When I heard the news that Jennifer Aniston was engaged to her boyfriend Justin Theroux, I could not stop whooping! Finally! I thought. I admit I may even have cracked a Justin time joke. My happy relief is not because I think that no matter how incredibly successful a woman is, she must be desperate for a ring on her finger. No, no, no! I'm thrilled because Jen had finally got her passport stamped out of Brangeaniston.
Ever since Brad Pitt left her for Angelina Jolie in 2005 our favourite Friend has been treading water in what she described as a 'sick, twisted Bermuda triangle.' As far as the celebrity press were concerned, any man photographed having coffee with her was throwing her a life raft. Readers wanted to know whether Jen would be left stranded because Brangeaniston was akin to the juiciest soap opera. And also because Jen -- gawd bless her, has promoted the most humiliating single woman stereotypes with aplomb.
Post Brad, the Good Girl and Picture Perfect star threw herself a pity party and invited the world. Jen's film choices imitated her reality and boy was it miserable. After The Break Up (2006) and He's Just Not That Into You (2009) she put a cherry on top with The Switch (2010) - a film about a broody woman who, fed up of waiting for Mr. Right decides to artificially inseminate herself. In between filming movies, Jen played gooseberry on holidays and nights out with bestie Courtney Cox and her hubby David Arquette. She also displayed such an astonishing lack of romantic judgement even Bridget Jones would consider her pathetic, when she went public with her on-off relationship with lothario singer John Mayer. Jen clung on to 'Mayer the player' for dear life when he accompanied her to the 2009 Oscars. True to form, he later dumped her (for the final time) and told Rolling Stone magazine: "What would I be saying to Jen (is), 'I don't dislike you. In fact, I like you extremely well. But I have to back out of this because it doesn't arc over the horizon...this is not my ideal destiny'."
Jennifer has jollied us along with plenty of ammunition to pump up her sad persona. But in recent years she showed us signs she was manning up. Instead of pity parties, Jen partied. She holidayed with a gaggle of single gal pals that included stand-up comic Chelsea Handler - who recently declared that she'd 'never go too far to accommodate a man.'
In a GQ Spain interview published in June this year, it seemed Jen was also taking a leaf out of Cameron Diaz's prized tome on how to rock the single lifestyle. Jennifer mused:"The perfect life is sort of cliché, isn't it? Like, if you want to be happy, you should have the house, the husband, the kids... Kids are messy!'
Ironically - with pregnancy rumours all over the net, she is now on her way to getting that clichéd fairytale ending - and we can all move on. Every last column inch has been squeezed out of Brangeaniston. It has nothing more to give. So if you don't mind, I'll carry on waving off Miss Aniston as she finally sails into the sunset.