Married By Midnight!

The Christmas Rom-Com I'm gonna believe into being.

Last night as I lay in my bed at Londo Lodge, I burst into tears. I have less than 24 hours to come up with the entirety of my mortgage or I will fail the trail period I am on with my lender, the one meant to get me back on track to paying my mortgage every month on time (isn’t this the plot to the “Brady Bunch Movie”?). I took a few days off this past weekend to enjoy Halloween, the first days since spring I’d done so. But I immediately regretted it. I am beyond exhausted from spinning my wheels trying to figure out how to make all this work. Make no mistake, a lot of the work I’m doing is leading to payoff, but it feels like the payoff might come too late to stave off some of the negative consequences of losing my main income source over the past few years.

Big picture, I’ve booked a few content marketing projects that should make me solvent by New Year. But until then I’m not totally sure what to do. For the past month, I’ve been waking up between 1:30 and 3 AM, unable to go back to sleep. Monday night, I went to bed at 10 PM, woke up at 1:30 AM, and began driving to the lodge at 4 AM. I’m not even processing the stress anymore, my body just feels it and acts accordingly. But the lack of sleep has started to lead to some random power downs where I just sort of melt.

Last night in bed, something occurred to me that I hadn’t really thought about before, or if so, not recently. “What if I wasn’t doing this alone?”

There are a variety of reasons my relationships haven’t worked. They all failed for different reasons, maybe I’ll explore that here in the future. At this point, I’m not really looking for a partner because, quite frankly, I don’t get the landscape anymore. I’m not really ready for an open relationship, I’m not poly, and it feels like that’s what’s out there so I'm just kind of taking a beat before I even try. Plus, I don’t really feel like I’m in a position to be datable right now. Firstly, I don’t really have the money to do so. Second, while I consider myself “husband material” I sort am not right now. It’s hard to meet people in the middle of a period of massive trial and growth - they see your “now” as your forever and that can be painful. To make yourself vulnerable to judgment when you’re not feeling your best isn’t ideal.

So I have become comfortable being single.

That doesn’t mean it hasn’t had a negative effect on life. Or my viability career-wise. I have been passed over multiple times for different TV spots and sponsorships because I was single. I’ve watched as guys with much blander personalities and less experience have been picked over, and that’s led to a lot of disappointment. Something about a gay guy having husband just makes him more palatable to the general public, takes the edge off a bit, makes him more wholesome. I am less commercially valuable as a single person. That is true on television and in sponsored content.

So an idea is beginning to germinate. What if I cast a fake Instagram boyfriend to revive my career? He could grow his social media presence and benefit from the same fake boyfriendery I am. The more I thought about it, the more this started to sound like the premise for a really good Hallmark romantic comedy. Because we’re coming up on holiday season, I figured why not make it a seasonal movie?

And so we have “Married by Midnight”

Synopsis:

When high-powered, Type A Male Career Woman Oliver Claus (played by a charming Henry Cavill because why not?) gets fired from his longtime job of hosting a gingerbread home makeover show on HHTV (Holiday Home Television), he doesn’t know what to do. So he leaves his brownstone in Downtown Metropolis and buys a cozy yet inexplicably giant cabin in Snow Village, Massachusetts, a town that is perpetually blanketed in snow that is clearly fake. He begins decorating the home, The Christmas Mansion, the same way he’d been known to decorate gingerbread houses for years and sharing it on “Computer.”

But for some reason his old “Computer” content sponsors stop sponsoring, so his Evil Agent, played by Hunter Schafer because I love her, pulls him into her office to tell him he’s fired. Somehow, the logistics of this make sense even though the cabin is very clearly in Massachusetts and her office is in a thinly veiled yet corny version of Manhattan.

When he gets back to The Christmas Mansion, he finds a giant sign that says “Deed” with a red line through it. We’re meant to understand that this means if he doesn’t come up with the money to pay for the Christmas Mansion in total by Christmas Eve, the house will go back to his arch nemesis, Bank President, played by a not-very-Uncle-Jesse John Stamos.

Despondent, Oliver binges on candy canes and drinks way too much apple cider. Then falls asleep in front of a giant fire that makes no sense because it’s very clearly a new construction and you’re not really allowed to build wood burning fireplaces in new construction homes anymore. Like you could legit walk into this fireplace and take a seat. It’s that big.

While he sleeps, a Fairy Christmas Mother (is that a thing?), played by Tilda Swinton as Sally Potter’s Orlando, comes to him in a dream.

“You dumb bitch, just get a fake boyfriend and show him off on Computer!” she tells him.

So the next day Oliver posts to Computer (played by a cloying candy apple red 2001 Apple iBook) about needing a new boyfriend. And all the characters come out to audition:

• There’s Sassy Gay, who’s clearly in it for the fame.

• There’s S&M Mustache Daddy Gay, who just needs a Sub.

• There’s Conniving Evil Gay, who wants to take Oliver for what he’s worth then take over.

• There’s Catch Phrase Gay, who talks a lot but doesn’t really say anything because he’s just saying phrases in sequence.

• There’s Posh Gay, whose poshness is expressed solely through a British accent.

• There’s Tacky Gay, who Oliver takes one look at and does that movie makeover montage “no no” finger wag response.

Oliver can’t seem to find a “perfect fake boyfriend” so he gives up. Then, as he leaves the fancy casting studio, which he somehow has access to even though the whole fucking plot of the movie is based on him being totally broke, he bumps into Wistful Artist Guitar Gay, played by a smoldering Luke Macfarlane (because he has to play the love interest in all Hallmark movies).

“Watch where you’re going!” screams Oliver.

“I’m so sorry! I was in a rush to get to an audition for a role I really wanted!” says Guitar Gay.

“No I’m sorry, I’m just really stressed! If I don’t find the perfect fake boyfriend to show off on Computer by midnight I’ll lose the deed to my house!” (what the fuck is a deed btw).

Their eyes lock and they kiss and fall in love.

Then there is a montage of them decorating for the holidays at The Christmas Mansion. Why they are doing this when they should be toiling to make videos to get their view count on Computer up, I have no idea. But for some reason it works. Because no one respects content creation, here it’s basically shown as them playing in a kitchen, eating the fuck out of some cookies, wrapping presents, then cuddling in a blanket together with Oliver’s beautiful American Staffordshire Terrier, Satie Claus, played by this very cute and very sweet girl:

Suddenly, there’s a knock on the door. For some reason Evil Agent is with Bank President and they’re there with the deed to the house, saying it’s theirs now.

“I thought I had til midnight!” Oliver says (yeah, somehow it’s Christmas Eve already).

“You do” says Bank President, “But you have to bang and you only have five minutes!”

Oliver looks at Guitar, and they know what to do.

Then they run into the bedroom and experience True Love’s First Bang. The sex scene is really long and gratuitous and, honestly, quite shocking considering it’s Hallmark. Because hey, it’s Henry Cavill and Luke Macfarlane. Like clearly it represents more than five minutes but whatever. HUNKS!

Tilda Swinton comes out of the ceiling and zaps Bank President and Evil Agent with her magic wand and they evaporate while screaming about the past.

The deed floats into Oliver’s hand and he and Guitar lock eyes.

“I’m so happy you got your house back!” says Guitar.

“Our house,” says Oliver.

The last scene is them getting married in front of The Christmas Mansion while millions of followers watch on Computer.

Tilda Swinton dissolves back into the ceiling and they live happily ever after.

The End.