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Demi Moore and Dooce (Heather Armstrong) — two power profiles in the world of famous women. We all know who Demi is — how could you not. You may not be as familiar with Dooce; especially if you don’t make a habit of following female power bloggers. So you can catch up here and on her blog here.
Within the same week word came out that Demi is getting divorced and Dooce is separated. It was as if the walls of the online female collective shook with the surprise of it. Demi represented eternal youth and beauty (and that cougars are still alive and well) and Dooce was a living example of making lemonade out of lemons. Now here they were announcing that they both were unable to conquer the perils of married life. Immediately several ripples moved across online blogs and forums.
If They Can’t Do It – How Can We?
Headlines sprung up questioning the difficulty of marriage and the ability of the every day couple to keep it alive if ‘power couples’ such as these couldn’t even do it. Apparently the people who wrote these articles and made this assumptions have no concept of how difficult it is to be in the public spotlight (I can relate since my eighteen fans hound me constantly). Fame doesn’t equal an easy life. Just because you can pay your bills (and the bills of 300 of your closest friends if you wanted to) doesn’t mean every other personal strife just evaporates. Other stuff still jabs at you day in and day out. That being said – why is their personal success or failure a measurement at all? You don’t compare yourself to the people next door who live a similar life as you – to compare yourself to a couple who’s life is completely removed from yours is even more ludicrous.
OMG I Feel SO Bad for Them! Why Don’t You?!
Human nature causes people to attach themselves emotionally to people they’ve never met. It happens every day, but that doesn’t make it easier for me to understand. Of course the failure of any marriage or partnership is a sad thing. Of course I wish these beautiful women didn’t have to go through the pain I’m sure they are dealing with right now. I’ve been there. It sucks. But why do I need to have my heart bleed for them in order to be seen as a normal human being? I could only stand reading the various blog comments for about 7.3 minutes. In that time I lost count of how many people were told they ‘had no soul’ or ‘lack compassion’ simply because they weren’t overly broken up about this news. Over and over ‘my heart goes out to them’. It does? Okay…but mine stays right here in my chest.
875,000 couples were divorced in the United States in 2010 [CDC.gov].
Being famous shouldn’t make it more worthy of condolence.
