Ben Affleck Ruins Everything

God dammit, Ben Affleck, why do you gotta go ruin god damn everything? I totally defended you after the Gigli era — I even watched that thing — and this is how you betray me? By (allegedly) pushing apart the beautiful friendship of Mark Ruffalo and Jennifer Garner? This is a travesty.

Ruffalo and Garner's friendship blossomed on the set of 13 Going On 30 approximately a decade ago. (Fun fact: 13 Going On 30 came out when I was 13 years old, which might be why I'm so invested.) Then Garner got together with Ben Affleck and everything went to shit.

Well, to be fair, it actually seems like everything went pretty well for Affleck and Garner — their kids are, like, really cute — but in terms of a potentially legendary friendship with Hollywood's most appealing man things were pretty much at an end. Maybe Affleck was jealous because the world wasn't finding him all that appealing at that point?

This all came to be laid bare during a recent appearance Ruffalo made on Watch What Happens Live!, when a caller asked if he kept in touch with Garner after their time together as Jenna and Matty. He shook his head forlornly and replied:

We had a great time together, and I think we would, but then Ben [Affleck] came on the scene and that was the end of that.

Then host Andy Cohen made a joke (I'll repeat for emphasis: joke; don't write any think-pieces about it) that Affleck doesn't allow Garner to have any male friends, and Ruffalo shrugged and commented that he felt sad that they lost touch. The only conceivable way Ben Affleck could make this up to me would be to get Jennifer Garner hired into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. She was Sydney Bristow, she could hack it.

My favorite thing about this story remains the graphic US Weekly used, which makes Affleck look like the snooty third-act love interest — the James Mardsen in The Notebook, if you will — to Mark Ruffalo's destined soulmate. Hollywood is weird.

GOD DAMMIT, BEN AFFLECK.

Image: Columbia Pictures; Tumblr