Tom Cruise in Love

Let's say you had a friend. And that friend started acting, well, a little peculiar. He's a middle-aged guy who all of a sudden is wearing black-leather jackets, riding motorcycles and professing his undying love for a woman half his age. What would you tell this guy?

I know what I'd tell him. "Dude, you're not in love – you're just having a classic mid-life crisis."

Is that what's up with Tom Cruise? Does that explain his bizarre, couch-jumping behavior on "The Oprah Winfrey Show"? Is that why you can't hit the remote on your TV without coming across footage of Cruise sucking face in the middle of the street? Is this just the mid-life crisis of an actor in his forties who realizes that all the money and all the fame in the world can't keep him from aging? That no matter how carefully he combs his hair forward in an increasingly Trump-esque manner the signs of age are becoming increasingly apparent? That's he's not as young or as cute as he used to be? That the days of "Risky Business" are really over?

Maybe not. Maybe it's the real thing. Maybe Tom Cruise has at long last found true love with Katie Holmes, who is no doubt a very fetching young lady. Of course, it is true that they both have new movies coming out in the next couple of weeks (isn't it convenient that they should fall madly in love with each other when they both have films to promote?), and I suppose if one were to be churlish and cynical and utterly unromantic one could assume that this was all a publicity stunt to achieve synergistic publicity for both their upcoming movies.

But we're not cynical, are we? We don't think that either of these two crazy kids might be doing this merely for the sake of publicity, do we? That making out in public might not just be for the sake of making out like a bandit at the box office? That would be a cynical way of looking at it – and God knows we're not cynics.

That's why I prefer to think of this as Tom Cruise's mid-life crisis. And I'm sure that, in time, he'll get over it. Possibly with the help of a good psychiatrist.

Tom Moran