fakeboyfriend

I know I said in my very first blog that we were concentrating on TV/movie characters, but I feel compelled today to write about an actor (I did also mention that actors were fair game, after all). That actor is Colin Firth. He currently holds the honor of his image on my computer’s desktop. I’m sure he’d be thrilled (is there an emoticon for sarcasm?).

Anyway, regardless of his feelings—and that’s the deal with fakeboyfriends, they can’t complain—I have a huge crush on him at the moment. Why? Partly, yes, it’s the British accent as mentioned in a previous post. But, he’s also cute, self-deprecating and—at least on screen—seems to be down to Earth rather than stuck up because of his fame. Maybe I’m projecting because that’s what I want to see, but there it is.

I’ll have to admit that I wasn’t sure about him in the 1995 BBC version of Pride and Prejudice. I suppose I was put out with Mr. Darcy the character, really. But, Colin portrayed him well. When this crush really began was when I first saw Love, Actually, which is an excellent film. It is a wonderful ensemble piece, despite the Colin Frissell storyline, which I officially hate.

And, yes, here is a slight digression . . . the character of Colin Frissell (not to be confused with Colin Firth the actor) is horrid. I hate him and his whole storyline. I would much rather have seen a storyline with his friend who is also in the storyline of the naked couple. And, yes, if you haven’t seen the movie the term “the naked couple” sounds weird, but their storyline is really sweet. Or, I would rather see the storyline that was cut out of the movie, but is in the DVD’s deleted scenes about the lesbian couple as that story was really sweet and touching as well. Okay, end of digression. Back to Colin the first . . . . Colin’s character in Love, Actually is funny, tender and adorable.

Colin made further inroads into my heart in Nanny McPhee. Although there are times I want to smack some sense into his character, his lovable qualities eventually shine through. When, for example, he is distraught over Evangeline’s leaving my heart melts.

Bridget Jones’s Diaries is another excellent Colin Firth film. Who couldn’t love a guy to whom it doesn’t matter if his love has a bit of extra weight on?

I suppose I could keep mentioning films in which Colin has had roles, but really in all of them he makes me happy in some way—even if he’s the bad guy (which is rare for him, but not unknown). I must, however, mention one last role and that is of William Shakespeare in Black Adder Back & Forth. Delightful& quite funny! So, if you haven’t experienced all that is Colin Firth, rent one of the movies he’s in & prepare for your newest fakeboyfriend crush. Let me know how it goes.

A comment on the last post mentioned Captain Picard of Star Trek: The Next Generation. This has reminded me of all the great fakeboyfriend possibilities in Star Trek, one of my favorite television series.

Not only is there Picard, but also many other great male characters. Here is a list:

·        Captain Kirk – if you like melodrama

·        Mr. Spock – if you like pointy ears & green skin

·        Dr. McCoy – if you’re a fan of both Star Trek and classic westerns

·        Chekov – if you like fake Russian accents

·        Sulu – if you like a man who can navigate (ignore the actor’s preferences if you are female and concentrate on the character instead)

·        Scotty – if you like a man to take his time

·        Commander Riker – if you like a man to switch between facial hair and no facial hair for a change from time to time

·        Data – if you like a “man” who is anatomically correct and versed in many forms of lovemaking

·        Geordie LaForge – if you tend to like to blindfold your partner (he comes with his own)

·        Worf – if you like it rough

·        O’Brien – if you like an authentic Irish accent

·        Sisko – if you like a man who is indecisive

·        Dr. Beshear – if you like good looking airheads

·        Odo – if you like a guy who is flexible and willing to change

·        Chakotay – if you like a guy with unusual tattoos

·        Tom Paris – if you like the clean cut look

·        Harry Kim – if you like naivete

·        The Doctor – if you like them to be transparent

·        Neelix – if you like them with spots

·        Quark – if you like them with big ears

·        Captain Jonathan Archer – if you like them grumpy

·        Dr. Flox – if you like them weird

·        Lt. Read – if you like pretty boys with angst

·        Ensign Mayweather – if you like them young and cute

·        Commander Trip Tucker – if you like them so normal they’re strange

This list is fairly comprehensive, but I apologize if I left any characters off. There are many other characters on recurring or one-time roles that might also be great fantasy companions, but I leave that up to you to decide.

Do you have an age limit on your fakeboyfriends? Is it a narrower or broader range than that of your real boyfriends?

For me, I have a more broad range for fakeboyfriends. In real life, if I were available to date, I would most likely be interested in men that are my age and up to about five years older. Yes, it is a fairly limited range, but it’s what I found worked for me in my younger days of dating. My husband is in this range, actually.

But, for my fakeboyfriends, I am a bit more liberal on my age range. Generally I don’t like men younger than me, even in my fantasy life. I will sometimes fantasize about a younger man. As far as age goes, I might fantasize about men as much as twenty years older than me. The most common range is up to ten years older, though.

