I get what he's saying, but I do somewhat disgree with the literal meaning. Still, I'll probably say this to my grandkids one day and leave them to interpret the meaning of it.
Love, or what we think is love when we're young is just an excited state of mind that we get carried away on. I know this now looking back, it was not rational. Right before I met my wife I learned this lesson, I did not make that mistake with her, I did not get carried away in daydreams or did anything I would regret later. However, I did feel the high, but very tempered by the mistakes of my past and a fear of fvcking up my future.
Rationality took precedence, but without the feels I probably wouldn't even have bothered at all. There is that question "why marry someone you aren't in love with?", it's a very relevant question, but first we need to understand what love actually is. At first I didn't, I thought I did, but I really didn't. What I thought of as love before was nothing but superficial infatuation.
What his grandfather said isn't meant to be taken literally as a guy in his 20's would, it's meant to make you question your ideas about what you think love even is about. He knew it would take a young man down a better line of reasoning, without having to shove any advice down their throats, because he knows a young man will not be receptive to that.
Clearly it worked, because here you are 3 decades later, still remembering and thinking about it.
