My cousin has been talking about the new Jennifer Aniston-Aaron Eckhart movie, “Love Happens” for weeks. Like me, she’s a romantic dreamer, but she is ten years younger and hasn’t gotten jaded from years of disappointment. I used to be a sucker for every Meg Ryan romantic comedy that came out. I still like the genre, but now I view the movies as light entertainment, bearing little semblance to reality.
One of the promos for “Love Happens” caught my attention. Yes, it has a sexy shot of a shirtless Eckhart, but I might never have glanced up to see that had his character not said it had been three years since he’d had a date. Not exactly inspiration, but certainly a statement worth commiseration. And utterly refreshing for Hollywood where characters have little trouble getting it. Since it first aired, the title character on “Ugly Betty” has had a far greater dating record than I have. What does that make me, Far Uglier Gay Guy? I remember an episode of “Friends” where Ross rues going six months (or weeks?) without sex. He and the Central Perk gang regarded the drought as the equivalent to the apocalypse. As much as I loved “Sex and the City”, I never related to the women’s rapid Rolodex of sexual liaisons.
A line in last night’s episode of “Glee” was both funny and more realistic than the way sex is typically portrayed. As Terri desperately tried to make her false pregnancy become real, she stepped things up in the bedroom. Her husband, glee club sponsor Will, boasted that the couple was going at it once a week now. Ah, how refreshing from the two or three times a day we’re hit with in typical showbiz depictions of horny couples. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love a healthy, active sex life; I just don’t need Hollywood rubbing its fictionalized glory in my face.
I’m not sure if I’ll go see “Love Happens”. I don’t want the rest of the plot to dilute the potency of the line in the preview. Still, if an Aaron Eckhart character can go dateless in three years, I don’t feel quite as pathetic. Sometimes love doesn’t happen; at least, not for a long time.
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