This weekend while you were busy focusing on the 15 hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes, and tsunamis that were bearing down on the U.S., you may have missed news of another horrifying natural disaster than unexpectedly struck Bristol, U.K. this Saturday. I’m talking, of course, about 34-year-old Luke Howard, who went viral setting up a piano on College Green so that he can play continuously until he “gets his girlfriend back.” Now, if you’ll excuse me, I just groaned so loud my coworkers demanded I go to the hospital.
Ugh. Where to begin? Reading this guy’s fake-romantic scheme literally made me want to fly to Bristol, befriend him, and date him, just so that I could dump his ridiculous ass myself. And before you go all, “Aww! But people do crazy things to win back their true love!” fucking pause yourself because Luke Howard had not found his true love. In fact, he and the “girl who changed his life” had actually only been dating for four months. FOUR MONTHS?!? If I’m dating a guy for four months and he so much as breathes in my direction after I break up with him, that’s grounds for a restraining order. A four month relationship is like, nothing. Was this guy low-key a contestant on The Bachelor? Serious question.
More importantly, unless this girl broke up with him for not playing enough piano (broken up with guys for weirder reasons TBH…), this scheme is not going to work. Hey Luke: Maybe instead of creating an embarrassing public spectacle to try and shame this woman into returning to your creepy arms, you should just like, work on whatever it is she dumped you for? Radical idea, I know, but maybe, just maybe, this girl broke up with you because of your insane, stalker-ish personality, and playing the first few bars of Vanessa Carlton’s A Thousand Miles over and over again isn’t going to help with that.
And to anyone who says this is romantic: please take every fucking seat. This is exactly the kind of stalker-ish, Edward Cullen-esque behavior that makes women the subject of a Netflix true crime documentary. IDK how laws work in the U.K., but this guy should be arrested immediately on suspicion of being a dumbass. It would def save his poor ex girlfriend a lot of trouble.
Oh, and of course, this guy looks exactly like you’d imagine him to look. Seriously. Take a moment to picture him in your mind. Did he look like this?
See what I mean. And let’s not even get into the fact that this Piano Man 34 years old. This is a grown-ass man. He should be scheduling his first prostate exam, not subjecting his classmates to some pathetic public Seth Cohen impression.
Even more infuriating? While Luke didn’t give up the name of his beloved (how kind), he has referred to her in the media exclusively as his “Rapunzel.” Barf. Every barf. So much barf that it fills up College Green and the area is forced to evacuate. This woman isn’t a princess, dude. She’s a student who is trying to go to class without running into her ex, his piano, and some washed out Sam Smith cover. And let’s not even get into the troubling “I want to trap you in a tower” imagery that comes into play here.
So why did he do this? Apart from like, wanting attention, which I can low-key respect. He said the breakup, “Wasn’t anything nasty or bad, it was just life getting in the way. If it was anything bad why we split up then. I wouldn’t be doing this, but it’s the only thing I can think of doing. I know people in this situation usually send flowers or text or write letters but that only ever seems to make things worse.”
Okay, so, first of all, if there wasn’t a “reason” why you guys broke up apart from “life getting in the way” then the “reason” is that she’s just not that into you, and you should leave her the fuck alone. Second of all, you are literally making it worse. Way, way worse.
And if anyone out there isn’t convinced that Luke did this 10% for love and 90% for the likes, check this out:
That’s right. He put up a sign with his Instagram handle that asked people to “please like and share my page.” I’m sorry, but I thought this was for your girlfriend? Does she not know your Instagram handle? Did you break up because not enough people liked and shared your page? I’m confused. Also, your handwriting looks like shit. Don’t you have a girlfriend who could have written this out for you? Oh…wait…
If I were this girl’s friend, I would tell her to run, not walk, away from this forlorn fuckboy. Here’s hoping he’s stuck playing that piano for a very, very long time.
