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Meeting attractive people is easier than ever (hint: dating apps), falling in love extremely difficult, dying for love an absurdity, and ghosting someone after the first date the highest possibility. That’s how you die for someone these days – by getting ignored/blocked everywhere you like you are dead. Unlike decades ago, when people would meet and marry within days of knowing each other (okay, it happens even now, but not as much). And there’s the romance of Romeo and Juliet, which might be fiction, but must be an accurate representation of what “whirlwind romances” meant for some ages ago. In this day and age, the romantic-tragedy “Romeo Juliet” almost reads like an unintentional comedy for some modern readers.

If you haven’t had the chance to “Romeo and Juliet” it yet: it’s about two teenagers falling in love at first sight, marrying each other the next day of knowing each other, then dying for love within the first week of their burning romance. They meet on a Sunday and are dead by coming Thursday.

So, the timeline from when Romeo and Juliet first meet until their deaths is very brief, spanning just a few days. Here is a breakdown of the key events:

  1. Sunday: Romeo and Juliet, who belong to feuding families, meet at a party and fall in love at first sight. They speak briefly and share a kiss.
  2. Monday: They confess their love for each other during the famous balcony scene and decide to marry. They are married secretly by Friar Laurence in the afternoon. That same day, Romeo kills Tybalt in a duel and is banished from Verona.
  3. Tuesday: Romeo and Juliet spend their wedding night together. In the morning, Romeo leaves for Mantua. Juliet is informed by her parents that she is to marry Paris on Thursday. She seeks Friar Laurence’s help, and he gives her a potion to make her appear dead.
  4. Wednesday: Juliet takes the potion and is found “dead” the next morning.
  5. Thursday: Juliet is placed in the family tomb. Romeo, unaware of the Friar’s plan, hears of Juliet’s “death” and returns to Verona. He buys poison and goes to Juliet’s tomb, where he encounters and kills Paris. Romeo then takes the poison and dies beside Juliet. Juliet awakens, finds Romeo dead, and kills herself with a dagger.

Thus, from their first meeting to their deaths, Romeo and Juliet knew each other for approximately four days. Crazy or what?

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