Dear Ryan Gosling,
So, you probably don’t remember me, but two years ago (a year and a half, actually –– April 10, 2008, according to my gchat archives), I was going to the gym near my old office for lunch (to eat, not to work out). That day I was wearing a long skirt, even though they’re unflattering on me because I’m so small, and I think my hair was kind of greasy, day-three-without-showering-greasy, perhaps. Any way, as I was strolling down sunny Lexington Avenue, I noticed a handsome young man in a t-shirt and jeans and Ray-Bans holding the glass door of the gym open so he could talk to a friend of his (brown Jew fro, leather jacket, shades) who was standing on the street. The features of the fellow holding the door open looked quite familiar, and as I approached I realized it was you, Ryan Gosling.
“Holy shit,” I said in my head. I was careful not to let my mouth act before my brain, like the time I saw Olivier Martinez at an outdoor café in Paris and yelled out “Holy Mother of God” and then stared upward and pretended to be talking about a cloud shaped like the Oscar Meyer Weiner. As I walked toward the door, I felt that weird cosmic pull that causes all neighborhood cats to howl at certain times and fractured eighties bands to reunite because I realized you would be conveniently holding the door open as I was about to enter the gym.
“Hello,” you said, as you held the door like a real gentleman.
But it wasn’t just “hello” like the way you would greet the bagel guy or a taxi driver or your chubby but painfully friendly coworker or anything. You said, “Heh-Lo-ow.” There was CLEARLY a flirty lilt to it. “He-Low” like, “Hey, you’re kind of cute, even if you’re wearing a floor-length skirt and look like you haven’t washed your hair in a few days.” Or like, “I know you haven’t been nominated for an Oscar, but you look kind of smart and interesting and I’d like to get to know you.” Or even, “This may sound strange, but will you marry me?”
And the answer is yes, Ryan Gosling, I will.
You see, Ryan, I’ve had a thing for you since I was a little tyke and you were on The Mickey Mouse Club, the nineties version with Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake and Keri Russell, whose hair I envied with a fire so red it burned inside. I remember picking you out of that grinning, finger-snapping line of adolescents and thinking, “That one.” I loved a good brooding boy even back then, which explains why my other big crush was on Ethan Hawke, who starred in the Disney version of White Fang. In any case, I remember you so clearly, I swear, although I hope that doesn’t sound creepy. I’m really not one of those yelping teenage girls who tracks the moves of their desired famous paramours via Twitter and Perez Hilton, etc. Okay, so I happen to see that little item about how you were helping a friend in Brooklyn recently, but that was pure coincidence. I was researching the socio-cultural topography of Brooklyn and how it is manifested in the trucking industry, and those pictures of you being super helpful and lifting your friend’s couch just happened to come up. Strong arms, you have.
But seriously, Ryan Gosling, I’m a big fan of your work. I saw The Believer in college. Takes an actor with guts to play a Jewish Neo-Nazi. I’m still a sucker for brooding, conflicted man, it seems. Half Nelson was fantastic also, and the Academy agreed. I would have had 10,000 of Dan Dunne’s crack babies. The Notebook was a little sappy for my taste, but you looked great, and I can’t help but be sucked into the meta-romance that everyone knows by now was occurring at the time. Rachel McAdams is really cute, even if I’m obliged to hate her a little because she’s your ex, and the insightful and painfully romantic things you said about her and your love affair in interviews afterward are directly lifted from the love story script in my mind.
“She’s not someone you can dismiss or put into any category. She’s many things.”
Be still my heart.
I have read, recently, that you are planning to release an album and working on your DJing skills, and while I tend to not approve of actors-turned-musicians (or vice versa), I’ll support you in this because that’s just the kind of partner I am.
So excuse me for going all Never Been Kissed on your ass, but I’m pretty sure the feelings are mutual, and so I’m posting this letter on my blog, because you seem like the kind of chill dude who would google “George W. S. Trow” or something and then champion the tiny, obsessive, wandering wannabe nonfiction writer who maintains an equal parts genuinely melancholy and intellectually pretentious blog. I bet you can talk about Infinite Jest. So, if you’d like to hang out, get a coffee, talk bastardized poetry and stare deeply into one another’s eyes, you can be at “our spot”, the Equinox on 63rd and Lexington Avenue in New York, on Saturday, December 12th at noon. I’ll be by the smoothie end of the counter. Outfit to be determined. This time, for sure, though, my hair will be clean.
Here’s to years of romance that rivals cinema.
Love,
ID.
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