Is Tom's Love Life Cruisin' for a Bruisin'?

May 31, 2005 — -- You could bring in the world's greatest pinchers to do their business on me and I'd still think I was dreaming. Did I hear this right … that Tom Cruise says he's "madly in love" with Katie Holmes and eager to walk her down the aisle?

I say two things: OUCH! (from the pinching) and PULEEAASE! (from the sheer ridiculousness of the whole thing).

The notion of an older man (he's 42) dating a younger woman (she's 26) is nothing new or unusual. What is unusual is Cruise's over-the-top behavior, and it makes the whole romance suspect, to say the least.

His story, which he is so eager to tell (clue No. 1 that this is strange) is that he had a keen interest in her, called her up, had some conversations, and the next thing you know, she's his girlfriend.

The deal is, Cruise and Holmes had never even met until April when he called her, invited her to his office and spent four hours chit-chatting. He asked her out for sushi, according to US Weekly. The sushi date, by the by, was on his private jet at a "cruising" altitude of 15,000 feet. After din-din, they went for a motorcycle ride and a walk on the beach. By the end of the month, they were off to Rome for Italy's version of the Oscars and she was close by his side as they dined with dignitaries

And then … they're everywhere. They're vacationing in Mexico. They're kissing on the cover of every magazine and universally declared Hollywood's hottest couple (although she always looks like a deer in the headlights instead of a woman being wooed).

Then, last Monday, the Big Kahuna sits down with Oprah to coo about his relationship, and Holmes pops out of the green room just to mouth, "I love you" to him on camera.

Her story is that she split from fiancé Chris Klein in January, after five years together. In recent months, she'd been romantically linked to Josh Hartnett. Then, Cruise calls her up, they talk for hours on end, day after day, and that was it. They were head-over-heels.