The history of love has long been a mystery. How does it work? Where does it come from? And why does it happen to good people? A look back to love’s beginning, as told to me by a well-educated single man living under a bridge, may provide the answers.

Scholars maintain that love started sometime during the caveman era. As the morning sun rose the Caveman watched the light glistening upon the cavewoman’s flowing blonde beard hair, and he felt weak at the knees. The first domesticated couples subsequently came together, bought expensive cave condos on the Upper East Side of the volcano and made passionate oaths to love each other forever, or at least until one of them was eaten by a prehistoric beast.

Everything seemed perfect, and then one night the cavewoman complained that she was cold. In order to stop the whining– and some say out of love—the caveman went out into the night and rubbed two sticks together for 17 days until fire was created. The fire mystified the caveman, and set the course for the next ten thousand years of human innovation, but without marshmallows the fire seemed silly to the cavewoman who demanded that he try harder.

So the caveman trudged out into the night, tracked down an 800 pound sabre tooth tiger and killed it, with a stick. When he returned, exhausted, and bloodied he threw down the new tiger blanket and looked at his cave wife who, sitting next to a crackling fire, merely frowned and turned away.

“What’s wrong, you don’t like the blanket?” he said
“It’s fine,” she snapped.
“Why are you mad if its fine?”
“Well, Bob,” she said shaking her head, “It’s just that I asked for a black one, not a tan one. This doesn’t go with any of our cave drawings. You never listen.”

The caveman, baffled and fed up, left the cave, invented the wheel, and rolled out of town. And for thousands of years Love went extinct.

During that time span there are no records of wars, or bloodshed… or romantic comedies, or in-laws. It was a time when life made sense.

Civilization came and went without note until the medieval times when men and women decided to give love a second chance. These times were called the “Dark Ages.”

From the Caveman era to medieval times significant advancements had taken place. Instead of primitive cave dwellings the new couples moved into fancy stone and mud huts with a waterproof roof structure known as straw.

Christianity was also born, and churches erected. The savvy medieval woman, understanding that the man had left them once before decided that the marriage should be a loving commitment under the eyes of God, of which the only escape would be death. The man agreed under the condition that he be allowed to go to the local tavern with his fellow Knights every other weekend, to which the woman answered, “We’ll talk about it later.”

And love was back in business, but for only a short while. The couples reunited too hastily, and one night after a huge fight a man named Lancelot saddled a horse and trotted off with his Lover screaming from the doorway.

“Where are you going?” she yelled.
“I have to go stab at things,” he yelled back as he faded away into the darkness.
“But we have to go to the medieval depot tomorrow,” she responded, “and you better not be going to that stupid Tavern with your smelly friends. When will you be back?”
“I need some time to cool off,” Lancelot yelled over his shoulder, “say seven to ten years” and then he crested the hill and went out of sight. He was immediately joined by fed up men across the land and that, scholars say, is how the Crusades started.

Love again went dormant, and all seemed lost. That is until recently when a miraculous discovery was made with the power to bring Men and Woman back together. It was called, “the television.”

The television offers the perfect equation for Love to thrive. It allows the man to do what he truly loves: sitting on a couch. And it allows the woman the opportunity to call her mother and make fun of her man with satisfying statements like, “they would be so LOST without us.”

One thing is certain, as long as there is Cable, there will be Love.