Google is a clever little company. One day, I’m sure it’ll be a big player on the World Wide Web. It does great, fun things with its logo for various holidays and events and I regularly enjoy its work. But today is not one of those days. There’s a big a problem with Google’s Valentine’s Day video.

It starts out sweet. A cartoon with Tony Bennett swooning Cold, Cold Heart. A boy, in love with a rope-jumping girl, uses Google to search for ways to win her affection. Cute, right? Clever marketing, right? His first result is a rose. So he brings her a rose. She ignores it. He brings her chocolate. She ignores it. A sweatshirt, a balloon animal. Ignore, ignore.

Frustration is building in the boy. We then see just the girl rope jumping away while a pile of gifts builds at her hopping feet; a stuffed animal, an old-timey diver’s helmet, a freshly baked pie, a magic hat with a rabbit, a heart-shaped balloon, a paper airplane with his feelings likely scrawled on it. She just keeps on jumping that rope, unaware of his efforts.

Eventually, the boy gives up. He returns to her with his own jumprope in his hands. Before he joins her – his head down, his shoulders hunched, his frown pronounced – he sighs. Like he knows he’s giving in. Like he knows he is selling himself out and about to do something and become someone he never wanted to be a part of. And all for what? For the affection of a girl who wouldn’t even say, “Thanks for trying.”

But he jumps the rope alongside the girl and when she notices that he likes what she likes and he does what she does, well… It’s love!

The take away from this is simple. Google can’t help you attract the girl of your dreams. At least not until all efforts are exhausted. Because at the end of the day, unless you do exactly what that girl wants you to do, you’ll never get anywhere. And that’s a load of crap. Love cannot be controlled or determined. It’s quantum physics and chemistry. You either love a person or you don’t. I have given enough gifts and written enough poetry on paper airplanes to know that all the gifts in the world won’t get that girl into bed unless she loves you. I’ve also sold myself out and just followed her along in hopes that she would love me forever. And she probably would have. That is, if I hadn’t gotten so sick of myself that I backed away from the relationship all together.

I’m all for doing things together as a couple and learning and changing and showing one another what it is you like to do in hopes they like to do it with you. That can make for a fun weekend. But at the very least, when you’re not on the same page at every moment, it’s polite to say, “Thank you for the effort. Thank you for the gift. It’s all very sweet. I’d like to go jump rope now.” At least acknowledge the poor boy. (Or girl, for that matter.)

Because I can promise you… That boy and girl up there in that video? They won’t last. I give them two years tops. He’ll get tired of her cold heart having never really melted it, only warmed the outer edges. And when he gets tired of jumping rope for her, she’ll take it personally and strangle him to death before running off to play double-dutch.