Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson are getting married. This is a thing that we all know because we’ve read the news, and it is a thing we all know because it is so extra on so many levels that it’s impossible not to look at it and keep looking and realize, while looking still, that it’s impossible to stop. We are now all in the Ariana/Davidson vortex, and there’s nothing anybody can do about it.
Here’s the thing: good for these strangers, for real. If they’re super happy and they want to get married, go for it. They’re adults, they’re both consenting, we have no idea what their relationship actually looks like, so to all of it I issue a “dare to dream, kids!” like an old, eccentric aunt and reconcile that I’m too tired to have real feelings about it. Even though, for the record, I absolutely have to kind of make fun of it.
I’m not great at feelings on a good day. Even when feelings are rational or when I know they’re valid or when they apply to my real life, I’d rather deep dive into anything else because emotions are messy and I hate them. And I’m fine with my discomfort with that brand of vulnerability — unless I undergo a bananas personality change, I’m never going to declare love via tweet or get engaged, well, maybe ever? (Who knows? I’m not entirely sold on marriage, if we’re being candid! #HONESTY) So, it’s only natural: when I see a couple who are truly in it after only a couple of weeks, I have to make jokes to disarm how many feelings are circulating. I can’t take it seriously in the “Aw, aren’t they cute?” sense of the word because a) they are strangers, and b) I would have a million panic attacks if any relationship I was in moved that fast, and c) when anything happens that’s intense I want to walk into the ocean and stay there. I don’t even know what to do when a couple begins saying “we” instead of “I.” I mean, how do you like ketchup chips as a team? Why can’t you just say “so-and-so and I”? Just be cool, guys. No one needs to be the “Hi, Bridg!” couple from Bridget Jones.
Which, of course, maybe this is the idea of heaven to some people. You may be reading this and be livid that I can’t understand how cute the intensity between Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson is. You might be screaming into the sun about my inability to romanticize the romance between two relative strangers. But I don’t like anything in the world to be that intense. I don’t like when people get super emotional watching TV. I don’t know what to do when people start shouting at hockey games. When somebody sneezes too loud, I immediately get super annoyed and can’t believe they can’t get a grip. Yesterday, a woman on the plane complained so loudly about the stupidest things for so long that I wanted to turn around and remind her that she is an adult woman and this was an airplane and we are in the sky so please take a second to re-examine your choices, for heaven’s sake. If any of my friends told me they were engaged after a matter of weeks, I would morph instantly into that meme of the little girl who was so weirded our by her sister’s OTT reaction to going to Disneyland. The Notebook? It’s my nightmare. Everybody in that movie needed to take a step back and re-examine their life choices.
So hey: congratulations to Pete and Ariana! I don’t know them and I likely never will, and I wish them the best because I’m not a monster who wishes strangers the worst. Do I want their relationship? Absolutely not. Do I think it’s healthy to be that intense? I have no idea. I once looked at someone who was crying and asked if food would make them stop. (So what do I know about being healthy?) And would I applaud a similar dynamic between my friends and their significant others? Please don’t make me. If only because that much earnestness is foreign to me, and I can’t take even the smallest amount of news without a joke.
And maybe this is my shortcoming! But also, if anything, watching celebrity romances unfold in a very public way has just made me more comfortable with my refusal to consume anything without a small sprinkling of cynicism. But truly: may all involved be very happy.
