The Diminishing Probability of
Kanye West Falling in Love With Me
I am sorry to report that my love for Kanye — as deep and true as it may be — is not reciprocated
I was 57 seconds into Kanye West’s new music video “Only One” — at precisely the moment I realized he is holding his own spawn — when the horrible truth dawns on me: Kanye West is never, ever going to fall in love with me.
Let me back track a little.
I am madly in love with Kanye West. I am sorry to report that this feeling — as deep and true as it may be — is not reciprocated. That’s because Kanye has never met me.
Twice in my life I’ve been within 20 meters of Kanye, when — by some stroke of luck — the opportunity may have arisen for him to get to know me and consequently fall in love with me.
The first time was in 2011, at his Watch the Throne tour in Vancouver. I will never forget the vision of him in a black viking leather skirt. At the end of the show, he and Jay Z rapped “Niggas In Paris” more times than even I could count. By this stage, a third of the crowd had tossed their beer cups and sauntered out to try and beat the traffic. Philistines. I could wait the rest of them out, and Jay Z, too. Soon it would be just Kanye and me. The spotlight would shine down on me, and the rest would be history. But it didn’t happen like that. What a total fucking heartbreak.
The second time was last year in Washington, D.C., at sundown on a freezing Saturday afternoon. I was trying to walk down an inner city street, but was stopped by two police officers.
“We’re cordoning off the road,” they said. They told me the reason was that Kanye West was staying there and had a show tonight.
“Do you know Kanye? He’s a famous rapper,” one officer asked me.
I looked at him, unable to speak. Do I know Kanye? This was my chance. If I could just leverage my Australian accent to sweet-talk my way through several squadrons of gatekeepers, perhaps I could sneak into Kanye’s suite under the auspices of being the help. I could even find myself one of those maid outfits, like J.Lo in Maid In Manhattan. Kanye would like that. It could work.
“Yeah,” said the officer, jolting me from my scheme. “He’s staying here with his wife, Kim Kardashian. Do you know her? She’s that famous celebrity.”
I narrowed my eyes to death stare. Famous celebrity.
“Famous for being famous,” I muttered to myself as I re-routed across an icy patch of grass. More pangs of loss.
This year, I’ve been having a recurring dream where I’m called upon to direct a Kanye West music video, the central premise being a moody, minimalist shower scene. Just as Kanye is de-robing, my camera doesn’t switch on. Before I have time to troubleshoot, the opportunity has been swept away from me and I’m awake — sweat-soaked mattress and shattered dreams.
Anyway…
For more than a decade now, I’ve been interpreting the lyrics of Kanye’s songs like subliminal messages. Subliminal from his end — he’s sending them to me on a deeper, subconscious level — because he still doesn’t know I exist, so it’s hard for him to grasp what he’s saying to me.
When I hear Kanye’s music, my heart aches. My chest tightens. My brain chemistry changes. All the physiological signs of true love. Earbuds in, I haunt New York City, overcome with a sensual combination of vague melancholy (that he is not already mine) and piercing hope (that one day soon he will be).
I’d always seemed to think Kanye would be sexually available forever. All his other albums had reassured me of this, in one way or another. But now, from “Only One” — the first music video off his soonish-to-be released 2015 album So Help Me God — it’s clear that I’ll never be in a reciprocal romantic relationship with Kanye.
This music video is more than just him being a horny husband (as depicted in the horrible honeymoon-period that produced 2013's “Bound 2”). No. This new music video — featuring his daughter, North West, (whom he produced with she whose name shall not be spoken) — is him announcing to the world that he has stepped into the role of devoted dad.
If it were any other celebrity crush (of which I have exactly none) — I could tell myself that they’ll be divorced soon. But not Kanye. Kanye’s doggedly loyal to the women in his life. Like his mother, who he held on the kitchen floor and told, “Imma love you til you don’t hurt no more” in 2005's “Hey Mama.” His devotion is so fierce that he’s completely unaware of this being an inappropriate thing to say to your mother.
And now there is not one woman but two. And one is progeny.
It should be noted that the list below seems preoccupied with sexual intercourse. I am totally against meaningless sexual promiscuity, but if one wants Kanye West to fall in love with them, one really does have to meet him where he is. As they say, you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs. (Mum/Dad/Blood Relations — STOP READING HERE.)
Also, odds are calculated as a probability out of 5,900,000 (that is, 11.9 million Twitter followers adjusted to omit half, who, by very broad statistical simplification, are probably are not sexually attracted to Kanye).
I guess that is sufficient background to this testament of love and loss. Here’s my sorry story, as told chronologically thru his own songs:
2004: Kanye Fucks Anything That Moves
(And that could be me, if I was in the right place at the right time.)
Single: “The New Workout Plan” | Album: The College Dropout (2004)
Lyrics: “Tell me who’s invited: you, your friends and my dick/What’s scary to me is Henny makes girls look like Halle Berry to me/So excuse me, miss, I forgot your name/Thank you, God bless you, good night I came/I came… I came…”
Derived meaning: This one is pretty self-explanatory: Kanye is inviting me for casual sex in a bar, or perhaps within close proximity to a bar. However, this attractive proposition is not without it’s downsides: A. He seems not to be overly picky with which women are awarded this privilege, probably because B. his cognac goggles are lowering his standards, and C. he’s treating all sexual encounters as disposable.
