, where passion was not the binding force, but a shared mission, respect, and purpose that carried them through decades of triumph and trial. Thus the fleeting blaze of romantic love may kindle the fire, but it is deeper love that keeps the hearth warm.

The deeper meaning of Manson’s words is not to dismiss romance, but to free us from worshipping it as eternal. To know that passion fades is not to despair, but to prepare—to understand that love must transform. The trap is only dangerous if we expect it to last forever. But if we see it as a necessary stage, a spark that ignites the greater fire of companionship, then we embrace romance as the beginning of a greater journey, not its end.

The lesson is clear: cherish the fire of romantic love when it comes, but do not expect it to sustain you without effort. Beyond the fever of passion lies the steady work of understanding, forgiveness, and growth. If you cling only to romance, you will despair when it fades. But if you build friendship, respect, and shared purpose, you will find a deeper bond that outlives the storm.

Therefore, O listener, take this wisdom into your life: welcome romance, but do not worship it. When its brightness fades, do not mourn as if something has died, but recognize that something new must be born. Transform passion into partnership, desire into devotion, fleeting fire into steady flame. For romantic love may be nature’s trap, but true love—chosen daily, forged through trials—is humanity’s triumph.