Stay with me for this one, peeps

In which our heroine realizes that she has an uncomfortable amount in common with Jen Aniston.


Okay, just indulge me for this one, okay, team?

We all remember the lack of shock with which the world greeted the "bombshell" that was the announcement that our latter day Elizabeth Taylor had stolen the equivalent of Eddie Fisher from Debbie Fisher---in other words, when Brad Pitt left Jen Aniston, his WIFE for the thin, ropy, tattooed arms of Angelina Jolie and then proceeded to severely test our sympathy for the two by knocking her up and gabbing about their charmed life so soon after the dissolution of his marriage that most of us had whiplash.

And the world sort of mentally took sides. And everyone wants to be on the side of a winner.

So, despite the fact that Jen is an Aquarius, and us water bearers gotta stick together, I was 76.57% Team Jolie. It seemed like Jolie and Pitt were doing something big, daring, emotional, and authentic. Now that I'm older, wiser, and more broken- hearted, it seems like the most predictable, cheap, and sleazy thing outside of David Letterman's fatherhood at AARP age.

Jen's subsequent antics, including two regrettable go- rounds with bedroom-eyed Jon Mayer, did nothing to further endear me to her. She was quite clearly torn between two personas, on one hand the angelica Madonna tearfully holding the tattered remains of the heart in a technicolor Pieta, on the other she was tearing up the magazine layouts in slit- up- to- there dresses desperately trying to prove how sexy and over it she was. It was tiring for everyone involved.

Then things sort of blew over amid the nanny tell- alls and "Teen Mom"/ Jersey Shore/ Kardashian thangz, and the world moved on.

Being out of the In Touch-- a magazine I'm SUPER addicted to, thanks Keziah :-)' -- loop for several months probably did me more good than harm, but the other day, behind some hair style mags I discovered a stash of outdated In Touch mags, and here was the cover that blew my mind wider open than the anything after the discovery of Edwardian satirist Saki:


OH. SHIT. Here. we. go. again.

The article inside made me experience an uncomfortable kaleidoscope of emotions, including, but not limited to, embarrassment, ire, chagrin, dark amusement, the thought that damn was Bradley Cooper the perfect specimen of manhood, and "the shock of recognition".

The article surgically and coldly dissected Jen's love life since The Only Breakup That Mattered, highlighting the charismatic, selfish, immature, beautiful men she's dated since The UR Man.

The lineup of "bad boys" that Jen's been linked to was especially illuminating. Gerard Butler. Bradley Cooper. Jon Mayer. Model Paul Sculfer. The line from the article that is BURNED into my memory: "Jen's friends say she swears she really wants a committed relationship, but every guy she dates seems to be less interested in a commitment than the one before."

The men all look vaguely alike- leonine, healthy, tanned, Ralph Lauren cigarette smokers just woken from the most pleasant nap of their lives, a conqueror's twinkle in their eyes. Jen looks the same in each photo with the guys- the avarice and longing of a starving peasant for a crumb of bread from the royal table is written all over her face, along with the pain of knowing that the "relationship" is a fragile as a house of cards and twice as constructed.

Suffice to say this prompted some serious soul searching about the type of man I've always had my heart torn out for.

I don't really know what it all means, or why, like me, the successful, attractive, smart, funny, and together Jen seems to lose it around a certain kind of man, but knowing your enemy is half the battle. The other half?

Well....

That's what a girl's best girls and gays are for: support, tissues, and well timed common sense zingers that pierce the iridescent balloon of "love" before it swells to such a size that it obscures the sun itself.