Valentine’s Day special: Is Love blind? Celebrities speak

All over the world on 14th February, people celebrate this day by sending messages of love and affection to partners, friends and family.

It’s also a time couples in love send Valentine’s Day cards, gifts, chocolate and flowers and make efforts to spend special time together to honour their love for each other.

Valentine Day is a story of love, romance and all things fluffy and sweet. Love is a feeling everyone craves for and finding someone that loves you unconditionally and blindly to a fault is a definite plus.

The big question: Is love really blind? What does ‘Love is blind’ really mean? This expression was first found in Chaucer’s ‘Merchant’s Tale’ about 1405.

It didn’t at that stage become a commonly used phrase and is not seen again in print until Shakespeare took it up. It became quite a favorite line of his and appears in several of his plays, including ‘Two Gentlemen of Verona’, ‘Henry V’ and ‘The Merchant of Venice’ in 1596.

Since then, this figurative expression has been used in a variety of ways to mean different things to different people and have also been a debatable issue for ages. Some attest to the fact that love is indeed blind and cannot see while others think otherwise.

For this special Valentine edition, VANESSA OKWARA took the question to celebrities to know what this expression means to them and they all had interesting tales to tell! Valentine Day, lovely people!

Juliet Ibrahim

Yes, love is blind. That’s why when you’re in love with someone you don’t see the bad in them or what others see; you’re blinded by what you feel so you choose to ignore their flaws and all that others see except you. And this is why after love has gone sour you find some people asking, “Did I really date him/her?” “What was I thinking to have played the fool all along?” That’s because they were blinded by love.

Bob Manuel Udokwu

I don’t believe love is blind. It has to see where it’s going otherwise it’ll end in disaster! It can only ignore the shortcomings of the partner but not blind!

Peggy Ovire

I believe that Love can be blind sometimes, love can make you make wrong decisions; it clouds your judgment and makes you very vulnerable when you are supposed to be making some certain decisions.

Imelda J

I believe that love is blind for the fact that it is a metaphor. It is an intentional and voluntary blindness not involuntary. But that is the only way you can love without reservations. People fall in love not knowing why or how. It’s a very special feeling. When you see everything wrong about your lover but still choose to stay with the person, when you turn deaf ears to the negative things people say to you about your lover, etc. Love is just still the same way; it is sweet, stupid, emotional, divine and friendship etc. That is why it’s often said that love is blind.

Ifu Ennada

I don’t believe love is blind, but I believe love is very understanding and almost sweet to fault that most times its actions are considered as ‘blind acts’. But love also has the capacity to make good judgment, this is where self-love comes. Self-love knows when to disengage from blinds acts that are detrimental to its personal wellbeing.

Daniel K Daniel

I believe love is many things, patient, forgiving, caring, selfless, protective, and sweet and so many more. Love is kind, but definitely not blind!

Ify Ubah

I think the saying ‘Love is blind’ is not always the case depending on the relationship and the stage of the relationship. The saying is used to connote the fact that spouses usually the wife to turn the other way in cases of infidelity. It is also used to express the kind of love shown between young lovers when they take daring steps because of the love / infatuation they feel for each other, although their eyes, seems to clear up when the lady gets pregnant.
I’ll advice ladies to keep their eyes wide open when getting into a relationship, don’t get carried away by the Valentine’s Day activities and love talk, protect yourself first all the time.

Ann Neema

I actually believe love is blind and sacrificial. Arthur Schopenhauer said, ‘you cannot advise a man in love; a man in love is stupid’. You do things for love that you won’t do with your rationale. Our feeling of love is unconditional at the point we express it.

Nsikan Abasi

I believe it’s yes or no. Yes in the sense that whenever you are in love you should generally be able to ignore certain threats of ill character from who you love based on the fact that love is meant to cover all sins, because loving someone should basically be unconditional.

No, In the fact that we see most wrong things our loved ones do but it’s only necessary that we ignore or trash it out to get that love going not necessarily that we are blinded to it or we won’t notice.