“When Freddie met Fannie” (And other bad dates)
Now, I’m sure all of you have heard more than enough about the break-up of the Madonna marriage - and this is not another rehashing of that story.
It’s just that, whenever you read about yet another celebrity marriage ending up looking like something (no longer) made in Detroit, you can’t help but wonder why these people ever bother to get hitched. To stick with the economic theme, celebrities and their vows are like all those subprime loans: made in ridiculous haste, in the heat of some greedy moment, and repented & paid for at leisure.
It’s not even hard to see why almost none of these relationships ever last. Celebs only seem to date other celebs - and you don’t need to be a gossip columnist to be able to predict what will happen when two monstrously vain narcissists decide that their coming together would make for good pictures in the world’s tabloids.
In other words, your average celebrity marriage is a bit like locking two mad pitbulls inside one luxury hotel suite, where thousands of assorted pimps and paparazzi throw raw meat at them and command the animals to smile at the cameras, while they tear into each other.
Anyway, why am I even bothering talking about these stupid celebrities? Well, because there are lessons to be learned here for ‘normal’ people as well. The most important one being that if you don’t want your marriage to end up looking like yet another Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae affair, you better avoid dating the wrong kind of people - which very long and rambling introduction brings us to the meat of today’s column, to wit: Eight types of Freddies & Fannies who should never, ever date each other.
N.B.: We are not talking about the intrinsic date worthiness of individuals but about combinations between incompatible units. So, a hopeless racist will probably do okay with another racist. It’s just that an Illinois Nazi should avoid dating Jake (or Elwood) Blues.
1) If you’re an average Freddie who likes his Bud with his red meat, and his Bluegrass with his Red Socks, you should not date any Fannie who’s into crystals, Oprah, tofu and whale song recordings.
(This Freddie & Fannie combination might look like ‘Young Brando meets Marilyn Monroe’ but when they are done with each other Freddie will look like Rocky after yet another lost fight and Fannie like Thelma (or Louise) after the car has landed.)
2) If you are a Freddie who still dreams of playing in a band, smokes pot and has read the Lord of the Rings, at least once a year, for the last fifteen years, you should never date a Fanny who is into triathlons, works in a General Attorney’s office and loves the smell of BlackBerries in the morning
(This particular F & F team may seem like a cute, reversed Dharma and Greg comedy at first sight - but within one season they will become as lovable and loving as Al and Peg Bundy.)
3) If you are a Fannie who likes to read poetry, listens to Chopin, makes Origami figures and dreams of going to see the Bolshoi ballet in Russia, one day, you should not date a Freddie, who loves his pick up truck, has had a Playboy subscription for 25 years and can’t wait till the hunting season starts again.
(This set of Freddies and Fannies, whose eyes met across a crowded room, may sound like Springsteen’s “Jersey Girl”, for a few and feverish first minutes but will soon become like wounded Vietnam soldiers, waiting for the sound of medical helicopters but only hearing the Hellish soundtrack of their own Apocalypse Now.)
4) If you are one of those optimistic Fannies, who will feed the birds before doing the dishes, who loves to dance in her bathrobe, while smoking the first cigarette of the day, and who walks and plays with the dogs so long that the turkey has turned to dust in the oven, you should not date a Freddie who sets his 1000 dollar watch each day to the atomic clock, who prefers to iron his own shirts and who has never forgotten one single misdeed by any of his High School students, ever since he started teaching mathematics (12 years, three months, one week and four days ago.)
(This non-matching set of F & F’s may, at first glance, seem to be the non-royal version of last century’s Match In Heaven, the marriage of Prince Charles and lady Diana but it is, in fact… Well, in fact, it will, no doubt, end like that marriage as well, but probably a lot sooner, and a bit closer to home than Paris. )
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