I'll admit it - when it comes to celebrity, it's easy to feel like you have all the information you need to make a good judgment about a person. The reality, of course, is that you are entirely lacking any kind of context that would actually give you any insight into their real, actual character. Tom Hiddleston, perhaps, is among the ones I have personally misjudged.
Don't get me wrong - I was more or less in love with him prior to the Hiddleswift debacle. It wasn't even the infamous I 3 T.S. tank top that got me - it was that he was dating Taylor Swift, which seems incredibly ill-advised. Alas, I don't know her either, so perhaps that's another logical error on my part!
Anyway - this GQ profile was perhaps the best thing to ever happen to Tom Hiddleston or me, because it's done more than restore my faith in him as Planet Earth's Gentleman - it shows why Tom is exactly the kind of guy to fall in love with the wrong people, wear his affection on his sleeve, get his heart broken, and then have the courage to do it all over again with his poise and kindness still intact. Before we get to that, though, here's what's up with that blasted tank top:
The truth is, it was the Fourth of July and a public holiday and we were playing a game and I slipped and hurt my back. And I wanted to protect the graze from the sun and said, Does anyone have a T-shirt? And one of her friends said, Ive got this. The friend pulled out the I T.S. tank top that Taylors friends are contractually obligated to own. And we all laughed about it. It was a joke.
Whether or not he actually scuffed up his arm, it would be perfectly funny to put on that tank top upon finding it, but that's beside the point. The GQ writer, who spent two days with the dude (How?? That has to be in the cards for me, right?) explained his personality - and subsequently, his affecting charm, perfectly:
By most definitions, Tom Hiddleston isuncool. His vulnerability, his enthusiasm, his Bolognese, these are not trademarks of a dashing movie star. And yet here he is, a sweet-natured bookworm trapped in the second act of a movie where the overlooked geek has been given the face and body of the only man who should ever be allowed to wear a suit (or jeans, or that long-sleeve navy T-shirt he wore when we had dinner).
Rumor has it that Taylor Swift broke up with Tom precisely for how earnest and open he is - after all, his enthusiasm and sincerity make him transparent in a way that she might not be ready for, might not make for good breakup songs. I can't even blame her for that one - most people date people who torture them, like Swift describes in her songs, until they're grown up enough to be ready for real intimacy. And intimacy, it seems, real intimacy, is probably Hiddleston's specialty.
And that, friends, is why so many of us find him disarmingly sexy. He's got the swagger of a grown ass man - even if that means he sometimes lets his vulnerability get the best of him.