It seems as though stepping out of a close age range, even in fantasy, presents problems. You don’t listen to the same bands or have the same shared experiences. Was he alive during the moon landing? Did he see Kennedy get shot? Was he old enough to vote long before or long after you? Being a part of the common pop culture at the same time affects what you think is funny, not funny, and worth fighting for.

Perhaps you like an age difference? Just because it doesn’t work for me, doesn’t mean it won’t work or isn’t working for you. Tell us your age preference for your fakeboyfriends.

The Harry Potter novels and movies are filled with potential fakeboyfriends. And, I’m not talking about the kids, either. Of course any of you who are younger women may well enjoy Harry, Ron or even Neville, depending on your preferences. The older characters, however, are great fantasy fodder for adult women.

A friend of mine has a thing for werewolves and, consequently, a huge crush on Remus Lupin. Personally, I don’t get it. I guess my image of werewolves up until the Potter books was of Michael J. Fox in Teen Wolf—campy and silly. I’ll have to admit, although the idea of a werewolf doesn’t appeal to me in particular, I have a deeper appreciation of them as mystical creatures after reading the Potter books. I still don’t want to make love to one . . .

Some of my female friends, when we have discussed the boyfriend potential of Potter characters, have assumed that I would like Sirius Black. I don’t. He’s far too reckless for my taste. Although, Gary Oldman does make an enchanting vision on the screen as Black: He’s the ultimate bad boy who’s really good at heart.

There are many other adult characters in the Potter books and I’m sure they each have their own following. I hesitate to mention on whom I have a bit of a crush as most people would have the same reaction to him that I have to Lupin’s character. Okay, well, I guess I can’t stall any longer, really: It’s Severus Snape. Now, I have to qualify this with a bit of an explanation. I didn’t like Snape from reading the books. But, watching Alan Rickman play him in the movies is when a bell went off for me–and it wasn’t in my head. The transition for me was during Prisoner of Azkaban when Snape and Dumbledore are talking over the sleeping students in the Great Hall. Snape actually showed some concern for Harry when he asked Dumbledore if they should warn Harry. All of a sudden I felt something for Snape. I saw the compassion behind the façade. I’ve even gone so far as to begin a fan fiction novel with Snape as one of the major characters. Not that I’m likely ever to share it with anyone but my closest of friends who aren’t judgmental about my proclivities towards a stringy haired malcontent.

Is there anyone in the Harry Potter world that floats your boat?

I get a lot of my info on my fakeboyfriends from the Internet Movie Database. It can be found at http://www.imdb.com. You can search by movie title or by actor. It links everything. If you know there was a cute guy in a particular movie, but you don’t remember the name of the movie or the name of the actor there is a way to look them up. If you do remember that the actor was in a different movie with another actor, you can look up the movie or actor you do remember. You can then find the person you want in the cast list. And, no, I’m not getting paid by them to promote the website. I just have found it incredibly useful. Check it out and explore in there. It’s a treasure trove of information.

There are many blogs and other places to find info as well. Websites that offer free e-mail accounts typically have news links and other info for celebrities. Of course, what you will find is often news about the celebrities. This may be what you want, but if you are like me you’d rather have the fake thing, or rather the fictional character. If more of the fictional character is what you want, try this: place in a search engine the term “x fan fiction,” with “x” standing for the character for whom you want to search. For example, if I wanted more about Dr. Gregory House, I would put in “Gregory House fan fiction.” Try it—there are a lot of results that pop up (254,000 to be precise).

Come back and tell us in the comments what you found regarding your fictional love.

I am so incredibly tired. I’m not getting enough sleep. Everything in my real life is a stress—kids, work, husband, car repairs, money (or lack thereof, to be more precise). So, what do I do about it? Well, other than just plod along and get through the daily grind, I tend to find myself drifting off to other places and times in my mind. I’m an escapist. Most of us are, I suppose. We find something to keep us busy from worry and stress for at least some part of our daily lives. For me, it’s having a fakeboyfriend of the day. Yes, it changes quite that often. Sometimes it’s the same guy for a few days or so. Eventually, the crush wears off, and I’m on to someone else. Perhaps I’m off fighting bad guys with 007 . . . or even Johnny English! Or maybe I’m fighting alongside Legolas as we battle the armies of Sauron with our bows and arrows (I’m a beautiful, tall elf in that fantasy). Or I could be Danny Ocean’s little sister who gets to kiss Matt Damon’s character in one of the Ocean’s whatever-number-they’re-on movies. It doesn’t matter, really. Any of those or a plethora of other fantasies will do—anything to relax and forget for a bit. It’s like a subliminal message to myself that everything is okay. There’s hope and promise mixed in those fantasies, as well as a lot of self-esteem over what I accomplish in those fantasies. It’s not so much about sexual relationships as it is about doing things I don’t get to do in my ordinary life such as saving the world or getting even with a bad guy. It’s a little slice of adventure in my day.

