take a look at me now

There's this sort of dream that I have. It's a pretty simple dream. It goes something like this:

I meet a girl. We start dating. Things go well for quite some time and maybe we even fall in love. Whatever. Anyway, several months to a year go by and we start to take one another for granted; the relationship goes stale. As a result, I mess up and do something stupid. It doesn't matter what. But it's serious enough that she decides to leave.

It's at this point that I realize the only I way I can win her back is with a completely un-ironic performance of that Phil Collins heartbreaking classic, "Against All Odds."

Please treat yourself to this video if it's been a while since you've heard the song. I would define "a while" as "within the last ten minutes."

I don't know what the best venue for such a performance would be. Maybe on stage at a hotel bar where she's on a date with another guy, perhaps a former lover (apparently in this version of the dream I'm also a lounge singer). Or how about in a rainy inner city alleyway right after an argument? It just has to be at a public place, be there others present or not. It certainly wouldn't have the same effect if it were her and I alone in her apartment, for example. Also, the performance should be spontaneous, it can't have been planned too far ahead. And I'd have to sing it a key or two lower, a few of those notes are just too high for me.

So after an emotional performance (much like the one you just watched in that video), do I defy the odds, does she really come back to me? I don't know, and actually, whether she does or not is beside the point. Because my dream here, summed up in fewer words, is to be in a situation where I can sing sincerely and seriously Phil Collins' "Against All Odds" to a girl and mean every word of it.

But in the meantime, I wouldn't mind having a girlfriend I could sing it to as a joke.