"A Summary of Max Schulman's "Love Is a Fallacy"

I was a freshman in a law school. My brain was as powerful as a dynamo, as precise as a chemist’s scales, as penetrating as a scalpel. I am that smart at the age of eighteen.

I had a roommate at the same university; his name is Petey Bellows. We had the same age and background but he’s in fact a very dumb person. His nice but emotional, impressionable and most of all, a faddist! When a craze comes a long, he would do everything to get what he wants. He would even surrender himself to idiocy. That’s how mindlessness he is. I’m not like that.

And then one afternoon I found Petey lying on his bed w/ an expression of distress on his face that I thought was because of appendicitis. And then I said to him that I’ll call a doctor but then I was shocked to know that his trouble was not physical but mental. He wants a raccoon coat!

That’s the new craze now, a raccoon coat and he wants it. He wants to go with the flow. He is determined to do anything/everything just for the raccoon coat and then I thought of Polly Epsy. I can have her if I gave Petey a raccoon coat. I don’t find it having trouble because my father had a raccoon coat in the tank. I like to have Polly because as I had observed, most successful lawyers were married to beautiful, intelligent women and I know Polly is fitted in these characteristics. Although she’s not intelligent, but I believed that under my guidance she would smarten up. It’s easier to make a beautiful dumb girl smart than to make an ugly smart girl beautiful.

So I asked Petey if he loves Polly and if he had any kind of formal arrangement with her. Petey said no, after hearing his answer I took my suitcase out of the closet and told him that I’ll be home for weekend.

When I went back Monday morning, I showed to him the raccoon coat my dad had. I said to him that the raccoon coat will be his but he should give Polly to me. At first he said no but after looking at it many times with lust and hunger, he eventually called it a deal.

I had my date with Polly the following evening to have a survey. After that evening, I went back to my room with a heavy heart. She almost agrees in everything! I underestimated my task. I wanted to wake Petey and told him to have his Polly back but then I thought of her physical charms. So the next dates, I taught to her the course of logic. At first, I wanted to gave up but then I realized that my efforts were worth it. She learned fast with in five nights. She’s now a logician. This time had come to change our relationship from academic to romantic so I approached her in a simple, strong, direct declaration of love. I chose the proper words to express to her how I feel but I felt annoyed and angry because the things she’d learned from me were the one’s she used against my words. I lost my patience so I talked to her right away if she will or she’ll not go steady with me and she said NO. I asked her why and she answered to me that she promised this afternoon to Petey Bellows that she would do steady with him.

I was angry with him! But then I calmed myself and asked her why she chose Petey Bellows over me.

And the answer was because…Petey Bellows got a raccoon coat!