Odds of Kanye falling in love with me: 7/5,900,000. Everyone knows that meaningless sex is just a front for secretly wanting to find true companionship, right?
2005: Kanye Has So Much Pussy, He Doesn’t Know What to do With It
(Despite this, he remains open to new opportunities.)
Single: “Gold Digger” ft. Jamie Foxx | Album: Late Registration (2005)
Lyrics: “I know this dude’s balling, but yeah that’s nice/And they gone keep calling and trying/But you stay right, girl/But when you get on he leave your ass for a white girl”
Derived meaning: Did someone say white girl? I’m a white girl! Clearly this is neither social commentary nor fictional narrative — Kanye is telling me he’s going to leave his supermodel girlfriend for me. Probably.
Odds of Kanye falling in love with me: 6/5,900,000.
2007: Kanye is Tiring of Casual Sex and is Crying Out for Someone Special
(Someone who breaks the supermodel mold!?)
Single: “Stronger” | Album: Graduation (2007)
Lyrics: “I need you to hurry up now/‘Cause I can’t wait much longer/So how the hell could you front on me?/There’s a thousand you’s, there’s only one of me”
Derived meaning: With all this success, Kanye has developed a superiority complex. Admittedly, he’s won more Grammy Awards than me, so this brazen entreaty for me to become an international celebrity of acclaim (in an art form yet to be determined) so that I can register on his radar is not unreasonable.
Odds of Kanye falling in love with me: 5/5,900,000. Once I become famous, Kanye may well see me for what I really am, which is awesome. Now, in which art form can I rise to meteoric success the quickest?
2008: Kanye is Hung Up on This Girl
(Whoever she is, some hope lies in a rebound encounter of the twisted, masochistic variety.)
Single: “Heartless” | Album: 808s & Heartbreak (2008)
Lyrics: “In the night, I hear them talk/The coldest story ever told/Somewhere far along this road, he lost his soul/To a woman so heartless”
Derived meaning: Kanye is at his most emotionally vulnerable and most likely drinking heavily. I should strike while the iron is hot! But even if I can get his attention, the potential of him falling into the dark rabbit hole of love again so soon is questionable.
Odds of Kanye falling in love with me: 4/5,900,000
2010: Kanye Remains Available for Emotionally Checked-Out Sex
Single: “Runaway” | Album: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010)
Lyrics: “I’m so gifted to finding/What I don’t like the most/So I think it’s time/For us to have a toast/24/7, 365 pussy stays on my mind…”
Derived meaning: Despite being a mega-famous rapper with a string of über-hot hookups, Kanye is sexually and intellectually unsatisfied with the constant parade of supermodels and their flawed personalities. Despite this, he continues to be obsessed with claiming as many sexual partners as possible. And maybe he wants to buy me a drink. Cristal, most likely.
Odds of Kanye falling in love with me: 3/5,900,000. The admission that “24/7, 365, pussy stays on my mind” seems to indicate that Kanye may never again fall in romantic love with anyone. But I still can’t let go of the hope that if I could at least get into his peripheral vision, there is a statistically significant chance of him sexually objectifying me to some degree, and a small but not completely impossible chance of romantic love flowing from this.
2011: Houston, We Have a Problem
Single: “No Church in the Wild” | Album: Watch the Throne (2011)
Lyrics: “No sins as long as there’s permission/And deception is the only felony/So never fuck nobody wit’ out tellin’ me”
Derived meaning: Kanye is in an open relationship with someone. While I should be heartened by the implication that he is still looking at other women, I think he’s just fronting. Also, the noticeable lack of sexual objectification of any women in this music video is gravely concerning.
Odds of Kanye falling in love with me: 2/5,900,000.
2013: What. The. Fuck. Is. This?
Single: “Bound 2” | Album: Yeezus (2013)
Lyrics: “Hey, you remember where we first met?/And hey, ayo, we made it, Thanksgiving/So hey, maybe we can make it to Christmas/Maybe we could still make it to the church steps”
Derived meaning: Okay, so now Kanye is simulating look-into-my-eyes-and-feel-the-feelings sex with Kim K. on a motorbike. Maybe Kanye is just having existential crisis, and thinks that settling down with someone is the antidote. Maybe he is out of his mind, because this whole sorry production is clearly under the direction of someone who is drunk on love.
Perhaps Kanye has forgotten penning this universal truth, but I certainly haven’t: “Love is cursed by monogamy” (“No Church in the Wild,” 2011). Yes Kim, you’re on borrowed time.
Who am I kidding? Even if he falls out of love with her and in love with me, the same rule that drove him away will then become my fate… But at this stage, I really will just take anything I can get.
Odds of Kanye falling in love with me: 1/5,900,000.
2015: No Fucking Chance
Single: “Only One” | Album: So Help Me God (2015)
Lyrics: Honestly, I haven’t even listened to these lyrics. Nothing matters anymore. North West — adorable spawn of Kimye — is now in Kanye’s video, and all hope is lost.
Odds: 0/5,900,000.
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Top Photo by Kevin Mazur | WireImage
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