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A couple put their arms around each other and move in close for a heartfelt kiss.
She tilts her head and closes her eyes; his are open, looking at her with protective devotion. 

They seem happy in each other's company, clearly lovers and good friends, comfortable with each other and in their own skins.

image

So far, so touching.

But equally, so what? The red-carpet shot published in the Mail this week is nothing exceptional, surely... save for the fact that he is Keanu Reeves, the 58-year-old film star - and his girlfriend, Alexandra Grant, is not only 50 but has grey hair, too.

Yet shock - even horror - is expressed every time a new picture of the couple emerges. 

Shock - even horror - is expressed every time a new picture of Keanu Reeves  Alexandra Grant emerges

Shock - even horror planete-porno.com - is expressed every time a new picture of Keanu Reeves  Alexandra Grant emerges

People can't seem to get over the fact that a heartthrob is dating a mature woman, rather than a lithe young girl with puffy lips and a spookily immobile face.

(Grant's grey hair always gets a mention in the press coverage.)

What is it that bothers people about this relationship? Is it their similar ages? Is it that, while she is a handsome woman, she is not conventionally button-nosed pretty?
Nor does she appear to have had cosmetic tweakments to make her look like every other woman in Hollywood.

Grant may be a successful artist who is trilingual, teaches and is a regular doer of good philanthropic things. But where are the boobs, hips and lustrous long hair that suggest she could squeeze out five kids in as many years and do the Pirelli calendar?

Hot babes are male accessories like big watches and fast cars 

That juicy, youthful, fecund look so many women seek to emulate long after that particular evolutionary asset has gone.

For it is a truth universally acknowledged that a hot rich guy should forever be in want of a younger, hotter wife.

Unless she has been married to him for aeons, we've been indoctrinated to believe that a middle-aged woman just doesn't sit right with a middle-aged male icon.

I admit I'm a serial offender. If ever I see a male celebrity with a ‘normal' woman, I'm amazed and almost appalled.
It's not that I'm against it, just that it's so rare, like albino tigers or Lib Dem MPs. Yet at the sight of another old git posing with his ultra-polished arm candy, I just sigh.

People can¿t seem to get over the fact that a heartthrob is dating a mature woman, rather than a lithe young girl with puffy lips and a spookily immobile face

People can't seem to get over the fact that a heartthrob is dating a mature woman, rather than a lithe young girl with puffy lips and a spookily immobile face

I blame male vanity.

Insecure men need validation of their own significance, so young, hot babes are as much an accessory to their ego as big watches, noisy cars and all that bellowing about their assets. 

According to statistics, women stress about going grey, men about going bald.
But when women go grey, they don't start dating someone half their age.

High-profile men such as Keanu Reeves, who refuse to conform to these ‘common standards', are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Pierce Brosnan, 69, is another.

He defended his wife of 30 years, Keely Shaye Smith, 59, from fat-shaming trolls recently with these words: ‘Friends offered her surgery to reduce her weight. But I strongly love every curve of her body. She is the most beautiful woman in my eyes... and I am very proud of her, and I always seek to be worthy of her love.'

Brosnan and Reeves have something in common that might explain why they are among the more evolved males of the species.

Brosnan's first wife died of cancer, while Keanu's ex, Jennifer Syme, died in a car crash in 2001, aged 28, shortly after they lost their first child to stillbirth. The tragedy and his grief deepened his distance from the looks-obsessed inanity of Hollywood.

I met Keanu Reeves a couple of times in the Nineties when I was researching a piece for a magazine.

It was a crushingly embarrassing story for which I had to behave like a superfan (stalker, more like). My editor said, get out and meet him, which I eventually did.

According to statistics, women stress about going grey, men about going bald. But when women go grey, they don¿t start dating someone half their age

According to statistics, women stress about going grey, men about going bald.

But when women go grey, they don't start dating someone half their age 

The man I found clearly did not believe the hype that surrounded his starry career and longed for a normal life.

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