Not lying, I was juuuuuuust thinking to myself, hey, have we seen Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas out together this week? And the answer was no, and I felt disappointed, and oh look, here they are, out for a dog walk, THANK GOD.
This is not sarcasm. I’m telling you, they’ve become a source of comfort for me – and I know I’m not the only one. It’s not to do with the relationship status either. Like I wasn’t out here worrying that maybe, if they hadn’t been photographed in a few days, that they were over or anything. It’s more about the routine.
Our routines were upended almost nine or so weeks ago and since then, we’ve all established new routines. These may not be our preferred routines, which is why I am so resistant to the expression “the new normal”, because I refuse to call this f-cksh-t “normal” – it is NOT, it should not be, and in my mind, normalising it means acceptance, and why do I have to accept living in quarantine, not being able to see our family and friends, not being able to go to work and support the work of others who need their jobs and who can’t do their jobs right now and are worried about paying rent and supporting their families, to say nothing of the frontline heroes who are putting themselves at risk every day? No. Not normal.
Back to routines though and specifically the lockdown gossip routine, for many of us, even though this is not how we would like to be existing, it helps to have structure, to establish, though temporary (hopefully), a certain schedule to our lives so as to feel like there’s at least *some* control in an uncertain situation. Ben-Ana has kinda become part of that, non?
So while there may be people out there snarking about this relationship (I know at least a few of you who think it’s fake, but I don’t and I addressed that here), it’s also, as it always is when we talk about the celebrity ecosystem, a symbiotic relationship. Even if you think they’re getting something from the attention, we too are getting something from giving them attention. I felt almost relieved to see them pop up in our photo agency today. It’s probably not enough relief to, obviously, really assuage the worry and the anxiety and the stress about our pandemic problems, but it’s something. I appreciate it.
