Plato's Phaedrus: What's Love Gotta Do With It?

Plato's dialogue Phaedrus is famous for two reasons. One is the speech that Socrates gives about love in reference to Phaedrus and his love affair with Lysias, a Greek boy. Apparently, pedophilia was pretty much okay in Ancient Greece, so that's actually isn't as weird as it sounds, even though it is. I digress. But Socrates (though in a seeming un-Socratic manner) helps define the word and idea of love. This dialogue is also famous for its views on rhetoric. He explains how important rhetoric is in certain situations so perfectly. What is so interesting is that there doesn't seem to be a strong link between rhetoric and love. One regards a human emotion, while the other considers the art of speech.

There are theories that suggest that rhetoric is a form of love, which could very much so be argued even though it seems like one of those stretch theories. The other is that love inspires rhetoric, which could also be true, and actually may have some validation. But my opinion is actually one of the more obvious ones. Socrates and Phaedrus were having a conversation. That is why there are two seemingly different topics in one dialogue. Have you ever had a conversation where the idea flow or logic made sense? I have on some occasions, but usually it goes more like this.

"So did you watch that cool Youtube video?"
"Yea, it was hilarious! It reminds me of that time you threw up at the party."
"Yea, we should never drink that much. What did we have?"
"I don't remember, but it was good because it was in glass."
"Hey did you know that sand and glass are pretty much the same thing?"

The logic is there in the conversation. But if I told you that we had a conversation that started with a Youtube video and ended with the comment that "sand and glass are pretty much the same thing", would you comprehend what just happened? This is the problem with the analysis of Phaedrus. There probably is no link between love and rhetoric. They were simply talking about a speech, which digressed into a speech about love, which digressed even further to the idea of rhetoric. The link is coincidental. I can't know that for sure, but that is my interpretation of this. Socrates was compelled to talk about rhetoric because of the speech on love, not because of the subject of love.