Sometimes when I’m just sitting around, doing nothing I find myself wondering what it would be like to date a celebrity. I think we all do this- fantasize what it actually would be like to be with our favorite star. To actually have them be a part of our lives. But I think the difference between me and the casual “dreamer”, if you will, is that I don’t just think about what it would be like to kiss them or have sex with them. No, no. In fact those things never really enter the equation when I think about them. I tend to obsess about all the little intricacies that would be involved in our relationship. For example, let’s take one celebrity I was thinking of today: Ryan Reynolds.
Now, I’m not exactly head over heels for Ryan Reynolds and he doesn’t normally make the top 5 list of celebrities I would sex up. I generally like my guys with a clubfoot or an eye patch. Some physical deformity that says he’s not completely out of my league and also might be a pirate. Even in my wildest dreams my tastes tend to run to the more obscure and somewhat more attainable. And thus, Ryan Reynolds’ perfect features are a real boner killer for me. However, this fact does not stop me from thinking about what it would be like to be in a relationship with him.
We meet when he comes to my office to meet with some producers. (Also, in this imaginary relationship, I work at a production company.) He’s left waiting for way too long and thus is prey to my insipid questions about Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place. He says: “You know, I was in Van Wilder, Waiting, Adventureland…I was Deadpool.”
I ask him about the Halloween episode where “Evil Berg” turns out to be Mimi from The Drew Carey Show.
Eventually, he develops Stockholm Syndrome and asks me out on a date. Only then, is he called into his meeting.
Before the first date I call all a few of my friends to tell them that Ryan Reynolds asked me out on a date. And they in a massive show of support and encouragement all answer: “What?”
To which I of course I reply “I know. Can you believe that People’s Sexiest Man Alive 2010 asked me out on a date?”
My friends: “Nope.”
But he did and now he is contractually obligated to hang out with me for at least three hours on a Thursday night. (Thursday is the new Saturday, made possible by the fact that you can watch all the good Thursday night tv shows online now.) I made him sign a contract when he asked me out that said he had to show up.
Thursday night I rush home from work, poo, shower and shave all the appropriate bits. I go through at least five different outfits until I hit one that actually fits me. Then it’s just a matter of negotiating LA traffic to the decided upon meeting spot: The Olive Garden, a place I suggested in one of our interim phone calls claiming that it would be an “ironic” choice, but really it’s just because I love cheesy pasta and shiny breadsticks. Also, it smells exactly like how I imagine Prince’s Chateau smells like, which is to say: heaven.
I arrive at 8. He arrives at 8:15. I live closer and we agreed that I would get there sooner just to put our name in. There is always a line at The Olive Garden.
He orders whatever’s new, but probably something low fat as I imagine it’s hard to maintain rock hard abs. I order the Fettuccini Alfredo. This is important because it means for the rest of the night I will be clearing my throat because of the mucus that forms after I eat such things and anyone who is going to date me should get used to this. If I won’t give up cheese for my doctor, I’m not giving it up for you. I ask him if it was weird that his ex girlfriend used to fuck Uncle Joey from “Full House.” And here for the second time we hit upon what will be one of the central recurring problems in the relationship of Mr. Reynolds and me: I know way too much about him and he knows nothing about me.
Our second date is at an archery range. I accidentally shoot a small dog which has been left to wander the area by it’s incredibly stupid owner. I am inconsolable. Ryan must hold me to keep me from bursting into hysterics. He is impressed with my sensitivity and the snot trail I leave on his shirt.
We’ve been dating for a few weeks when he invites me over to Sandra Bullock’s house for an “awesome grilling time” (his words, not mine). I harangue her with questions about Practical Magic, Speed, and While You Were Sleeping.
“What was it like kissing the Bill Pullman?” I ask.
She politely drops a heaping pile of potato salad on my plate.
I watch
On the car ride home I ask him what that was all about and if he liked Scarlett Johansson better as a blonde or brunette? He glosses over my questions. There is massive tension in the car. Finally, I address the elephant in the room…err…car.
“Is this because I sold our sex tape to TMZ?”
“We don’t have a sex tape.”
“I pasted our faces over a video of two dogs doing it.”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what?”
“Nothing.”
“Okey dokey.”
All my worries are allayed. Nothing is wrong.
Years go by. We go antiquing. I wonder if any of the songs that Alanis wrote were about him. He EGOTs. We form a jam band with Gary Busey and Helen Mirren. I make him watch every single episode of American Pickers. We are
Ultimately, our relationship ends in an argument where he calls me a “star fucker” and I call him “Canadian.”
I try a few times to get him back. I do the boombox over the head thing. I pretend to be pregnant. I hire a hit man to pretend to try and kill him and then I “rescue” him from the hit man. The last attempt works temporarily, until I make the fatal mistake of asking what it was like having floppy hair in a Melissa Joan Hart made for TV movie. And then it’s really over.
I hear he's dating Sandra Bullock now. Who could've seen that one coming?
Some relationships burn with a fiery passion that cannot be contained even within the bounds of a vacuum. Some simmer at a low heat for years on end. And some never even ignite to begin with. My relationship with Ryan was a volcano-hurricane-supernova-microwave dropped into a rollercoaster hot tub and punctuated with bouts of extreme happiness but mostly it involved a lot of settling and reality show watching.
At least in my head anyways.
