All My Future Dates Are Screwed

I came to a very important realization the other day. A friend had posted yet another witty, clever, romantic/vomit-inducing YouTube marriage proposal. Please go ahead and refer to the below video so you can sufficiently be in the same vagina-mode that I'm currently in. Go ahead. You'll enjoy it.

You enjoyed it, didn't you? You know why? BECAUSE IT'S GODDAMN FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE NOT TO! There's old people lip-syncing. A little kid trying to dance. There is nothing cuter than that. Do you realize how much ass this dude is going to get for this video? I mean.... fuck.... I'm just exhausted even thinking about it.

After I pretended I wasn't severely emotionally moved by that little production, I sat and cursed at my computer screen for a good two minutes. Roughly half the amount of time it took me to watch that entire video.

Why? Because this fucking hipster just hit the uncanny valley of romance. He's just overflowed the cup for all the rest of us guys out there. It's not good enough to just get down on a knee anymore and tell a girl, "Hey, I like you. Even when your tits hit your knees and both of us can't remember which one farted, I still want to hang out with you. Soooo. do you want to spend the rest of your life pretending you don't notice the skidmarks in my underwear?"

I mean, is this what romance leads to nowadays? Because if so then I'm going to need a goddamn marching band, a trained elephant, two of the four members of Boys II Men, and a Corgi just to even get a girl to pay attention to me.

Sorry, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but as a single guy who is out there looking for 'the one', assuming that's even a thing that actually exists. It's probably not. Pretty sure it's not. As said guy, things like these videos (and numerous others like them) leave me in a state of paralysis. I'm already fighting against the Disney-complex for fuck's sake. You know, the idea that every girl who ever existed in your suitable partner range (from the old enough to drink legally to the mid 30s and not completely a hopeless case of cat lady territory -- that's the range) has been conditioned to believe. That every girl is a princess just waiting for her prince charming to come along, sweep her off her feet with a white steed where they ride off into the sunset for their happily ever after.

But we all know about this complex. How couldn't you by now. It's not like you can't go online without hitting an Internet meme with some sassy girl sending you a fucking e-card bitching about it.

In fact, I actually thought we as men might be coming back into the clear of just having to not be total douchehats to get chicks way above and out of our league to want to sleep with us. Think about it: they were so beaten down by bad dates and dealing with selfish assholes that the 'good guys' might actually start getting a shot again.

Nope. Sorry. Still not going to happen. The universe hates us.

Why?

Because here comes all these YouTube videos people send to their girlfriends which they've done entirely with people's hands. You know the one. The one that he made and then sent out into the ethers without telling her, in hopes that it'd go viral and 'finds its way to her'.

I'll jog your memory:

Yes, she got the video. 'Cause I know you were curious. I was. So I looked it up.

But see, this is what has happened. Amazing, charming, creative fuckers like this has changed the game. No longer can you be just witty and good looking (feats in itself). Now you have to go above and beyond. And once you do, once you cross that threshold, she'll be expecting that for the rest of the time you are together. Which means we're going to hit an apex and very soon... if we haven't already done so. A pinnacle. A point where you can not physically go ANY higher. A roller coaster never just stops at the top. It has to rush back to earth at speeds that make lesser men urinate (just a little) onto themselves.

So, my question becomes this... It's not how do I ask a girl out. Technology has made that extremely easy. Trust me. In college I was a total pussy. But that was before Facebook (and, eek, MySpace) came along. But now, oh now I can use the one trait I'm really good at-- writing. And it works to my advantage like a mofo.

No, my question is how do you sweep a girl off her feet without providing her with unreasonable expectations? Because let's be honest, bitch, you ain't getting a picture book YouTube hand-drawn cartoon every damn week. I'm single and already freaked out about how one day I'm supposed to do the greatest proposal that ever existed. Like I have to rent out some island resort, fly her in a private jet where I have to fly her around to all these places where pygmies have written love letters into the sand while a marching band plays on the Queen Mary in the middle of the Caribbean while a pack of trained Corgis do a choreographed dance while wearing wedding rings around their necks (that's the important part).

I'm out of breath just thinking about it. Is it normal to have panic attacks about a future proposal that I'm nowhere even close to having to do? Can these guys just stop? Because at this rate future me is never going to have a shot. I don't even know how to make half of those shapes those people made in the video. And I can't dub-step for shit.

Fuck. I don't even want to ask a girl out anymore. Somehow "Hey, let's grab margaritas and some tacos and I'll make you laugh all night" just doesn't quite seem like it's up to snuff.

However, if that's what you're looking for, maybe you want to go out sometime then?

;)