I try to like Jennifer Aniston, I really do, but the fact that she seems to say the same thing over and over again makes it hard for me. She was my favorite actress on Friends and I loved her character, but she hasn’t done any films that I’ve particularly admired. Maybe that will change with this new crop of movies she’s putting out.

In interviews Aniston seems alternately likable and uninteresting depending on who she’s talking to. I found her very down to earth and endearingly self-deprecating on Oprah, but on Letterman she came across as out of her element, as if she had nothing to talk about. (Many of you pointed out that this could as much be Letterman’s fault for failing to establish a rapport and put her at ease.) Now Aniston has a new interview with Elle, and I hope that the excerpt in the NY Post, below, either doesn’t capture the essence of the interview, and/or that Aniston was just going along with the questions she was asked. She talks about being an icon for lonely women and about her pain at her parents’ divorce. I kind of feel like it’s more of the same from her. Kate Winslet talks the same crap in every interview about being proud of her gorgeous figure, though, so I guess Aniston can get on the therapists couch and reveal a bunch of pseudo-personal information if that’s her bag. What’s more is that she’s posing sexy with her shirt open, like just about every other photoshoot she’s done recently.

How can this be the girl nobody wants to love?

Sultry Jennifer Aniston — striking a sexy, shirtless pose for Elle magazine — says she doesn’t mind that her dismal dating life has earned her the label “the lonely girl.”

“I’m not going to ig nore the pink elephant in the living room,” the stunning 40-year-

old cracks in an in terview that hits stands this week. “It’s fine. I can take it,” she says.

Aniston — whose beaus since her 2005 split with hubby Brad Pitt have included Vince Vaughn, model Paul Sculfor and John Mayer — said she’s fully supportive of “anybody who is in a place that’s not their strongest [but] is ready to push forward.”

“If I’m the emblem for ‘this is what it looks like to be the lonely girl getting on with her life,’ so be it.” Aniston said.

“I can make fun of myself,” she said. “And I’ll bring it up as long as the world is bringing it up.”

Humor has long been Aniston’s strong suit.

“I remember being 7 and asking my mom if I was as pretty as [my best friend] Monique,” the actress recounted. “And with all the love in the world, my mom looked at me and said, ‘Oh, honey, you’re so funny.’

“So, she doesn’t lie to me . . . She answers the question by not answering and instead tells me what she thinks is my greatest strength.”

Her parents, Aniston recalled, were funny and made each other laugh “like nobody’s business.”

“I put a lot of value in that at a very young age,” she said.

Aniston told the mag that her love woes are nothing compared with the “brick walls” she’s had to break through from her childhood.

The hardest part: “My dad walking out and not seeing him for a year and not knowing where he was . . . Trying to understand, ‘Where did that person go?’ ” she explained.

Aniston’s actor parents, Nancy Dow and John Aniston, split when she was 9.

The star says that if she weren’t an actress, her dream job would be to become a microsurgeon.

“The intense focus and detail . . . completely fascinate me,” she said.

[From the NY Post]

If Aniston admires microsurgery so much, why doesn’t she get a hobby that requires fine motor skills, like beading or embroidering? I just want to hear something else from her other than reflections on her single status and yet another sexy photoshoot. Is the media pigeonholing Jennifer Aniston or does she just not have much more to offer? She’s certainly been the victim of quotes getting rehashed and reused, but where are the damn new quotes?