February 16th 2010

Fantasy Match-Up: Delilah Rene and Hannah Seligson

I’d pay good money to see Delilah Rene, 50, and Hannah Seligson, 25, sit down over a bottle of Bordeaux and talk about love. Here’s why:

Delilah, whose nightly radio show by the same name is heard by 8 million listeners a week, calls herself the “Queen of Sappy Love Songs.” Her world, said Ellen McCarthy in last week’s Washington Post, is “a schmaltzy, airbrushed place where love is all that matters….”

Hannah, a journalist/social commentator, is the author of a new book, A Little Bit Married. In her world of unmarried, 20-something couples who live together, love takes a back seat to negotiating career moves and who will pay for the Crate & Barrel rug in the living room.

Picture the two women sitting at a corner table in some upscale, dimly lit restaurant.

Delilah would be wearing tight jeans and a blousy top. Her shoulder-length, bottle-blonde hair would look as if she just rolled out of bed. Hannah would be perfectly put together in a dark, knit sweater-and-skirt set, fishnet stockings and boots. Her brunette hair, flipped slightly at the ends, would be pulled back from her face with a headband the same color as her sweater.

“Ya know,” Delilah would purr as she leaned toward Hannah, “I am always falling in love. When I was teenager, I would snuggle up in bed with my AM radio and search for a station to play songs like “My Guy” and “Last Kiss.” I’ve had three husbands and thought each of them was “the one.”

She’d pause, then coo, “I love your outfit.”

Hannah, her posture as erect as an English schoolgirl, would smile her thanks sweetly. Then she’d state matter-of-factly that she is in the middle of a second relationship and, one day, hopes to be married. “There’s something about expressing your commitment to someone else at the highest form society has to offer,” she’d say. “And I want to be married when I have kids. All the data shows it’s a good thing.”

For Delilah, love is all about listening to your heart. For Hannah, it is directed by your head.

I worry sometimes about people who talk of marriage or long-term co-habitation as something approaching a contract. Companionship according to contract may be more predictable, but to me it seems less joyful. Dividing up the cooking schedule may make things run smoothly, but surprising your partner with her favorite meal when she has to work late is a lark. Sure, it’s fun to go to a movie you’ve both wanted to see, but to suggest a film he has wanted to see even though it holds little interest to you – that’s even better. Lovers, more than companions, pay attention to the small, meaningful details of each other’s lives.

Hannah suggests that her generation’s skepticism about love and marriage is the result of watching their parents’ marriages fail. By remaining only “a little bit married” until they’ve gotten older and presumably wiser, they will experience fewer divorces than their parents did, she says.

She may be right. Delilah’s generation (okay, mine too) certainly has nothing to brag about when it comes to staying true to a spouse “‘til death do us part.” In truth, real love is about head and heart. I just hope that on some nights, these negotiators get home early enough from the office to tune in to Delilah and be reminded of the love that brought them together - and can help keep them there.

***I'll be interviewing Hannah Seligson about her book in an upcoming SexReally podcast. Stay tuned!***