Love is a Fallacy
By: Max Shulman
Max Shulman: Love is a Fallacy
(1) Cool was I and logical. Keen, calculating, perspicacious, acute and astute—I was all
of these. My brain was as powerful as a dynamo, precise as a chemist’s scales, as
penetrating as a scalpel. And—think of it!—I only eighteen.
(2) It is not often that one so young has such a giant intellect. Take, for example, Petey
Bellows, my roommate at the university. Same age, same background, but dumb as an
ox. A nice enough fellow, you understand, but nothing upstairs. Emotional type.
Unstable. Impressionable. Worst of all, a faddist. Fads, I submit, are the very negation
of reason. To be swept up in every new craze that comes along, to surrender oneself to
idiocy just because everybody else is doing it— this, to me, is the acme of
mindlessness. Not, however, to Petey.
(3) One afternoon I found Petey lying on his bed with an expression of such distress on
his face that I immediately diagnosed appendicitis. “Don’t move,” I said, “Don’t take a
laxative. I’ll get a doctor.”
(4) “Raccoon,” he mumbled thickly.
(5) “Raccoon?” I said, pausing in my flight.
(6) “I want a raccoon coat,” he wailed.
(7) I perceived that his trouble was not physical, but mental. “Why do you want a
raccoon coat?”
(8) “I should have known it,” he cried, pounding his temples. “I should have known
they’d come back when the Charleston came back. Like a fool I spent all my money for
textbooks, and now I can’t get a raccoon coat.”
(9) “Can you mean,” I said incredulously, “that people are actually wearing raccoon
coats again?”
(10) “All the Big Men on Campus are wearing them. Where’ve you been?”
(11) “In the library,” I said, naming a place not frequented by Big Men on Campus.
(12) He leaped from the bed and paced the room. “I’ve got to have a raccoon coat,” he
said passionately. “I’ve got to!”
(13) “Petey, why? Look at it rationally. Raccoon coats are unsanitary. They shed. They
smell bad. They weigh too much. They’re unsightly. They—”
, (14) “You don’t understand,” he interrupted impatiently. “It’s the thing to do. Don’t you
want to be in the swim?”
(15) “No,” I said truthfully. “
(16) Well, I do,” he declared. “I’d give anything for a raccoon coat. Anything!”
(17) My brain, that precision instrument, slipped into high gear.
(18) “Anything?” I asked, looking at him narrowly. “Anything,” he affirmed in ringing
tones.
(19) I stroked my chin thoughtfully. It so happened that I knew where to get my hands
on a raccoon coat. My father had had one in his undergraduate days; it lay now in a
trunk in the attic back home. It also happened that Petey had something I wanted. He
didn’t have it exactly, but at least he had first rights on it. I refer to his girl, Polly Espy.
(20) I had long coveted Polly Espy. Let me emphasize that my desire for this young
woman was not emotional in nature. She was, to be sure, a girl who excited the
emotions, but I was not one to let my heart rule my head. I wanted Polly for a shrewdly
calculated, entirely cerebral reason. I was a freshman in law school. In a few years I
would be out in practice. I was well aware of the importance of the right kind of wife in
furthering a lawyer’s career. The successful lawyers I had observed were, almost
without exception, married to beautiful, gracious, intelligent women. With one omission,
Polly fitted these specifications perfectly.
(21) Beautiful she was. She was not yet of pin-up proportions, but I felt that time would
supply the lack. She already had the makings. Gracious she was. By gracious I mean
full of graces. She had an erectness of carriage, an ease of bearing, a poise that clearly
indicated the best of breeding. At table her manners were exquisite. I had seen her at
the Kozy Kampus Korner eating the specialty of the house—a sandwich that contained
scraps of pot roast, gravy, chopped nuts, and a dipper of sauerkraut— without even
getting her fingers moist.
(22) Intelligent she was not. In fact, she veered in the opposite direction. But I believed
that under my guidance she would smarten up. At any rate, it was worth a try. It is, after
all, easier to make a beautiful dumb girl smart than to make an ugly smart girl beautiful.
(23) “Petey,” I said, “are you in love with Polly Espy?”
(24) “I think she’s a keen kid,” he replied, “but I don’t know if you’d call it love. Why?”
(25) “Do you,” I asked, “have any kind of formal arrangement with her? I mean are you
going steady or anything like that?”
(26) “No. We see each other quite a bit, but we both have other dates. Why?”
