Nice one, asshole: Why I am sick of OTT YouTube wedding proposal romance porn.

Came across this video currently with 13 million fucking view plus.

What is this guy trying to do to every other guy that follows his lame (but cute and endearing) arse? The world is already a glut of romantic porn that’s mentally being masturbated on by a whole swath of unknowing subjects, and soppy romance fetishism like this honestly just adds to the problem. How is his marriage itself going to top that one? That mother fucker will have to learn to sword swallow or skin an alligator and make her some shoes right before he says, “I do.” Then, for any of us who are already married, this is a “fuck you” for only carrying out the bare minimum when it came to making a marriage proposal.

Okay, personally, I nailed it, but it wasn’t a very big nail.

That guy isn’t homeless; he is just recharging his bottle of ionised water.

Not that it was a shit-house proposal, but it wasn’t videoed and put on YouTube, it didn’t have a Chris Brown song attached, and it lasted all of 30 seconds, rather than 365 days of preparation. I was lucky, mind you; my now-wife made it very clear she loathed this idea of getting married and believe it was an outdated, useless institution. We got married for, really, the practical reason of having kids together, as in Mediterranean countries, unless they are married, co-inhabiting couples aren’t recognised as a legal entity (even if they have kids together). So she set the bar pretty low, and I delivered something that matched. When I asked her, “Will you marry me?” she was about as underwhelmed as you could get. I saw her more excited when she bought a Taj Mahal on Farmville. Still, the proposal suited me just fine, as I’m also not that sentimental or romantic in that kind of way (as you can imagine, I am only into ironic post-modern non-romantic romance).

Stopping making me feel lazy, you prick.

All class

This guy takes it to the next level of uber future-wife worship. In this 365-day countdown, our Clark Kent love bot declares his undying love/obsession/worship of his assumed future wife. He counts down 365 days holding up signs saying, “Will you marry me?” or words to that effect, in front of a camera, every day FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR. I admit, I didn’t watch them all, so maybe he does show a cheeky  “I have herpes” sign just to see if you kept watching past day 297. Christ, that is truly consistent and committed. Jezus, he makes me feels super lazy. I would forget at least a few days and need to roll a week in just a few takes. Actually, make that a few months. If learning Spanish is any benchmark as to my ability to be consistent, I think I would have lasted about 5 days before consolidating the project into one big sign that read:

“Will you marry me? Feb 1st to Jan29th, you get the idea. P.S. If we are at my mum’s trailer rather than a 5-star hotel in Aruba, it means I didn’t win the poker tournament as expected.”

He introduces the video by telling her he thinks about her every day, every second. When I broke into my ex’s flat and wrote the same thing in blood and peanut butter on her dining table it was used as evidence to justify a restraining order against me, and the judge labelled me “super creepy.” Lavario over here says it, and it’s like the money shot of romance porn. Go figure!

The growing pandemic

Don’t worry she won’t wake up she has been roofed.

Watching it holds your interest for about 5 days of the countdown, when, I am assuming, you just jump to day 1 hoping he gets rejected. Spoiler alert: he doesn’t. Of course, there’s not much pressure on the future wifey, just the whole family ringed in, a holiday in Aruba, and 365 days of build-up. How can she say no with such a fucking long-winded production? Videos such as these are becoming more and more common, with guys entering a romantic pissing contest of the century. This one is drawn out, but it’s low-key compared to some colossal vanity and Disney-level productions. Yet how can this not be setting the bar way too high? I can’t help thinking of years from now on their 10^th anniversary, when he buys her a cheap gold bracelet and she screams at him that if he only put as much thought into their anniversaries as he did the proposal their marriage wouldn’t be dying an agonising death from the inside.

Yes, PDAs make me feel uncomfortable.

Can it get classier? Yes it can I should know.

Maybe not. Maybe she will maintain her Cinderella-like qualities and he will continue to successfully worship the very ground she walks upon. I know I can sound like a grumpy cynical grouch, and in many ways I know I am. I was brought up by parents quite undemonstrative and unromantic, so seeing people super in love and devoted to each other always leaves me with a cringe-inducing sense of inner repellingness. I know that’s part of my own inherent discomfort with unabashed public romance (“Get a room, losers” is what feel like yelling when I see any couple passionately kissing. How dare you display such love and intimacy?), yet there is also that part of me that’s realistic about what any person can be to another. I honestly wish them all the best, along with all the other uber marriage proposal couples out there, but it seems a striking feature of modern culture to put so many emotional expectations on our romantic others. With our lives becoming more and more alienated, disenfranchised, and isolated, and suffering a loss of real connections, our romantic “others” bear a greater and greater burden of being our “everythings.”

Insert “social commentary” to justify putting this rant on the blog.

Community was once a rich source of a cross section of relationships made of romance, friendship, family relations, comrades, and various connections to both young and old. All these varieties of relationship dynamics sustained our social emotional bonds that we require to feel security, belonging and closeness. Now RomComs and the deluge of modern media has brainwashed us into thinking that some sincere soul, whose family of origin is secretly traumatised and dysfunctional, can be all that and more! Our ego projects all it isn’t (but wants to be) on a person who could never be capable of living up to these expectations. I kind of felt some compassion for both of these people, the proposer and the proposed, as to hold up any relationship to such lofty and ethereal reaches seems a set-up doomed to be let down by the daily grind of life and its biting relentless monotony. So, my advice to any guys thinking of topping Mr. 365 would be to set the bar in such a way that there is room for growth, maturity, and improvement. Also, ditch any auto-tuned songs sung by domestic abusers, and maybe just don’t film it or put it on YouTube. Instead, just preserve its sacred moment as an exclusive for only the memories of you and your future other.