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Why we all love Jennifer Aniston

As she turns 41 today, Jen may be a loser in love, but she's the kind of girl we all want as a best friend, writes John Costello

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By John Costello
Thursday Feb 11 2010

It may be five years after the finale of Friends, she may have made some dire movies and disastrous dating mistakes, but it seems we all still want Jennifer Aniston to be our BFF.

She first burst into our lives as perky Rachel Green in a drenched white gown after running out of her own wedding. We were all hooked. While she hypnotised men, women the world over were rushing to hair salons begging to get 'The Rachel' makeover. For 10 years we followed her trials and tribulations -- the love affairs, the break-ups and the heartache.

And now, even though Friends is no more and as the star turns 41, it seems we are still rooting for Jen Aniston as we watch her romantic disasters unfold. But the difference is this time they are being played out for real.

So just how did we all fall in love with a single 41-year-old woman without children and a love life messier than a chimpanzee's tea party?

Let's face facts, she is not a particularly gifted actress. But, thankfully, we don't love Jen for her performing ability. We don't even love her for the millions she has amassed. Nope, we love her because she is a stunning, beautiful loser.

Yup, she seemed to have it all -- the glittering career, the bulging bank account, the to-die-for body (and hair, of course) and the sexiest man on planet earth, Brad Pitt. And then she proved she is just as human as the rest of us when it all went horribly, horribly wrong.

We all watched as Jen's 'perfect' marriage fell apart and she lost her man to Angelina Jolie. We grimaced as she dated losers like Vince Vaughn and John Mayer.

While Jen was crumbling with hurt, her nemesis Jolie was posing for pictures in her role as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations and seemingly adopting African orphans every other week. All of this while stories claiming the real reason her marriage ended was because Jen had refused to have Pitt's baby because she was overly focused on her career. "A man divorcing would never be accused of choosing career over children," she told Vanity Fair in her first interview after the split.

"That really pissed me off. I've never in my life said I didn't want to have children. I did and I do and I will! The women that inspire me are the ones who have careers and children; why would I want to limit myself? I've always wanted to have children, and I would never give up that experience for a career. I want to have it all."

And we want her to have it all too, because there was only going to be one winner in the battle for our affections. There's no doubting Jen's beauty, but unlike Brangelina, her beauty is not perfection. It is aspirational rather than threatening; it is soft and warm rather than cold and hard. So while we watched Jen sob, we all remembered the Angelinas and Brads that had broken our hearts in the past.

"If I'm the emblem for what it looks like to be the lonely girl getting on with her life, so be it," she told Elle magazine last year. "I can make fun of myself, and I'll bring it up as long as the world is bringing it up."

And having a laugh at her own expense is another reason she continues to win out affections.

"I have a strange parallel with movies I was doing and my life off-screen," she joked at an award ceremony in June. "First, it was The Good Girl, which evolved into Rumor Has It, followed by Derailed. Then there was The Breakup. If anyone has a movie called 'Everlasting Love With an Adult Stable Man' that would be great!"

We also love her because of her friends. When she hangs out with Courteney Cox, we all want to tag along. It feels like all that played out in Friends was not just fiction. Maybe we could join in with Cox and give Jen some solid advice.

It certainly looks like she needs some. Sources close to Aniston told Us magazine when "whispers of an off-camera romance" between the actress and Gerard Butler on the set of The Bounty first came to light, that: "She always falls for whoever is close by. It's not real love."

It's that whiff of desperation that is so alluring about her.

She is just one of us, obviously richer and more beautiful, but still one of us.

When Forbes published its annual Rich List, our Jen was the second top-earning actress earning a whopping $25m between June 2008 and June 2009. Ironically, it was Angelina that took pole position.

So while she doesn't need our sympathy nor our friendship, in an era of unattainable Hollywood success, excess, images and illusions, Jennifer Aniston is a very real star that makes us feel a little bit better about our own daily struggles. She's the best friend we all want.

So while no one told her life was going to be this way, we all want to be there for Jen.

We want her to battle against the odds and find true love and happiness. We want to take her under our wing and be her best friend forever. And in many ways, we kind of feel like we already are.

Happy birthday Jen! We heart you.

- John Costello

Irish Independent