The Romeo and Juliet effect
熊神進・2016-08-02When I first met Miss M, she was just an 18-year-old girl with upward eyebrow tails. According to face reading, she was an independent and strong-minded girl who would do whatever she wanted. Her parents once did not allow her to leave Macau for studying at a university in Taiwan, but she was still sent to study aboard by Macau government because of her outstanding performance. In the third year of university, she fell in love with an exchange student from Singapore. That boy has a complicated family, his mother was sentenced to 24 years in prison, and his older brother was a local ringleader. Of course Miss M’s parents were opposed to their relationship, but the two lovers determined to break through all difficulties to carry on their faithful love till the end. The more opposition from her parents, the closer they became. When two people in love encounter difficulties and have to break up, it induces "the Romeo and Juliet effect”. Because they were unable to change her parents’ mind, they used “living together” to prove their true love. They thought that was love! Lovers often have a mistaken view about love, they consider the strength of defeating outside difficulties (especially parents’ opposition) as the strength of love, and transform the sense of achievement of defeating parents’ opposition into the feeling of love. This year Miss M came to visit me and told me that she had already divorced. Certainly, there are many reasons for divorce, but I would like to remind you that, the impulsion of love triggered by living together to resist parents’ opposition usually cannot bear the test of setback. Once two lovers come across sad setback, there will be cracks in their love.