For the love of Jake Ryan and Lloyd Dobler (an internal conflict)

SO, thanks to The Agitator, I found this article about the undying love for Lloyd Dobler that so many women our age have. In the opening, the writer mentions an article two years ago about Jake Ryan. I have to admit that Jake Ryan was my first movie love, so there's a special place in my heart for him. But I also love Lloyd, and certainly Say Anything.

"I don't want to sell anything, buy anything or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought or processed, or repair anything sold, bought or processed. You know, as a career -- I don't want to do that."

And don't forget that Eric Stoltz and Jeremy Piven are in it, too.

There's not much I can say about the article that isn't already said better than I could, so I'll just leave this with some quotes. But I do have to argue with the comment about being in love with Lloyd Dobler, not John Cusack. I'm also in love with Martin Blank. Probably more than with Lloyd.

Two Valentine's Days ago, in the Style section, it was discussed at great length why women still think about Jake Ryan -- the cool-mannered, Porsche-driving, completely fictional hunk from the 1984 teen flick "Sixteen Candles." Then came the e-mail. Women (and some men) wrote in for months, mostly affirming this fantasy. One dreamer in Dallas talked about the lady down the street with toddler sons named Jake and Ryan. There was much linking and blogging. Even now, once in a while, Google will lead the Jakelorn our way. A New York documentary filmmaker came by last summer and set up lights and rearranged furniture and interviewed me -- she was making an entire movie about Jake Ryan.
"But what about," she finally asked, "Lloyd Dobler?"

Shawna Shepherd, 28, an associate TV producer, agrees. "I am always on the hunt for the Lloyd Dobler type. Unfortunately the ones I've dated so far pale in comparison to the Hollywood character," she says. "Sure they were quirky, and the mix tapes award-winning -- I still listen to them -- but a shower and a treat to dinner every now and then would have been nice, too. And let's face it, if a guy stood outside with a boombox playing music outside my window, I'd be unimpressed and slightly freaked out."

Chuck Klosterman, a complicatedly dorky New York rock critic who has ascended to omniscient pop-culture sageness (more powerful in his observations than even the combined forces of all those loudmouths on nostalgic VH1 shows), makes quick work of Lloyd Dobler in the very first pages of his 2003 book "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs":

"Fake love is a very powerful thing," Klosterman observes. "I once loved a girl who almost loved me, but not as much as she loved John Cusack. . . . It appears that countless women born between the years of 1965 and 1978 are in love with John Cusack. . . . But here's what none of these upwardly mobile women seem to realize: They don't love John Cusack. They love Lloyd Dobler. When they see Mr. Cusack, they are still seeing the optimistic, charmingly loquacious teenager he played in 'Say Anything.' . . .