Falling Off the Wagon

[Preface: I barely even remember writing this post. I'm quite sure I know why it gets terribly melancholy at the end, which made this about the only time that the Fubar Emo's didn't scream for Affleck's head on a platter. In any event, the news of the day was that the wedding was off, so that was the basis for what follows. For maximum effect, you have to put yourself in the shoes of Affleck, a man who is stuck in a relationship that simply refuses to end, no matter how hard he tries.]

Loathing and More Loathing in Las Vegas - 1:18pm September 23, 2003
Posted by Ben Affleck [Archives]

I know you expected to hear from me last weekend, but I've been kind of busy, what with my gambling and boozing and whoring and what-not. Since three of you are big fans of mine, I suppose I owe you an explanation for why it all happened.

J-Lo and I called the wedding off on Thursday because the swanky hotel we were getting hitched at was double-booked and someone from the other wedding party decided to call up Entertainment Tonight or some such media outlet, who then informed the rest of the media, who then informed the paparazzi and the general public, which led to the cancellation of the wedding. Or, that's how the story goes. In reality, I was the one who called Entertainment Tonight, and it was J-Lo (by herself) who called off the wedding.

There are reasons for this. She wanted me to sign a prenuptial agreement that said she got half of my fortune if she decided to divorce me for infidelity. Now, really, who can blame me for something like that? Just because I sleep with two, three, four strippers while I'm out on a movie set doesn't mean I don't love her. Well, in a passive-aggressive way, I suppose it does, but that's not the point. That's like me having a clause that says if she makes a bad album then I get twenty million dollars. It's just something that we all know is going to happen.

Really, the cancellation is just a sign of much larger problems, anyway. For example, when I tried to move the wedding to Conference Room B of the Howard Johnson's on Wilshire, she stormed off with her entourage, and I took that as a no. I didn't get it, because she wants three-hundred people at the wedding, but she wants privacy. So, I did what any man in the situation would do: I went to Vegas for a boxing match, went gambling, fell off the wagon and woke up with strippers. Maybe they were hookers or possibly dancers who wanted to try out for J-Lo's next video, but that's not the point. The point is I tried, and she backed out on me.

When this all started, we were just another Hollywood celebrity couple. We could have burned down West Beverly Hills and the newspapers would have put it on page 8. Then I made the stupid mistake of proposing and buying her a ring that cost me the better part of a year's pay (after you take out taxes, agent fees and the "donations" I make to the Weinsteins to keep my career intact). I jumped in with both feet, and now look where it's gotten me: The movie I did with her is second only to From Justin To Kelly as the worst movie of all time, and we've still got one more that could conceivably top it.

So, boys (because most of you are boys, merely looking for pictures of the Olsen Twins naked), let me impart upon the lot of you a piece of advice: When you like a girl, you're going to get frustrated, and you're not going to know what to say to her. Then, when you think she likes you as much as you like her, it's all easy. Then, reality strikes, and you realize that she didn't like you as much as you thought she did, in which event it's often because she likes some other guy more than you and failed to mention it over the course of your dating or correspondence.

Just save yourself the heartbreak and always keep one foot out the door at all times, because one day -out of nowhere- she'll drop you, and you'll just realize that you were wrong about everything. They're all blind corners and the end of your relationship is around one of them. As for me, I'll just wait for my agent to say it's okay to get married again, if ever. He said once that my box-office pulled an extra twenty-million per picture when I was an eligible bachelor, so he probably won't, and the closest I'll get to a happy-ending is watching Chasing Amy, and all I have to fall back on is the knowledge that I was the bomb in Phantoms.


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