I Want Love

I am bad at dating. I am good at the internet. I’m turning to the internet for dating advice.

However, I’ve used up all the regular advice (e.g. be yourself, be engaged, stop being so depressed, maybe leave your house once in awhile, Jason, this is your mother and I’m really worried about you please answer your phone) and refuse to turn to PUA literature, so I have to take paths less trod in hopes of picking up a thing or two about love. What better place to start than with an Elton John music video in which Robert Downey Jr lip-syncs?

In this classic bag of saccharin angst, Elton Johney Jr wants love. But it’s impossible. Because he’s a cold, scarred, celebrity portmandude. In his own words:

I want love, but it's impossible
A man like me, so irresponsible
A man like me is dead in places
Other men feel liberated

I can't love, shot full of holes
Don't feel nothing, I just feel cold
Don't feel nothing, just old scars
Toughening up around my heart

How novel. A man with a frozen heart needs it melted. I’m not sure this is helping me a lot, but let us press on. Perhaps there will be a manic pixie dream girl? Let’s see what the chorus brings us.

But I want love, just a different kind
I want love, won't break me down
Won't brick me up, won't fence me in
I want a love, that don't mean a thing
That's the love I want, I want love

You see, he wants a love but not one that makes him work. That would be too much stress, I’d imagine. After all, there’s a whole empty house of lonely metaphor in which to pace about.

I want love on my own terms
After everything I've ever learned
Me, I carry too much baggage
Oh man I've seen so much traffic

I think this video came at an interesting time for RDJ’s career and personal arc because … ugh, who even gives a crap? I barely remember the details and don’t want to look them up. It was a thing that RDJ was in this video because of something, rehab maybe? Whatever, this isn’t helping me one bit. Let’s get on to the more important business of reading YouTube comments.

The top comments:

Uh oh. That portmanteau joke aside, my French is really rusty. Thankfully, we only have to look futher to the internet for help.

And by French, I clearly meant Portuguese.

Either Google is tricking me to keep me cycling between it products, or both these top commenters got to the video because of Google Earth, which is what came up after I Googled “Historical Imagery Portuguese.” Apparently, Google Earth lets you travel in time now. In Beijing. Is this what they meant?

Wait … aha! You can also travel in time in London. Elton John is British! There’s the connection. How deep does this conspiracy go? Will the Google time travel capabilities take me back far enough to unravel it? And how are the Portuguese to blame?

Let’s see. Google owns YouTube, where this mess all started. And Eric Schmidt, longtime Google CEO went to Princeton, named after the town in which it resides, named after a … prince … who might be of the same royal lineage as one Sir Elton John … and … there have also been three Prince Johns in Portuguese history!

All the pieces fit together now. I can’t find love because Sir Elton Johney Jr comes from some line of Portuguese nobility that now controls Google, which has been sabotaging my relationships to ensure I’ll remain single and have time to look at YouTube videos.

It’s a perfect plan. Google provides easy access pornography and then leaves your browsing history and email account one haphazard turn of the back away from the snooping eyes of your significant other. All the tools to destroy a relationship in one place.

It goes deeper than just YouTube though. Google is ruining all our love lives in an effort to destabilize our support systems so that we’re forced to rely on its products. Who has time for YouTube or Googling saucy pictures of Elton John when they are actually having sex? Nobody. That’s a loss for YouTube, Google, and, most of all Senhor Elton John; it’s his worst fear realized. Our love is his misery.

[Is this the different kind?]

Thank God (Graças a Deus!) those brave Portuguese commenters came along to expose this conspiracy. And, in a round-about way, I think I found the advice I was looking for. I’m going to get off the computer and talk to women right in their faces, in the real world, away from the prying eyes of Google.

So bring it on, I've been bruised
Don't give me love that's clean and smooth
I'm ready for the rougher stuff
No sweet romance, I've had enough

I want love!