What fakeboyfriend fantasy fills your day?

What turns me on when considering a man? Well, many things, but the most important thing that attracts me to someone is his voice. I once dated a guy a long time ago that was really sweet, but his voice was a source of irritation. He was monotone and dry. I just couldn’t get past it. I’d like to think that I’m more mature and less shallow after so many years, but in all honesty–I’m not. I’m a big fan of voices. I can tell you almost every time who it is that’s narrating a commercial. For some reason, I appreciate a well-toned voice on a man, be it because of genetics or whatever. Men with accents are particularly stimulating for me. I suppose that is why I like so many British actors such as Pierce Brosnan, John Hanna, Robson Green, Hugh Laurie, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Robert Carlyle and so many others.

Voices are mystical, magical things. Someone can let you know how they are feeling with just a single word. Or, someone can get you to do what they want with a single word. Actors in particular can train their voices and can sound differently for every line of dialogue.  Most people who aren’t actors do the same thing, but don’t realize that they are doing it.

The male voice turns me on, but what about you?

Having a TARDIS, or a machine that manipulates Time And Relative Dimensions in Space would be a lovely way to meet and know all of my fakeboyfriends. I could hop around from one to the other no matter his time in history or location in the galaxy. Ultimately, though, if I were to have a TARDIS, it would be quite delightful to have David Tennant playing my very own Doctor Who. Tennant’s version of the doctor is quite engaging. He’s witty, fun, energetic and super cute. He bounds from one adventure to the next and makes me want to drop everything in my life and join him on the TARDIS.

If there were any fakeboyfriend in the world available to you, with which one would you want to travel?

There is something ever so delightful about Alan Shore. Is it his blatant perversion? Perhaps the openness of his idiosyncratic behavior is one of his charms. While everyone else does their best to hide it, he gloriously revels in his desires. His wit, banter and playfulness are both disarming and frustrating. He is a bundle of contradictions. One minute he is in court shouting about a liberal cause and the next he is trying to see up a woman’s skirt. He supports women’s rights to advance in their careers, but still appreciates a woman for all her feminine charms and grace. He is charming because of and in spite of all his faults. In a sea of underdeveloped television characters swimming through shows of bland sensationalism, Alan Shore glides along with the complexity of a sting ray—both beautiful and dangerous. Few things on television thrill me as much as listening to Alan Shore rant about some abuse the current administration or a corporation has committed in the hypocritical name of morality. Geez, that turns me on! I want Alan Shore preaching to my choir as we stand on the beach feeling seaweed and driftwood pieces between our toes with each step in the moist sand.

The latest craze over Mamma Mia!, the musical inspired by and filled with ABBA songs, is both believable and fantastic at the same time. It’s believable because it gets to the hearts of many women. We love the singing, the dancing, the men. The movie completely fits with our popculture lifestyle of escapism. We want to dream about a rich man sweeping us off our feet so that we don’t have to work anymore like in “Money, Money, Money.” Mamma Mia! is a classic Cinderella story—without the stepfamily, or a fairy godmother, or a lost shoe. Okay, maybe that’s a bad analogy. Perhaps it’s just fairytales in general where true love meets wealth. It’s quite unlike reality where the two rarely meet.

The unbelievable parts are the super cheesy fantasy sequences and the fact that we buy into them. The Greek chorus is a bit confusing. Are they distanced, involved or both? They are taken a bit too seriously, at least until the credits. Perhaps this is my only complaint about the movie? One of my female friends who went with me to see the movie (for my third time, her first) was amused by Pierce Brosnan’s singing. There seems to be much discussion on websites about his lack of singing abilities, but I still find him attractive and engaging as a performer. At least he does better than Rex Harrison did in My Fair Lady. He pretty much talked his way through the songs in that musical. At least Brosnan gives it a go.

Brosnan is not the only attractive actor in the movie, either. Colin Firth always makes my heart melt and certainly does so in this movie, despite the fact that his character is, um, well . . . I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen the movie. I’ll just focus on his performance which is brilliant, as usual. His one particularly shining moment is when he sings “Our Last Summer.” I was pleasantly surprised at how great a singer he is. I’d only ever seen him in things like Love Actually, Nanny McPhee, Pride and Prejudice and other great British flicks. He didn’t sing in any of those movies. Firth is just as charming as he was back in his Pride and Prejudice days. I think a big part of it is his self-deprecating sheepishness.

I know my age is showing as I think the actor, Dominic Cooper, who plays Sky is a beautiful man, but I just don’t feel an attraction towards him. He seems like a kid—a cute kid, but a kid. If I were that young again I know I would think him really sexy and quickly develop a crush on him.

Stellan Skarsgard, who plays Bill, is great as well, but I don’t feel an attraction towards him like Brosnan and Firth. Just not my style, I guess. Of course, there are probably many of you out there who like him. Tell me about it, or about your other favorite actor in Mamma Mia!