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The Schmooze

Ariana Grande And Pete Davidson’s Relationship As Romeo & Juliet Quotes

They’re young. They’re hot. They meet at a party while he’s in a relationship and she’s not available either.

They fall into an all-consuming love where all they want to do is lie on top of each other and make sexual puns.

It’s fast. It’s steamy. It’s public. And it might be doomed.

It’s a tale as old as time and as new as Rihanna’s lingerie line. It’s happening, before our eyes, to Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson.

Fortune, future, and two houses of fandom are on the line. They soliloquize about each other (“i thought u into my life. whoa! look at my mind!”) And they’re just so young.

“Romeo & Juliet” gets a bad rap — probably because on the surface it’s about children having wild sex for two days before an entirely avoidable murder-suicide-bonanza. But it’s really about how watching people who are so young and in love that they kind of seem to want to eat each other is addictive.

It reminds us of all those sublime and exhausting times we’ve found another person intoxicating.

“Pete & Ariana” is “Romeo & Juliet” if Shakespeare had known about cat ear headbands and dialectical behavioral therapy. It doesn’t have to end tragically — we can just enjoy the love.

PROLOGUE:

Two millennials, both alike in celebrity
In fair Manhattan, where we lay our scene
From LDRs break to new relationship energy
When political upheaval makes chaos reign supreme
From forth the fatal loins of this celebrity-industrial-complex
A pair of star-cross’d lovers begin rampant PDA
Ne’er before seen, this level of flirting in the comments
They with their bond bury our nation’s decay
The happy passage of their tattoo-mark’d love
And the continuance of their fans’ stanning
Which not doughnut-licking nor tasteless jokes could remove
Is now the topic of our ranting
The which if you with patient-scrolling fingers attend
What here shall miss, you can in the comments strive to mend.

SCENE I:

Pete Davidson (Jew-ish) and Ariana Grande (not one of ours, despite the impressive hair) had crossed paths before, but it wasn’t till they connected at an SNL afterparty that things began.

Days later, fans noticed matching cloud tattoos had appeared on their hands.

As Nurse might say — “Jesu! What haste!” But as the Nurse might also say: (Long sexual anecdote about toddlers.) So you can’t trust the nurse!

SCENE II:

Then the pair declared their official couple status with an Instagram post that was both intensely sexual and referenced children’s literature. Something for everyone.

SCENE III:

Whole entire weeks since their courtship had begun, they were engaged and the lady was wearing a diamond the size of a Nalgene bottle. Their relationship moved more swiftly than the lark heralding the morn, or an Amazon Prime delivery.

SCENE IV

Continuing on at the pace of a hassidic shidduch, Pete/Romeo and Ariana-ette started broadcasting their plan to get married. They didn’t ask any of us for permission, which shouldn’t have been surprising but was!

SCENE V

No one, but no one, loves sexual punning more than Shakespeare characters and Pete & Ariana, as the singer demonstrated when asked on Twitter about the length of “Pete,” a song from her upcoming album.

SCENE VI

Subverting gendered expectations, Ariana/Juliet is the chief architect of her own sexual destiny. She will not be kissed by the book. She will have their sexual skills heralded as heavenly. She is a deity and will be recognized as such.

SCENE VII

The young lovers toast each other, words of praise flowing as freely from their lips as Ariana’s extensions flow from her ponytail.

The look of love

SCENE VIII

When the lovers are separated (sometimes for hours at a time!), it is sweet sorrow and also fresh hell. But they cannot be kept apart! Not by murder. Not by day time. Not by being in two separate rooms. Not by anything.

SCENE IX

A duel occurs. Blood is spilt. Pete/Romeo has done something terrible and offensive to Ariana/Juliet even though that was never his intention. Our heroine grapples with this with grace.

SCENE X

Petromeo is forced to flee Ariette’s bloodthirsty kinspeople! He is off to eke out life as well he can outside of their rabid fandom.

SCENE XI

Their love deepens. It cannot be destroy’d, no, not by any swords, no, not by any haters.

It is a love one wears on one’s sleeve, and also on multiple sweatshirts with one’s lover’s face printed on them. It is stronger than death. It is stronger than any strong thing.

A moment of quiet this temporary ending brings;
The light, for joy, continues to bring back everything the darkness took:
Go hence, to have even more talk of these wild things;
Some shall scoff, but celebrity news is our nook:
For never was a story of more Jew-ish Americana
Than this of Pete, and his Ariana

Jenny Singer is the deputy lifestyle editor for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

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