Dear Orlando Bloom,
It is with a heavy heart that I write to inform you that we will never be married. I know this is coming as a shock to you, considering all the time we spent together, me a 13 year-old emo child, and you, a cardboard cutout in the form of your Lord of the Rings character Legolas.
What we had was so special, all those hours spent printing, and pasting together photos of your face onto a homemade poster. I thought that I could “have it all”, to be an A- middle school student and become the full time wife to you, Orlando Bloom, a 27-year-old British actor. Which I proved when I used my allowance to buy our “promise ring”, a makeup bag at Claire’s with the embroidery “Mrs. Bloom” written across it.
I tried my best to keep up with your career, making sure to download an “Orlando Bloom Facts” screensaver onto my parents computer. I told everybody I knew how you worked through a broken back after falling off of a horse while shooting Lord of the Rings. I also made sacrifices for my passions, like the time I broke my toe so I wouldn’t have to march in a pro-life rally, fulfilling my passion of staying home and watching Pirates of the Caribbean again.
Many couples struggle with infidelity and we were no different. I won’t deny that I also carried a torch for another celebrity, The O.C.’s Adam Brody. I mean, we had so much in common! He played a nerdy high schooler on TV, and was spending my time reading Manga at the local library and buying faux-leather studded wrist bands at Hot Topic.
But even as your career stalled, I stayed devoted. From Troy, to Kingdom of Heaven, to Elizabethtown. Through middling performances Hollywood discovered that you were not the bankable celebrity that you once were, but I held onto our connection, taking your cardboard cutout with me all the way through my first two years of college.
However, in recent years our relationship has strained. Without the carefully manicured depiction of you on fan sites I started to see that perhaps our romance was slightly flawed. I will admit that I was more than a little disappointed to find how boring you are on twitter. At first when I heard you punched Justin Bieber I was excited, until I realized that the reason you punched him is because you ran in the same circles, were interested in the same women, and had the same general outlook on life.
So I have found someone else to marry. I will always treasure the time we spent taking myspace selfies and arguing about which of your characters were sexier, Legolas or Will Turner. You were there for me, from those awkward middle school years, to the equally awkward early college years. But now is time for us both to face the facts, you’re not a very good actor, and I might be a little out of your league.
With Love,
Janel Naumann