"Si hemos de hacer pendejadas, hagámoslas--dijo--pero que sea como la gente grande."
("If we're going be foolish, let's do it," she said, "but let's do it like grown-ups")
--Fermina Daza in El amor en los tiempos de cólera, Gabriel Gárcia Marquez
IN HIS 2003 book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, Chuck Klosterman focuses his opening essay on the evils of what he dubs "fake love". For Klosterman, fake love is the feeling that American society in general associates with "falling in love": the all night conversations, the passionate lovemaking, the feeling that you're with the absolutely one person that some higher power means for you be with. He contrasts this with real love, which only builds in the passage of time, overcoming obstacles together. He kind of even defines when fake love ends: when you're eating breakfast and one half of the couple is unhappy with the silence. Fake love, he tells us, dictates that silence should only occur when couples are so in tune with each other that conversation isn't necessary; but as he points out, "There's not a lot to say during breakfast. I mean, you just woke up, you know? Nothing has happened. If neither person had an especially weird dream and nobody burned the toast, breakfast is just the time for chewing Cocoa Puffs and/or wishing you were still asleep."
Now, Klosterman is hardly the first person to draw a distinction between "fake love" and "real love". And neither is he the first to be of the opinion that it's Hollywood and the mass media's fault that we want fake love and compare all of our normal, boring, real relationships to those we see in the movies and on TV. When push comes to shove, I agree with most everything he has to say (and highly encourage anyone between the ages of thirty and fifty to read this book--it has a killer chapter on the sociological meaning of Saved by the Bell). Being in a long term relationship is certainly not all about butterflies in your tummy and a heightened state of consciousness. There will certainly be things about your long term partner you will not like, and the success or lack thereof of the long term relationship will depend a lot on how you deal with those dislikes.
Klosterman holds special ire, however, for the music of the British band Coldplay, in particular the song and video "Yellow". It's important to remember that when Klosterman wrote this book, Coldplay only had a couple of albums under their belt; and Klosterman himself admits that he has a little skin in the game (apparently, he wanted some woman to spend a weekend with him in New York City, and she flew off to see a Coldplay concert instead). In his opinion, Coldplay's "success derives from their ability to write melodramatic alt-rock songs about fake love".
*****
I write all this because the other night I came home from a weekend class and watched a showing of Wedding Crashers on TBS. For any of you who may be unfamiliar, Wedding Crashers is a 2005 movie about two guys who crash weddings (who'da thunk it?) in order to sleep with women. However, John, Owen Wilson's character, finds more than he bargained for when he meets Claire, played by Rachel McAdams, at the last wedding of the season. Of course, he falls in love with her, and of course she is falling in love with him, but of course she already has a boyfriend, who of course is well liked by everyone but is of course in reality an asshole with a capital A.
Despite all these of courses, I really like this movie and a lot of other people do as well. Vince Vaughn is always good with the Wilson brothers and the movie is well written and acted. The John-Claire relationship is nuanced and I, for one, can't help but adore the Claire character. It also has some special meaning for me, as I saw it the day after I got married with my new wife.
Clearly, however, the movie falls into the broad category of what Klosterman considers to be Hollywood's unhealthy influence on our perceptions on what is and isn't love, and the expectations that this creates. All men should be as handsome, vibrant and witty as Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson; all women should be as pretty, adorable, and cool as Rachel McAdams; and if we can just get them in the room together, everything will work out in the end.
*****
We've been busy as shit lately. Sonia's been working Saturdays (without pay, of course), and I've been busy with professional development the last three weekends, and the boys have started playing baseball. I think we're through it now but man, had I not burned a mental health day last week, I think I would have had something like 23 straight days working, with Sonia only having Sundays off in that span. Laundry didn't get done. Bills didn't get paid. We ordered a lot of pizza and Chinese food and the kids were sick of being cared for by Grandpa and Grandpa.
When I finished with my classes Sunday afternoon, looking forward to two days of work and the next six days off (OFF!), I clicked on the TV and, for lack of better programming, started watching Wedding Crashers, already in progress. I laughed at John and Jeremys' lines and admired Claire's smile. Of course, I began to sympathize with John and Claire and of course totally believed they should be together, forever.
And then something happened. Something weird, for me at least. After all the characters go to bed, Coldplay's "Sparks" began to play. John gets up to go talk to Claire but chickens out. Claire gets up to go see John but she chickens out too, tapping lightly on his door and retreating to her bed. John sits by the window, staring off into the night, and Coldplay's singer says "I saw sparks...." and it just felt...so damn nice....
"Sparks" began to fade out, and the movie went on to another comedy scene, but I was good. I turned the TV off. Even though I mostly agree with Chuck Klosterman, and even though it was all just fake love, I liked that feeling. And there's just so much shit in our lives that, every once in a while, I don't think it's so bad to enjoy that.
May fake love live forever.
