Today’s news that Courteney Cox and David Arquette have decided to split surprised us, not only because we didn’t see it coming, but also because it elicited in us an emotional response we rarely exhibit toward celebrities: genuine sadness. We like Courteney Cox and David Arquette. And we liked them as a couple: the pretty girl who is unafraid to make an ass of herself for laughs, and the dorky guy from the weird-but-famous family who is never killed in horror movies because he’s too un-cute. They were supposed to make it! We got to thinking: This wasn’t the only recent breakup that rocked us to the core. What about Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins? Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy? Kate Winslet and Sam Mendes? In a sea of shallow people who get engaged at the drop of a hat, these were people we thought had considered their relationships before entering into them. People who were smart and normal (or at least similarly crazy) enough to go the distance. We’ve lost a lot of such couples this year. So who’s left?
