She’s in Love With Love, but So Is He

It's better to have loved and lost (and loved and lost), then to have never loved at all.

I’m not one to comment on anyone’s love life. Especially when it goes awry. With a failed marriage and a slew of other doomed relationships that pepper my past, I am yet to experience and—from what I’ve heard and seen from others, bask in the bliss of a proper, all-consuming, unabashed love.

Hey, it’s out there. I know it. Any day now.

Love is a toughie, though.

You feel like you’ve finally cracked the code to eternal happiness with a person you label your soulmate, your ride or die, your homie for life, because that’s what one does when the ‘when you know, you know’ moment finally arrives.

But inevitably. Inevitably. Take Bennifer 2.0.

The wound is still very fresh, even though we had an entire summer of a ring-less, lifeless Affleck and a yacht-posing, selfie-taking Lopez to prepare us for the crash and burn ending, of—you guessed it, the inevitable kind.

Also, that cringy Bridgerton-inspired birthday bash is something we’ll never be able to unsee.

But don’t forget one thing—she is also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to re-love her. Her and her insatiable need to be in the constant, highest-wattage spotlight.

And he did. He gave it his all, it seems. While we caught glimpses of what might have caused the rift this time, the full truth will likely remain unknown.

Not unless Benny Medina decides it would be a smart, moolah-raking move for Jennifer’s next project. In that case, we can count on the full lowdown.

Whether we’re up for it, is another question altogether.

Whether you stan them or not, the rekindling of the OG Bennifer—the ultimate modern-day celebrity power couple, unmatched since their first pairing on the set of Gigli in 2002 to their astonishing second act, 17 years after their first breakup in 2004—was everything. Scriptwriters couldn’t have dreamed up a more fulfilling nor gooey love story and we craved that ‘lived happily together forever and ever’ ending for ourselves just as much as we rooted for the stars themselves.

You with me?

But the signs.

The signs were there from the very beginning. And trust me, I know signs oh so well. Especially when they’re not attached to my own relationships. Actually, only then.

Jane Fonda saw them too.

The Greatest Love Story Never Told filled in a lot of blanks. It humanized Lopez by showing her at her most vulnerable, glitz and filter-free self. We already knew how hardworking and success-driven she is, but the raw exposure of her insecurities and accumulated trauma is not something she freely shared in the past. The oversharing of intimate symbols from their relationship, however, was a clear indicator that she and Affleck are fundamentally misaligned.

He blatantly spelled it out on camera that he was not a fan of her exposing the private love letters he wrote to her to her crew. He also shared the caveat he presented when they decided to give their love another go—he adamantly refused to allow the public to third-wheel their relationship this time.

For Lopez, it seems, the ‘if it’s not on social media it’s like it’s not real’ vibe is very much where she chooses to live. The urge to share and expose her intimacy, no matter how deeply she may care, is too strong to fight. However, the question remains if she attempted to fight it at all.

The perpetually hungry beast of stardom is one that she feeds substantially and often.

Celebrities are just like us. Minus the money and the fame.

In matters of love and loss, the difference is miniscule.

They hurt the same way we do, they love their kids the way we love ours, and they are, in many ways, the kids we all were and still are—trauma-shaped creatures of need, full of fears, dreams, hopes, and desires. A shared hope we all have is to be loved. Accepted and loved. Seen and loved. Respected and loved.

Jennifer Lopez hopes for all those things.

I suspect her Dear Ben does too.