Do you have your movie passes for the Breaking Dawn midnight premiere?

OMG! It’s only 5 weeks until Twilight Breaking Dawn is released to theaters! Aren’t you stoked, too? I can’t wait. I mean, as a grown-up and middle-aged adult there is nothing quite like geeking out over a movie about PUBESCENT vampires and werewolves pining over puppy love. Who doesn’t love melancholic teens fretting over immortality, fetal development, and gang alliances? (oh, yes I did).

Now, why all the vitrol for this modern gothic love story? Because it raises questions close to my own heart. It’s taken me a while to figure out the next highly likely truth, but this one could be one of the most important for long term individual and couple bliss. Here it is: you need to screen your potential mates for their taste and appreciation for art and entertainment. Without being an excessively pretentious windbag (oh s**t, too late for that!), let’s just say that I think that art and entertainment are so very important--they define our culture and humanity (take that VAMPIRES!). They provide richness to our daily lives, to our experience. A life devoid of art and entertainment is a life undiscovered, a life unfulfilled.

Let’s face it, you’re going to spend a long time with your mate—a lot of nights at home watching TV or listening to music or whatever. You could kill your brain cells nightly watching Two and a Half Men or some sentimental-crap drama (hello every drama on ABC!), or you could explore interesting comedy and drama, and learn a little about life and love and heartbreak and all of that “stuff.”

I’m not suggesting that you need to spend your date nights in museums (not a bad idea occasionally, at least)—you might spend most of your entertainment time outdoors enjoying the art of nature and living adventure, and that’s cool. But for goodness sakes, try to find some art and entertainment that force you to move beyond your comfort zone and challenge your understanding of the world and beauty.

I feel like my best experiences in life have come from encounters with art and the very best have been shared with my spouse. I think that a large part of our happiness comes from our ability to share those moments—we have similar taste and that facilitates our growth together as a couple and as individuals.

Just like you can’t be happy married to someone who is much smarter or dumber than you, the same goes for art and entertainment (if that hits close to home, well, you’re stuck now so make the best of it). You won’t really be happy married to a bumpkin who likes country music and Transformers movies if you are a classical music, Shakespeare fanatic. You can be content, but you’re highly unlikely to get the full potential of what a marriage can afford you. There’s nothing like talking about the pain of losing true love and your husband replying “I know! Just like when Optimus Prime has to sacrifice the Autobots, it totally sucked!"

Now grant me a minute here to “hate” on Twilight and explain something important: How seriously could you take an adult man who waited in line with his male buddies to watch the midnight premiere of the Hannah Montana movie or who couldn’t wait to see Selena Gomez in concert? You wouldn’t and you couldn’t—plus, it’s creepy. And guess what adult, MARRIED women— it’s creepy that you’re on Team Jacob or Team Edward. You’re a closet pedophile—ok, that’s over the line (maybe).

But that’s not to say that you can’t have GUILTY PLEASURES. Actually, guilty pleasures are very important to having a refined appreciation for art and entertainment. Guilty pleasures keep us from being pretentious, snobbish, archaic, uninteresting, and stunted. Guilty pleasures bring us joy and happiness. They are silly, and lowbrow. Guilty pleasures allow us to join broader conversations about what’s going on in pop culture. But knowing the birthdates of all the Kardashians is definitely pointless—you could fill your empty head with a few brighter facts and ideas. But every yin needs at least a little yang. Keep them legal--no Beiber posters please!

Guilty pleasures have to be exactly that—an occasional diversion. Some guilty pleasures we enjoy with our friends; some you should probably keep to yourself—like this: last week I sat at my piano and jammed out to Katy Perry’s “ET”. I love teeny pop like Katy, Britny, and any other bimbo with a “y” at the end of her name. But that’s not what I primarily listen to and play. And I’m not proud of my teen pop love. It’s my occasional diversion.

And so that I’m not accused of being a sexist pig, let me be clear that plenty of men have stupid guilty pleasures. I can identify a big one with 10 little letters—VIDEO GAMES. Seriously men, you should never admit to having played a video game without a child holding one of the controllers after you turn 25. You may still enjoy them—but you shouldn’t because you’re now a grown up and that makes it a guilty pleasure.

Thank heavens my wife has a very similar taste quotient (TQ) and her guilty pleasures are all ok with me and I think that my guilty pleasures are ok with her.

So, any of you brave enough to post on Facebook your Guilty Pleasure?