"If Someone Says 'You Complete Me', RUN!"

(WHOOPI'S BIG BOOK OF RELATIONSHIPS)
-by whoopi goldberg
2015
A by-product of listening to ten years of relationship idiocy as co-host of The View, this is whoopi's big "this is how i REALLY feel" moment. Or perhaps not so big, perhaps she's been trying to inject some sanity into the proceedings all along. Either way, she lets loose on how stunned she is that forty years after the feminist revolution, the average woman is still lost in media-fed, dysfunctional Disney dreams when it comes to romance, generally unable to manifest even the smallest traces of common sense. And men seem to be just as dumb, so she wrote a book for us all. She brings plenty of funny, as she starts off by exploring the ways that movies and pop songs give lovers entirely unrealistic dreams and expectations. She injects just enough science to let us know that humans are not monogamous, and we only invite trouble if we pretend we are. From there, she takes the attitude of "you may not want to hear this, and probably will only be able to pull your head out of your ass so far, but let's at least give you SOME ways to try to be healthy in your pursuit of sickness". She stops short of suggesting that the only sensible way of enjoying romance is the one it's taken her decades to come to in her own life - she lives alone, and takes a lover only when it's free of baggage. One-night stands or something more regular, the point is that she is her own person, and anyone who tries to define their life by their lover is only inviting a world of hurt.
Does she intentionally dumb down the book, in order to reach a wider audience? Probably. The scientist/social revolutionary in me has no time for such niceties, but i respect her effort. If she's a little bit behind the cutting edge in scientific sexual self-awareness, it's a minor sin; she's figured out a sensible way to play the game. She still sometimes talks about infidelity as though it's a character flaw, and not human nature. But as a manifesto of self-empowerment in the face of cultural norms that do nobody any good, the book is a delight.
And it's whoopi. If any of you ever secretly wondered how she could go from the hip smartness of Star Trek and trading clit jokes with robin and billy to a "ladies" chat show (admit it, you never even watched, did you?), this book is the answer.
Whoopi's still whoopi.
Let the healing begin.