Long time readers of the C-blog know about my opinions about love being bullshit and my admiration for perma-bachelor George Clooney. I don't know the full extent of Clooney's thinking on these things, but I see a logic behind his lifestyle. The conventional wisdom is that Clooney is some sort of man-boy who can't quite grow up and commit to marriage. This is simply horseshit. The reason I know it is horseshit is because I get the same criticism.
If you watch Clooney's move Up in the Air, you get a clue about the guy. He didn't write the movie, but he clearly picked the movie and the role that mirrors his own life. Now, here's your warning. Spoilers are ahead. Stop reading if you want to go watch the movie unspoiled. Clooney plays this unattached bachelor living a swinging lifestyle until he meets a lady much like himself. Clooney resists any sort of deep relationships for obvious reasons, but he thinks he might be making a mistake with letting this one go. So, he decides to surprise her by going to her home and doing one of those Romeo moves women gush about in romantic movies. When he goes there, he is shocked and stunned to discover that this woman is actually married with kids. She had lied to him. She wanted a fling probably to alleviate the boredom of her current marriage. Clooney is crushed by the revelation.
That scene from that movie spoke more to me than just about anything I've seen Clooney do. I think this is why Clooney chose this movie. The character mirrors Clooney, and the choices are the same. Should you choose to be the swinging unattached bachelor? Should you choose to be the cuckolded husband who has no clue that he is married to a wanton slut? Or should you choose to be a cheater who tries to have the best of both worlds?
Clooney was married once to Talia Balsam, and I don't know the reason for the breakup. They divorced for "irreconcilable differences." There may have been adultery. I don't know. But that one marriage was enough for Clooney to swear off doing it ever again. What followed was a string of relationships that continue until the present day with mostly airheaded forgettable bimbos. The only honorable mention goes to Renee Zellweger who seems to have had something more going for her other than being attached to Clooney.
Clooney's latest role is as a cuckolded husband in The Descendants which shows Clooney exploring what an alternative life of non-bachelorhood would have been like. I haven't seen it yet, but you can see Clooney going back to that same territory again. But there is one thing you have to dispel from your mind. It is the idea that Clooney is a man-boy. I just don't see it.
My personal opinion of Clooney is that he is just like me on these subjects. He is a deep guy, but he is simply bewildered by the shitty options in front of him. He knows that love is bullshit, so he does not get married. He chooses forgettable bimbos that he can dispose of when they get antsy and want that deeper but ultimately meaningless commitment. He plays the role of the debauched bachelor, but his acting work shows that this is merely a front.
Clooney has lots of friends, and people say he is a great guy. He has made choices that have cost him purely for the sake of integrity, so he isn't shallow. Plus, he is friends with Sandra Bullock. That friendship is the oddest thing in Clooney's life because they seem like such a natural couple and both have been single at the same time. Yet, nothing ever happens. They appear to have a deep but platonic relationship. The fact that Bullock would marry the likes of Jesse James shows that she isn't the one refusing to take things to the next level with Clooney. Clooney clearly is the one who keeps things this way.
I have relationships like this. There are women in my life who I consider to be awesome friends. My relationships with them have even caused them grief with their current men. But I don't sleep with them. The only physical contact I have with them is a hug. That's it. That's all I want it to be. And why is this? Because I know that friends shouldn't have sex with friends. It doesn't work. In this wisdom is an epiphany. Sex and friendship are exclusive things. They cannot be mingled.
I think this is why people are so devastated by love. The problem comes from unrealistic expectations. We want to be friends with the ones we are sleeping with. This isn't possible. Trust me, I have tried. I've tried being friends with the women I have dated, and it never happened. I have tried to turn female friends into girlfriends. This was also a disaster. I once had a female friend who came out of nowhere and put me in a liplock. I was surprised and intrigued, but I shot her down shortly after that. I had related to her for so long as a friend that I couldn't shift gears like this. Her response was to drop me as a friend, find some other guy, and promptly get married. It is 20 years later, and she is still married to that guy as far as I know. I think this is great.
I have no problem with meaningless one night stands or platonic relationships. Neither cause me emotional distress. It is those relationships that attempt to straddle this divide that have left me embittered and jaded. The answer to this dilemma is to stop trying to mix the two. Sex and friendship don't mix.
I have talked to many people about their arrangements in this area, and it all comes down to this sex/friendship thing. You have the "fuck buddy" phenomenon where you have a man and a woman say they are "just friends." But they aren't friends at all. They are merely an extended one night stand. Then, there are sexless marriages, open marriages, and the rest. What makes all this work? The divorce between sex and friendship.
My last relationship ended on this stunning realization. I realized that the woman I had been with for three years was not my friend. I have to admit that I felt a bit devastated over this. But it was my own fault for thinking such an arrangement could ever work. It never works.
Plato said that the truest love was friendship, and this is where we derive the "platonic" in the platonic relationship. Where sex is the love between two bodies, friendship is the love between two minds. Once those two things are established and separated, you experience some real peace for the first time. This is where I am at now.
I separate women into two categories now. There are the platonic relationships, and there are simply the physical relationships. I will never ever attempt to mix those two ever again. Love is that lie that you can sleep with your friend. The successful bachelor will try and keep his female friends as just friends while satisfying his urges with women who are preferably dumb and blonde.
