The Internet is the king of Infotainment. And the Lord of Lists. And those two titles are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Why would they be?
One of my current favourite lists (and it is a constantly evolving list) is one I found over at Weird Worm: The 5 Weirdest Things People Have Fallen in Love With. This isn’t the kind of “wow, I love this hamburger” kind of love. This is the “I want to marry this inanimate object” kind of love. You know, the creepy kind.
In the traditional count-down manner, here is Weird Worm’s list:
5. A robot
4. The Eiffel Tower
3. A dolphin
2. A roller coaster
1. The Berlin Wall
I can’t say whether these “great loves” were placed in any particular order or not, but I suspect not. On the other hand, I would be hard pressed to organinze these in any order of oddity.
Now, before I get accused of being a closed-minded ass, let me assert that I am all for the right of people to marry whoever they want (within reason — I mean, come on, kids are off limits), but I have trouble with the idea of people marrying outside of the species or to, say, a national landmark.
Because the Internet is a common source of half-truths, falsifications, exaggerations and out-and-out lies, I thought I should do a little more digging on each of these stories. Here is a summary of my findings:
1. Eija-Riitta Berliner-Mauer married Berlin Wall. STATUS: FACT
Berliner-Mauer describes herself as objectum-sexual. She runs a website devoted to herself and her husband — the Berlin Wall. Granted, it hasn’t been updated in a couple of years, but that seems like a minor point.
2. Amy Wolfe married a roller coaster. STATUS: FACT
Attracted to her husband “sexually and mentally,” Wolfe fell in love with the ride — 1001 Nachts — when she was 13. And although they can’t always be together, she at least has pictures of him to “satisfy herself at home.”
3. Sharon Tendler married a dolphin. STATUS: FACT
In another case of love at first sight, Tendler knew the Israeli dolphin for 15 years before proposing. Often a long-distance relationship (Tendler lives in Britain), she makes the trip on a regular basis to see her spouse. (click link for a video of the ceremony).
4. Erika La Tour Eiffel married the Eiffel Tower. STATUS: FACT
Her name change notwithstanding, Erika (a San Francisco resident), married the landmark in 2008. Let’s hope the tower isn’t the jealous type, as Erika “claims to have a physical relationship with a piece of fence she keeps in her bedroom.”
5. Zoltan marries a robot. STATUS: FACT
No longer are there instructions for making your own robot girlfriend on his website, but you can read all about the love of his life in this fairly extensive article and interview.
Observation: four women, one man. Only the man has chosen to remain anonymous — but mostly at the request of his parents.
Shocker.
T. Keith Edmunds
4 Responses to “And you think your cousin picked an odd spouse…”
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Mental Illness knows no borders.
Here’s where I have trouble with that: If these individuals are all productive, functioning individuals in society (Erika, for example was a soldier and therefore presumably allowed access to live ammo), do we judge them to be mentally ill due to this one odd life decision?
If so, then we say that we are making decisions based on mental illness on some measure of normality. I ask you to point out “normal” to me. Where is that line that one must cross to go from “odd” to “mentally ill.”
I’m aware that there are medical criteria, etc etc, but in these cases, I (mostly) question the idea of mentally ill. Outside the norm, yes, of course. But mentally ill…I’m not convinced.
*I hasten to add that I don’t condone marrying or pursuing any sort of romantic attachment to animals, robots or inanimate structures.
OK, maybe “mentally ill” is technically incorrect. How about “Bull-Goose Looney”?
I can get behind that.