IMAGINE MY SHOCK when I read in the paper that Julia Roberts had married Lyle Lovett? Surely you jest! Some enterprising headliner said it was "Lovett first sight."
That figures, since no one even knew they were going together. It turns out he was even slyly dedicating songs to her under her middle name "Fiona."Glad I didn't know her middle name before. It might have affected my image of her. Adversely, of course, even though I did see "Brigadoon."
Anyway, I'm trying to figure this out.
Why would this gorgeous young woman, this glamorous star of "Pretty Woman," decide to marry, to put it kindly, a rather ordinary-looking, undernourished man 10 years her senior whose hairdo is reminiscent of Kramer's on "Seinfeld"?
I have to say that everyone does not agree with me that Julia Roberts is gorgeous. Joe Bauman, who writes regularly and engagingly for this paper, thinks she is ugly.
In an earnest, private conversation with me, he compared her to a tyrannosaurus rex.
He also asserted - and I have no way of refuting him - that her figure is so inferior that studios must employ a body double for her in many scenes.
So far, though, Bauman is the only man I've met who feels this way.
Roberts looks pretty darned good to most of us. Assuming that she is in fact "a fox," what we are all wondering is how somebody as homely as Lovett could win her hand?
OK, I guess if everyone does not agree that Roberts is lovely, there must be some woman somewhere who has erotic dreams about Lovett.
But pardon me if I seriously doubt it.
What this means, I think, is that an ugly man should not give up.
If he is romantically interested in a beautiful woman, he should make a serious effort.
He should ask her for a date.
Maybe she will say no.
But if she has extraordinary values having no connection with - you know - those irritating superficialities like beauty - he will be able to win her over on the strength of his charismatic personality or his exceptional intellect.
Trust me.
She won't care if he has a great body.
She won't care if he is athletic.
She won't care if he has wonderful, thick, wavy black hair.
She won't care if he has a square jaw or deeply penetrating eyes that cause her to feel weak.
She won't care if other women swoon over him when he walks into a room.
All she wants is someone to watch over her.
All she wants is a sensitive male who will share the load and give her compassion in times of trial.
All she wants is someone who is completely dedicated to her.
If that is all she wants, she is in luck, because an ugly man will gladly do all those things.
But here's the catch. The fact that he is crazy about her because she is great looking will not even cause him any guilt feelings. It won't even occur to him that there is something uncommon about an ugly man marrying a beautiful woman.
He may even slip into a fantasy world in which he convinces himself he won her over - not for his intellect and wit - but because he is a hunk.
Those, my friends, are the stark but undeniable differences between women and men.
I just hope Julia Roberts knows what she is getting into.
Dennis Lythgoe's column is published on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.