Baby don't hurt me.

     What is love? Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me. No more. What is love in Twelfth Night? Well, I think it's a joke. I only think I've read about three of his plays (Macbeth, Hamlet, and possibly A Midsummer Nights Dream). Yet another example of the school system failing me, according to Scalia. So I'm just going to assume Twelfth Night is very unique in the sense in which it portrays love. In Romeo and Juliet, I hear it is very tragic. The two main characters fall into a forbidden love and then die for each other three days later. Honestly sounds pretty far fetched and stupid to me. But then again I've never actually read it (I've seen Gnomeo and Juliet tho so that's basically the same as reading the play). In Twelfth Night love is portrayed as being very funny. Love triangles, homosexuals and cross-dressing all wrapped up into a nice little package. Shakespeare at his finest.
     When taking a step back, at least at the point where we're at in the play, love can be seen from two points of view. From the audience's or from the characters'. The audience knows that Orsino likes Olivia, but Olivia like Viola/Cesario, but Viola/Cesario likes Orsino. What a conundrum. It's supposed to seem funny because we know that while each thinks that no one with love them back they actually do have a secret admirer. However, Viola/Cesario has recently come to the realization that Olivia has a crush on him. We'll have to see how that plays out. This is also funny for the audience because we know that Viola/Cesario is actually only Viola. A female. And yet the Lady Olivia has fallen into a bit of a crush for another female. In Shakespearean times I guess this was funny. At least it was supposed to be.
     From the characters' point of view it is seen as very tragic. They can not be with the ones they love because nobody seems to reciprocate their feelings. Olivia has to constantly turn Orsino down every time he tries to woo her into loving him. After a while it could be seen as quite pathetic from the audience's point of view. However, Orsino still has intense feelings for Olivia; her saying no is not just going to flip a switch in his brain to stop liking her. Love does not work that way. Orsino even goes as far to say that no one can ever love someone as strongly as he loves Olivia. How tragic. So, in conclusion, love is portrayed in the play from two different perspectives: the comedic and the tragic. It all depends on what point of view you look at it with.
     Now let's forget about Twelfth Night for a little bit. Let's look at real life. Are there different kinds of love? Yes. Now I'm not about to hit you with a bunch of the "7 or whatever different kinds of loves" from a freshmen year psych textbook. I'm just going to be sharing my opinion on the matter. I think there are about 3 main different kinds of love: familial, romantic, and love for an action/object. I think those are the big 3 but there are definitely subsets within each main one. I'm mostly just going to focus on the first two because the last one doesn't really matter in this context.
     Familial love is all about the love you may or may not have for you parents, siblings, those closest to you, your dog, or even your pet fish, Brian, and the love that all these things or people may or may not have for you. You do not have to be related to someone to feel familial love (That's kind of a different argument of whether or not your family is your blood or those you choose to surround yourself with). Familial love is extremely strong. It is not easily broken. Especially parental and blood love. That type of love is nearly impossible to break once established. You can mess up again, and again, and again but your parents will continue to love you even if they do not show it. Even in the Big Sick, Kumail's parents decide to disown him but in the end we see that his mother still makes him his favorite food for his cross country journey. Again, this type of love (once established) is very hard to break. The thing that makes this love special is that you can both be unable to choose who you feel it for or you can. Friends can be turned into family even without blood relation if you have familial love for them.
     Romantic love is slightly different. You have to pick this. Hang on let me rephrase that. You might not have a choice in the matter because sometimes we love those we can not have. What I mean is that this type of love has nothing to do with blood relations. This is also joined with sexual feelings. If you have intense feelings for someone but not sexual you may either just be asexual or have very strong familial love for them. This type of love tends to be the most tragic because of the dangers of it being not reciprocated. This is where Twelfth Night comes in. It is just a buffet of not reciprocated love. This type of love tends to be very idealized within a person if it is not acted upon. For example, while Orsino believes he has very strong feelings for Olivia, if Olivia and him were to get together he may find she is not what he thought she was. This type of love also tends to expire more quickly than familial. Sometimes romantic love just runs out. That is why I believe it is the weakest of the two I talked about.
     I have one more love to talk about and it is the strongest of all loves there are. My love for Keith Scalia. It will live on into eternity and will never die. Now if only he would say "I love you" back.