It is not out of pure chance that Gabriel Garcia Marquez chose to entitle a book Of Love & Other Demons. Equipped with such a vestigial reminder of how we explained strange phenomena – demons, witches, ghosts – it is no wonder that such mystery continues to enshroud this notion of love. Put simply, one of the most bizarre things we as humans do is fall in love. I find it petty, pointless and ultimately sanctimonious, lacking the depth, beauty and fulfilment that underpin none-romantic relationships.

Many are the forms of “love”, all petals from the same poison plant. We must choose our poison and not dim our sights when disappointment looms. Signing up for life, says AC Grayling, is signing up for disappointment. Things, people and activities will wither and die; transformation will grab hold of our reality and shake it till everything in our tiny box of “truth” is upset, dishevelled and chaotic; and yet we must grab onto something. Love, or eros, is said by Freudians to be part of the driving force for all activities. In a sense this is true, but still the classification of love is important.

At the highest is what we maintain with life-long companions, who change and grow with us like a tree’s refection in a pond. At its lowest and most parochial is the romantic love. It is no secret that Greeks viewed love with women as lower to that of loving a pretty, young boy: who you schooled, taught and so on, to be a good citizen. The rational is what mattered to them and the constant flow of ideas in the agora (the market place of ideas and discussions) laid open the path to a better life (of course it is now irrational to think of the “better” sex as unequal to men).  It was not the purely quivering emotional repository of barbarism – latent, it is true, within all of us – mixing with the poison of emotional love, which opened up doorways of reason. It was logic, rationality and knowledge. True – this is not a time we wish for, not an Atlantis of good thought, but certainly one we openly learn from. And what we learnt – but somehow forgot – is that romantic love is not necessarily “good” love.

I have the weight of literature, art and music standing before me. But truly I see no reason why romantic love is upheld or seen as “good”. It baffles us social scientists how love continues. In biological terms, it makes sense: We have short lives, raising a child is difficult. If two people try the best they can, with each other, investing time and money, a good healthy child can be produced. Both parties invest and because of this people like Robert Frank have looked at love in economic terms.

Consider: if you settle for the best you can get, (rationally) you should leave your partner as soon as Mr or Mrs Right is spotted. He or she should not expect to be permanent in your life, unless he or she is – in your eyes – 10 out of 10. However, since we are fallible, this is not possible. So, according to Frank, this paradoxically means we should never allow ourselves to think we are going to remain with anyone. The statistics show that you are almost guaranteed to meet someone who is “better” looking, better catered to your personality, and so on, whilst you are involved in a relationship.

People like Helen Fisher and others have also tried to understand love. Steven Pinker provides the answer: “Don’t accept a partner who wanted you for rational reasons to begin with: look for a partner who is willing to stay with you because you are you.” He goes on to quote Douglas Yates, who no doubt is voicing most readers opinions about me: “People who are sensible about love are incapable of it.”

But that’s just romantic love! And that’s my problem. I do not see why we need romantic love because I think we still need to defend our own existence. If the answer to being romantic and so on is that we must procreate – a crass and unhelpful answer – we must answer what gives us the right to breed? What gives us the arrogant notion that we should foster offspring on to an already tired world? If, however, the answer is that it leads to a fulfilled life, I would tentatively agree. However, my problem is not with romantic love as a whole but the continual search, media-hype and glamorising of love; the horrible genre of “romance” in film and books (I refuse to call it literature); the investment and intense emotions felt by friends and others who give themselves wholly to the search or capture of The One.

Truly, experiencing romantic love one, twice or thrice is important. But why continue? Why should we foster the notion that romantic love is somehow a good thing? In what sense is it more fulfilling than other important endeavours? I will not accept that romantic love is emotional and therefore defeats my rationalist approach – that’s a defeatist and avoidant response. And I also respect the private actions of sensible human beings: I do not plan on stopping people holding hands, kissing and so on (as much as it personally disgusts me). That is not my point. I am merely attempting to understand why romantic love has gone under the radar, has become accepted as somehow “good”, and beyond the rationalist approach.

I am not speaking, of course, of the love for friends, family and perhaps ideas and opinions. It is only the people I would die for, of course. I would die for them because of my “love” for them. But that is the “good” love, which is the love we should be celebrating. The romantic love is frail, pathetic and rather mundane compared to the beauty and fulfilment derived from life-long companions and family. I think the corollary is true: Those who love purely because of emotions must be avoided. We can usually say exactly why we love someone and for that reason it is better. But for ideals or ideas or nations or religions: Dying for them, or justifying them emotionally, is pure idiocy. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - “sweet and fitting it is to die for one’s country” – wrote Horace. I do not think so. My love for my country does not extend to my life, or encompass that short, frail thing in a grip of power.

I am not denying my own emotions: Indeed, I know about love and have fallen in love numerous times. Yet, the reciprocity is the key and is hardly ever turned to open the door of companionship. So, I fight off the emotions because the puerile, pestilential notion of romantic love is an insult to human sensibilities. The genre of romance is quite weak, using only two or three or four people’s smitten emotions with each other to drive the story. I am not a fan of movies but I have noticed the same trend with romance movies. Why is romance a good thing? What on earth is convincing people of this awful “fact” when in truth, love is so much more grand than the insult called “romance”.