By: Max Shulman
Max Shulman: Love is a Fallacy
(1) Cool was I and logical. Keen, calculating, perspicacious, acute and astute—I was all
of these. My brain was as powerful as a dynamo, precise as a chemist’s scales, as
penetrating as a scalpel. And—think of it!—I only eighteen.
(2) It is not often that one so young has such a giant intellect. Take, for example, Petey
Bellows, my roommate at the university. Same age, same background, but dumb as an
ox. A nice enough fellow, you understand, but nothing upstairs. Emotional type.
Unstable. Impressionable. Worst of all, a faddist. Fads, I submit, are the very negation
of reason. To be swept up in every new craze that comes along, to surrender oneself to
idiocy just because everybody else is doing it— this, to me, is the acme of
mindlessness. Not, however, to Petey.
(3) One afternoon I found Petey lying on his bed with an expression of such distress on
his face that I immediately diagnosed appendicitis. “Don’t move,” I said, “Don’t take a
laxative. I’ll get a doctor.”
(4) “Raccoon,” he mumbled thickly.
(5) “Raccoon?” I said, pausing in my flight.
(6) “I want a raccoon coat,” he wailed.
(7) I perceived that his trouble was not physical, but mental. “Why do you want a
raccoon coat?”
(8) “I should have known it,” he cried, pounding his temples. “I should have known
they’d come back when the Charleston came back. Like a fool I spent all my money for
textbooks, and now I can’t get a raccoon coat.”
(9) “Can you mean,” I said incredulously, “that people are actually wearing raccoon
coats again?”
(10) “All the Big Men on Campus are wearing them. Where’ve you been?”
(11) “In the library,” I said, naming a place not frequented by Big Men on Campus.
(12) He leaped from the bed and paced the room. “I’ve got to have a raccoon coat,” he
said passionately. “I’ve got to!”
(13) “Petey, why? Look at it rationally. Raccoon coats are unsanitary. They shed. They
smell bad. They weigh too much. They’re unsightly. They—”
, (14) “You don’t understand,” he interrupted impatiently. “It’s the thing to do. Don’t you
want to be in the swim?”
(15) “No,” I said truthfully. “
(16) Well, I do,” he declared. “I’d give anything for a raccoon coat. Anything!”
(17) My brain, that precision instrument, slipped into high gear.
(18) “Anything?” I asked, looking at him narrowly. “Anything,” he affirmed in ringing
tones.
(19) I stroked my chin thoughtfully. It so happened that I knew where to get my hands
on a raccoon coat. My father had had one in his undergraduate days; it lay now in a
trunk in the attic back home. It also happened that Petey had something I wanted. He
didn’t have it exactly, but at least he had first rights on it. I refer to his girl, Polly Espy.
(20) I had long coveted Polly Espy. Let me emphasize that my desire for this young
woman was not emotional in nature. She was, to be sure, a girl who excited the
emotions, but I was not one to let my heart rule my head. I wanted Polly for a shrewdly
calculated, entirely cerebral reason. I was a freshman in law school. In a few years I
would be out in practice. I was well aware of the importance of the right kind of wife in
furthering a lawyer’s career. The successful lawyers I had observed were, almost
without exception, married to beautiful, gracious, intelligent women. With one omission,
Polly fitted these specifications perfectly.
(21) Beautiful she was. She was not yet of pin-up proportions, but I felt that time would
supply the lack. She already had the makings. Gracious she was. By gracious I mean
full of graces. She had an erectness of carriage, an ease of bearing, a poise that clearly
indicated the best of breeding. At table her manners were exquisite. I had seen her at
the Kozy Kampus Korner eating the specialty of the house—a sandwich that contained
scraps of pot roast, gravy, chopped nuts, and a dipper of sauerkraut— without even
getting her fingers moist.
(22) Intelligent she was not. In fact, she veered in the opposite direction. But I believed
that under my guidance she would smarten up. At any rate, it was worth a try. It is, after
all, easier to make a beautiful dumb girl smart than to make an ugly smart girl beautiful.
(23) “Petey,” I said, “are you in love with Polly Espy?”
(24) “I think she’s a keen kid,” he replied, “but I don’t know if you’d call it love. Why?”
(25) “Do you,” I asked, “have any kind of formal arrangement with her? I mean are you
going steady or anything like that?”
(26) “No. We see each other quite a bit, but we both have other dates. Why?”
