There's one immediate bright side for Amy Schumer when it comes to her seemingly sudden—considering she was on The Howard Stern Show exactly two weeks ago talking about him—breakup with Ben Hanisch.
Next time, the comedian-actress-author can feel free to not spend so much time marveling over the fact that she was in a relationship.
Which is not to say that she shouldn't incorporate any future boyfriends into her stand-up, or stop making jokes about sex, or otherwise be disingenuously prim and proper. Not at all. Rather, there's no need for her to insist a guy loves her for her, to feel the need to prove that they're serious and, ultimately, make a hero out of a guy who's engaging in normal, decent boyfriend behavior. (Though, duh, if you look at social media, that fairly sums up everyone's approach to relationships.)
It's easy to see why it was hard for her not to go that route with Hanisch, though.
Internet trolls abound, as Schumer, in a relationship or not, knows all too well.
Hanisch last posted a picture of Schumer on his Instagram on March 7 (and it's still there, which makes sense since they're said to have parted ways as friends), and in addition to the "love you two!" and "screw the haters!" comments, there are notes left by bodyshaming haters who apparently never got the memo about how it's best to not be a cruel idiot in your day-to-day.
Meawhile, the 30-year-old Hanisch, a furniture designer whom Schumer says she met on Raya, the celebs-and-VIPs-only dating app, hasn't posted anything since April 21. Schumer, however, is back to work after her whirlwind press tour to promote Snatched and she just posted this morning, a black and white shot taken at an unspecified table read—so she is officially not going the hide-and-don't-seek-me route chosen by some celebrities.
Her visibility also suggests that she's already had some time to process the breakup. No one thought it actually occurred yesterday—"thoughtful consideration" takes time, after all—but it's not like Schumer (or at least the unabashedly honest and blunt persona that she trades on) to have told Howard Stern two weeks ago that she was still seeing him if she wasn't. She talked about what drew her to him online (his profile pic was him dancing with his grandma) and being able to get off of Raya fairly quickly because he was her first date off the app.
Asked if they were talking marriage (Howard relishes putting celebs on the spot with that question), Amy said, "We're talking about today. I love the idea of committing to somebody and making that choice. I want to have a family, I think, and everything. But right now, we're not in talks."
Perhaps, like so many famous people in a high-profile pairing, she just hadn't decided what to do about her relationship yet, or wasn't ready to break the news to her fans.
Because her fans were so behind her and Ben, and inevitably they're disappointed for her today. And while that's nothing new (see: the mass mourning for the demise of Brangelina), Schumer had taken it upon herself to be holding down the entire fort for women who aren't used to being the hottest one in the room but, what do you know, found love anyway.
It's a real catch-22: Generically hot only dating hot is a worthwhile stereotype to laugh at and try to quash; but at the same time, it would be great if the mind didn't automatically go there in the first place, in this day and age. Plenty of beautiful women haven't found Mr. Right. Nor does that trait serve as insurance to prevent losing a partner one day.
"We're in love," Vogue's July 2016 cover girl announced to the magazine. "And we're still in total honeymoon phase. It's a real relationship. Who knows what will happen, but we're real good right now."
Well of course it was a real relationship. Anyone who was still bothering to question that after Amy and Ben had been together for months at that point needed to find a better conspiracy theory to obsess over. But that seems to have been a lot of the reaction to their relationship after they first stepped out as a couple—and it was a tiresomely shallow type of disbelief from day one.
"We met and, like, totally fell in love and it's been really good, and it became viral Internet news," Schumer said on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in April 2016. "I think it's because he's really cute and people were like, 'What? Dating Amy? He has all his teeth!' Like, people were shocked. They were shocked."
Unfortunately, while that was relayed as a funny story, Schumer at times seemed to feel the pressure to prove that Hanisch was really into her.
Not that she was the first woman to post an oh-so-casual pic of her and her significant other in bed (more like the 1 billionth), or the first woman to want to flaunt her relationship status a bit. All incredibly normal inclinations, albeit ones that you could easily see Schumer making fun of on Inside Amy Schumer or in her stand-up.
But this coupling admittedly came with extra angst for Amy, who told Marie Claire last year that she considered Hanisch to be "the first guy who's really been my boyfriend."
Also not a particularly abnormal revelation. Plenty of women, despite what it looks like sometimes on social media, could say the same thing, whether they're currently in that first real committed relationship or still waiting. (Meanwhile, Schumer also joked that some guys she dated in the past would've been very surprised to hear that she didn't think of them as boyfriends.)
And with the burden of finally being invested in the outcome comes a certain natural insecurity.
"Being in love is the scariest thing in the world," she said. "You want to f--king cry and scream. I can't handle it. Every time we say goodbye, I think, 'This will have been a nice last week together.' Or I tell myself nothing is real and he's going to leave me and tell me he never loved me.' I feel so bad for him. How exhausting it must be dating me."
Again, a natural—even refreshing—lament. It's important for women to know that they're not alone in their fear that their happiness balloon might pop if they get too comfortable. The famous feel that way too.
But it would also be nice for women—such as the countless people who have tweeted or commented on Instagram that Amy has helped make them feel more confident in themselves and more comfortable in their own skin—to hear that someone so successful doesn't buy into the hype that there's something strange afoot because of some society-manufactured discrepancy in a couple's looks.
Most of the time it would seem that Schumer knows that, and she seemed to get more comfortable in her part-of-a-couple skin as the months went by.
In the May issue of InStyle, she acknowledged the interviewer's remark that Ben didn't appear to be competing with her for attention or success and just seemed to really appreciate her.
"It's true," Amy said. "And I've had a lot of that [competitiveness], you know? Or just people who due to their own insecurity need you to be smaller. I feel like I can shine with him and also be nothing and we're good. We've been together for almost a year and a half, but lately I'll whisper in his ear, 'I'm falling for you.' And he's just like, 'We've been together for a while.'"
The first-time InStyle cover girl said she didn't miss being single. "Not ever. Except I need a lot of alone time. Right now I'm getting my period, and I just don't like him, you know? My PMS is no joke."
Perhaps she really just wanted her space back.
But though she makes it clear she's in on the joke, at the same time, Schumer's appearance is still one of her own frequent targets.
She also told Howard, when asked if Ben was her type, physically: Actually, "I like a guy a little f--ked up. I need them to have an impediment, so I feel like I can really bring something...I want them to feel like they need me. Just give me a baby arm, or a stutter. Give me something where I feel like I'm bringing something."
We get that that's part of her shtick. Being self-deprecating and cranking up the microscope on her normalcy-painted-as-flaws in order to scathingly and insightfully make fun of society's judgmental ways are at the core of her comedy. Her willingness to call people out for being predictably shallow or misogynistic has made her a hero to women and men.
But the next time she's in a relationship, may she remember that—just like when she's on stage—she deserves it. She has nothing to prove, no matter what kind of comments people are leaving on Instagram. Aside from the difficulty of finding love in general, it's no unlikelier of a fate for her than it is for anyone else, and she should be in on that, no joke.