Jeff Bezos is getting divorced from his wife of 25 years, MacKenzie. TMZ.com reports there's another woman, by the name of Lauren Sanchez.
Incidentally, that's the first time in the nearly 15 year history of this blog I've ever linked to TMZ, or any site like it. No offence to those who regularly visit the site, but I feel dirty. It's not exactly that rich and famous people bother me...why would they? They're just people. Key word, though: just. Why people devote so much time and energy to every time one of them does any least thing is an impenetrable mystery to me. When you have a baby, do paparazzi crowd around? Of course they don't, but why not? That baby is every bit as special to you as Tori Spelling's kids are are to her. (I had to ask Eva for a name here, and I have no idea who Tori Spelling actually is. Yeah, I know, more proof I ain't human.)
But I do know who Jeff Bezos is. Founder of Amazon.com, owner of the Washington Post, and richest man in the world, worth at this writing an estimated U.S. $137 billion.
Not for much longer. I imagine MacKenzie's going to take a fair chunk out of that.
Apparently there's another woman: Lauren Sanchez, a TV host and "accomplished pilot". Jeff and MacKenzie have been good friends with Lauren and her husband for ten years. Sources agree Jeff wasn't cheating, but the National Enquirer (and I feel filthy just typing that) alleges Lauren was. Whatever. I'm not interested in how they got here. I'm very interested in where Jeff and MacKenzie are going from here.
But before I get to that, let me get to this. I want to demonstrate another way in which I'm clearly inhuman.
Here's Jeff Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie:
...and here's Lauren Sanchez:
Which one is more physically attractive?
Eva showed me pictures this morning, without telling me who was who. From a distance, they looked quite similar. But then I took a closer look, and donned a hat I almost never wear, the hat of a man who judges women on physical attractiveness. I never do that when it matters, because physical beauty...doesn't matter. We'll all be ugly someday; some of us, including some supermodels, have such repulsive personalities they've got a good head start on that race; and what's more, love supplies all the physical beauty I need and them some. My loves and my friends are the most beautiful women in my world...which makes them the most beautiful women in THE world.
But put all that aside and let's "be a man". Bearing in mind I'm still not thinking with my dick, because I don't know anything meaningful about either of these woman. It's just skin.
Okay, Ken, quit equivocating and render judgment.
Snap. Instant. The top woman...who turns out to be the scorned wife, the woman Jeff is trading in for a "better model". NOT a younger model: MacKenzie's 48 and Lauren is 49. (Jeff is 54, while Patrick Whitesell, Lauren's ex, is 53).
Yeah, right.
It turns out I lied: I do know something meaningful about Lauren Sanchez: she's had thousands of dollars of plastic surgery done. She looks, to me, like a doll version of MacKenzie. Fake, in other words. The lips are fake, the cheeks are fake, and what's with that neck? It looks like it was glued on. I have an instinctive reaction towards authenticity, and Lauren Sanchez makes me recoil.
Enough of this. Let's drop Lauren and Patrick out of this altogether and look at this tweet Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos crafted.
"We want to make people aware of a development in our lives. As our family and close friends know, after a long period of loving exploration and trial separation, we have decided to divorce and continue our shared lives as friends. We feel incredibly lucky to have found each other and deeply grateful for every one of the years we have been married to each other. If we had known we would separate after 25 years, we would do it all again. We've had such a great life together as a married couple, and we also see wonderful futures ahead, as parents, friends, partners and ventures and projects, and as individuals pursuing ventures and adventures. Through the labels might be different, we remain a family, and we remain cherished friends."
Wow.
To the extent this is authentic, I'm in awe.
I'm trying to make allowances for my natural naivete and idealism. I really want to take this statement at face value, even as I recognize it's a PR exercise aimed at controlling the narrative. But if you can drop the jaded cynicism -- hard to do when there's $137 billion involved, I know -- and...just read it...and pretend it's true, all of it. Because why can't it be?
This is how you diverge.
I don't like the word "divorce", even though it's obviously what's happening here. I prefer divergence: a parting of the ways.
"Though the labels may be different, we remain a family, and we remain cherished friends".
In other words:
"THE PEOPLE IN THE RELATIONSHIP ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE RELATIONSHIP."
That's Franklin Veaux, co-author of the definitive polyamory resource More Than Two. But those words apply to any relationship. It does sound paradoxical, as if the partnership doesn't matter, but when both of you look out for each other, oddly enough the relationship tends to last. Even if "the labels" may end up different--the commitment remains.
I don't know how much acrimony is hidden between those lines. I can't see any, but for all I know they actually hate each other now. I'd like to think, though, that this is authentic. That Jeff and MacKenzie do still love each other, but that each has decided their life's path should diverge, to allow each other to best express that next greatest version of the grandest vision they ever had about who they are. They're even still suggesting they'll be partners in the future--a different sort of partner, yes, but still partners.
I am a child of a very bitter divorce. I saw, at the age of five, arguably the worst possible way to diverge. From that early age, I told myself there had to be a better way.
I think this is a better way. Don't you?
