Dear jellyware,
If Alanis Morissette is the girl of your dreams, it is unlikely that
you will ever meet her in a romantic setting. It is not out of the
question that you will spot her crossing a red carpet or passing through
the back entrance of a theater, and you may even win backstage passes
to a concert of hers if you manage to be the 97th caller to a radio
station. As enjoyable as these encounters may be to you, they will be
fleeting and fundamentally impersonal. When Alanis greets her admirers,
she is not seeking a new mate. In the first place, she already has one
-- she is currently engaged to longtime paramour Ryan Reynolds -- and
in any event, she is justifiably leery of strangers who seek from her
something more than a chaste smile and a kind word.
You must try to empathize with her lofty but beleaguered social
station. As a famous, wealthy, and talented individual, she is beset
from all quarters, at all times, by those who would exploit her in some
way. Entertainment reporters need a picture, a money quote, or a tidbit of
gossip. Managers and financial planners want a cut of her action. Fellow
artists want to collaborate with her or compete against her. The main
preoccupation of Alanis Morissette, apart from seeking the muse and
making music, is fending off the unwanted attentions of the public at
large. By necessity, she chooses her own circle of friends. They do not,
by and large, choose her.
Unless you are a member of the jet set, a big cheese in the music
business, or a servant in a Hollywood household, you are unlikely to come
across Alanis Morissette at all. Even if you do, your unequal footing
will make it impossible for her to trust you fully. This is not to say
that you are not a good man, not at all, but it is well established that a
celebrity feels truly at home only in the company of other celebrities. It
is a very peculiar thing, perhaps beyond human comprehension, to be so
famous and to have so much money. That is why celebrities hang out with
celebrities, fall in love with celebrities, and marry celebrities.
Even if you were, like Alanis Morissette, a wealthy and prolific musical
genius, it is unlikely that she would turn out to be the ideal companion
of your dreams. As a plebeian, your position is even weaker. This is
because the wish to find the ideal girl is not only unrealistic but
mildly immoral. If you truly believe that there is a starry creature
waiting in the firmament, and that one dark night she will crash through
the atmosphere and fall smoking at your feet, then you harbor a selfish
ambition. You are either seeking to acquire a woman in the way you would
a motorcycle or a mounted salmon, or you are hoping that there is someone
who will tend to your every need in addition to being a charming and
decorative appurtenance.
Please don't think that I accuse you of malice. The belief that there is
a perfect man or woman with whom one can enter into an effortless union
is popular in the affluent West despite its transparent falsehood. You,
in fact, by selecting as an object of your ideation an unapproachable
celebrity rather than a person in your social circle, are expending
your selfish romantic energies in a futile direction, like emptying a
revolver into the air. This speaks to a certain moral fortitude even
while you are in the grip of a fallacy.
The proper question to ask is not whether there is an ideal girl for you,
but whether you are an ideal boy for someone. If instead of seeking the
perfect lover you seek to be the perfect lover, you will immediately make
yourself more appealing to the eligible members of your entourage. There
is no quality more attractive in a prospective mate than the ability
and willingness to bring something to the table, to give more thought
to the other than to oneself. What makes girls recoil is the grasping,
fawning, or lustful approach of one who thinks he has found an angelic
creature to light up his days.
You would do best to forget about Alanis Morissette, and ignore even
the possibility that the ideal creature lives down the hall from you
or works on the tenth floor in Accounting. To make yourself desirable
to honest girls, interesting women, and, yes, even sultry Canadian
singers, you must concentrate on improving yourself. You should be the
ideal. Make yourself honest, make yourself interesting, and make yourself
sultry. Take singing lessons, too. What you get out of a romance is not,
for the most part, a function of what the other has to offer, but of
what you put into it. Note this well.
If you feel that any part of my answer deserves amendment or
amplification, do let me know through a Clarification Request so that
I have a chance to fully meet your needs before you assign a rating.
Regards,
leapinglizard |
