So, er… ‘happy’ anniversary of the day Alain de Botton’s Philosopher’s Mail published a 1,400-word ‘thought experiment’ entitled “Jennifer Lawrence is my girlfriend”.
No author is credited, but I would like to point out at this stage that Alain was 44 that year, and Jennifer Lawrence 23.
ANYWAY…
It begins as follows, and does not proceed to get any better:
The whole introduction takes 257 words to say: people fantasise about Jennifer Lawrence. We’ve decided to imagine what an actual relationship with her might be like (and omits to add: although fuck knows why).
What we learn about her gives us a sense of proper intimacy with her. In the magazines, Jennifer tells us about her troubled childhood, her dreams of fame — just as she might if the two of us had lunch in her apartment. How can the humdrum routine of actual relationships compete with this? Life, it seems, would be so very much better with Jennifer.
But of course, the comparison is rather loaded in Jennifer’s favour. We know all the drawbacks of the person we happen to be with, but we don’t really have much insight into what it would really be like to live with Jennifer from day to day.
The Philosophers’ Mail has therefore undertaken a unique thought experiment, designed to curtail the daydreaming that Jennifer might provoke and to help readers to imagine more concretely what life would actually be like as Jennifer’s partner. The best way to be released from daydreams is to examine them.
What follows are a series of reports from an imaginative relationship with Ms. Lawrence…
Still, I’ve started now, so… the night they ‘meet’, she “said I had cute wrists”, which is A Very Normal Thing To Imagine, and then they Get It On.
If there’s a reaction shot sufficient to convey my feelings on reading that, I have yet to find it. We then leap straight to week three of the ‘relationship’, in which — if the red flags weren’t already out — the sentence “She’s quite close to her parents, which bugs me, I admit” appears.
Week 3:
Jennifer is incredibly sweet — and constantly so sexy. But not really like the way she comes across in the industry. She’s quite close to her parents, which bugs me, I admit. Her mother is really into school camps, going on long hikes and the two of them are always on at me to be outdoorsy, which isn’t really my thing. Jennifer loves surfing, knitting and painting. And driving. Sounds a bit weird, but she likes just driving for its own sake. It’s a Kentucky thing apparently. For my part, I’m not the most confident person at the wheel; if I’m driving with her I can tell she’s not impressed; she holds it in (mostly) but I know inside her head she’s going: ‘get a move on, overtake, why did you touch the brake just then?’ She’s really conscious of cars, and is very focused on them, which I guess most people wouldn’t imagine.
Then it’s week 6, in which Jen is feeling a bit off colour, which gives rise to the startling juxtaposition: “Sex has had to be put on hold. I get on quite well with Gary, her dad.”
No, really:
Week 6:
Jennifer has been down with a bad flu. I do my best to bring her what she needs, but she’s very worried about falling behind on an audition. Sex has had to be put on hold. I get on quite well with Gary, her dad. He’s really devoted to his cement business and is a true son of Kentucky. He’s even proud of Kentucky Fried Chicken and we got into quite a discussion about what kind of chicken they put in their food. I keep my head down now, though; I think he takes me for quite a weird person, perhaps not muscular or religious enough. And, obviously, father-daughter relations can be tricky. Jennifer has the power, but she needs her Dad’s approval. He plays games with her. I want to help but it’s hard to find the appropriate words.
You can save yourself having to have this masterwork filtered through me by going to the Wayback Machine, but… well, I put it to you, ladies and gentlemen, that bitesize chunks might be more digestible.
Or, to put it another way: WHO ON EARTH IS THIS FOR? If you were previously sceptical about the practical application of philosophy to everyday life, would this convince you?
In week 12, “I hate it when she cosies up to her ex”. Seven weeks on, the imbalance in their earnings “is a real issue for us”, and six weeks later, “Jennifer is incredibly talented and beautiful — but … like a lot of stars there’s quite a lot of insecurity in the background”
Someone on Twitter once asked if Alain ‘isn’t looking out of train windows nice’ de Botton wrote this (adding “What the genuine fucking fuck?”), and — although we can’t be sure — it does seem leaden and banal enough to be his work. Also, and when launching The Philosopher’s Mail, he wrote an explanation of the site for the Spectator which said that western education was in crisis, adding:
So, let’s just say: the lad’s got form. (There was a longer version of the Taylor Swift stuff on Philosopher’s Mail, too…)
Anyway, the relationship with this *entirely hypothetical* creepy, needy bore lasts an astounding 28 weeks, until a film festival in Berlin gives them
a chance to re-evaluate things, which I think both of us appreciate…
There’s then a conclusion of sorts…
…before the impeccable signoff “Jennifer Lawrence was not harmed in this experiment”. There seems to have been little consideration for the unfortunate fucking bastards who read it, though.
All in all, it seems there might be a very good reason why a friend of mine at university dubbed philosophy ‘headwank’.
Anyway, if you’d like to cleanse your brain’s palate of all this, you could do much worse than read a rather splendid Sophie Heawood rant about de Botton and *that* newspaper.
