Gavin, Gwen and our dwindling belief in true love

Everything is the worst, and the summer is ruined, and everybody pack up your stuff and get out of my house because love is dead, and we all know it.

Why? Because Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale are divorcing, and the only thing I can do to feel any sort of control in this endlessly-spiraling situation is to blame one of you.

“Their priority is making sure they maintain a safe and secure home for their children regardless of what’s happening,” a source told People in the wake of our shock/sorrow. “When you’re separated and have kids, you’re much more emotionally invested.”

In this case, we are not the kids, but those of us who’ve worshiped at the altar of Gwen and Gavin might as well be since we’ll need more attention and love than we usually do during this painful and terrible time.

And yes, celebrity splits are painful and terrible, so if you’re sitting there feeling ashamed over your investment in the relationship of two people you’ve never met, relax: you’re a human being with a heart and it’s fine. After all, we all remember where we were when we heard about the end of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. Some of us are still working through the betrayal that was the demise of Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon. Many of us are also afraid to click Will Smith/Jada Pinkett-Smith headlines for fear that they’re next. Why? Because some stars aren’t just like us, and if we can’t model our own relationships — or relationship goals — on the success of two people we see all the time and everywhere and know absolutely nothing about, then what are we supposed to do?

I mean, the reason celebrity relationships matter to us is because we project our own goals (and dreams and hopes and expectations) onto them. “I want to be like so-and-so and what’s-his-name!” we say to ourselves, knowing absolutely nothing about the ins and outs that make up their day-to-day. We assume that because we see them looking happy that they are happy, and forget the distinction between perception and reality is very different. And by forgetting, we become hopeful and use these unions as proof that true love exists.

I like to think it does, regardless, and that even if Gwen and Gavin couldn’t continue their lives together, enough couples can and do (see: Iris Apfel and her husband Carl, whose 60-plus marriage has fueled me for life). Logical me knows that couples break up all the time, that everyone will probably move on totally fine, and since both parties are adults, they’ll channel their best Chris and Gwyneth and consciously uncouple like the best of them. I also know that if they’re unhappy enough to want to divorce, staying together would be a nightmare, so there’s that.

But knowing that doesn’t make their — or anybody’s divorce — any less sad. Because now, we have to grieve for the life we imagined they had while acknowledging the reality that we really don’t know anything about these people. And celebrity culture is based on the myth that we know everything about them (or at least enough that we can project what we want onto the canvases they give us).

So news about Gwen and Gavin come as a double whammy: the first, because a couple we loved very much aren’t staying together. And second, because their split has forced us to acknowledge what we know about the famous people we’re obsessed with: nothing at all.

See? It’s truly a dark, dark day.

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