Would You Take Dating Advice from Nicolas Cage?

It started out friendly. First, I was getting a few emails here and there. I didn’t know what to think of it at first. I figured it wasn’t a big deal. Usually, I just laughed it off.

But after months of it, I was starting to feel upset... I was feeling antagonized for my choice of a profile picture. Was it really that big of a deal?

I was a poor woman right out of graduate school. I was working at a restaurant. I was trying to fit into the working world, but it didn’t seem like the corporate world wanted me. They said I looked too young. I didn’t add value to the company. I seemed fragile. I had bad news judgment. I couldn’t cut oranges… the list of things that made me “worthless” or “useless” was never-ending. It grated on me.

One day, a light turned on in my brain. I had been writing things off and on for days. I was trying to find a rhythm, trying to find something that would catch a following. What if I wrote dating articles?

I admittedly read millions of these banal pieces, for years, off the Internet’s elbow and armpit. Whether I had 90 boyfriends in the past or was more trained on circus acrobatics and relied on a luxurious trust fund, the Internet would never know — I could hide behind the anonymity (and occasionally the non-anonymity) of the Internet.

So I found my niche. I started writing dating articles with the intent that they’d go viral, and I’d hopefully start adding more money to my bank account and eventually defeat the dragon that is student debt.

That was the dream. I nearly gave up on writing because I was just accumulating pennies and sand. If I could have added pennies and sand into a timer and extended my life, that would have been excellent. But for the most part, I wasn’t accumulating earnings fast enough, and the interest rate on my student loans was aggressive.

It was time-consuming to write, and sometimes it was difficult to putter out enough sentences on a topic — don’t you want to know this list of DIY beauty tips that I’ve tried at home and on my cat? Don’t you want to know about Medieval bathing practices? I have to admit, sometimes my interests don’t connect to an audience…

I don’t think a lot of people really care — or have a heart-to-heart conversation with someone writing FOR the Internet. You find someone like me when you’re surfing the web aimlessly. When you’re trying to get through another meeting or grabbing lunch. I’m here for you when insomnia has got you in a tight bear hug.

Usually, it’s opaque — our author-reader relationship. Of course, at bigger outlets where you work in cubicles, it’s demanding, full of deadlines, and sexy people sipping on coffee while wearing amazing glasses (I assume). Those writers have some sort of desirable pastiche.

When it comes to me, I’m just a voidless writer writing from the comfort of my home. It’s pretty great. I don’t have to worry about senseless gossip (unless you count the quips and diatribes of my hungry cat).

ANYWAY, I logged in one day, and on my earnings page, I was getting more than a few cents. Suddenly, I was getting dollars.

My dating hubs HAD caught fire.

I began dedicating more time to writing content— I knew I had caught onto something, but there was also that sting of wanting to keep my identity anonymous, because if for some reason I really caught it big (I mean, like on billboards and stuff) it might complicate things when I actually did date someone (or at least so I thought).

I was really worried my theoretical future boyfriend would be dismayed by my absurd Internet writings. Fortunately, the one I married cares about my writings about as much as my food-obsessed cat.

Long story short, for the sanity of my personal life, I made the call that I shouldn’t post real pictures of myself on content writing sites. And I had the brilliant idea to use a picture of Nicolas Cage.

Because of all the beautiful bald eagles of the world with their hobgoblin children, I believe Nicolas Cage is the patron saint of millennials.

Is there another individual who has tried on so many hats and been told they’re not good enough? Has there ever been someone who has eluded so many people with their various acting performances? Sometimes he is the greatest actor on the silver screen; sometimes you’re not sure what the hell is happening.

Whether it’s Raising Arizona or The Weather Man, he has become a cultural icon for a generation that was told they could do ANYTHING. I’m part of the euphoric Reading Rainbow empowerment violet babies club. And we have crashed and burned many times now — we’re the vacuum that was left behind from the intensity of the 2008 recession. We’ve struggled to buy houses, find jobs, get married, have babies, etc. (We get blamed for everything.)

We are the generation that has had to (1) look to innovation, (2) wait on jobs, (3) stay in college and go to grad school because the economy wasn’t ready for us, and (4) make peace with a neverending pandemic. We saw what it was like to live in an Internet-less world, and for it to quickly be engulfed by technology. We’ve watched older and older people rule the country to various levels of disappointment.

Yes, gerontocracy is a perfect regime when the technology revolution blasts us off into the future. Absolutely perfect!

So how does Nicolas Cage resonate with us? Besides telling you to go watch a certain Nicolas Cage-themed episode on Community — it’s because he’s morphological, just like all Millennials are and have to be. We have to constantly adjust if we want to survive in this world. Our parents and grandparents lived in a completely different universe. The generations that are younger than us will be superior in their handling of technology and various gadgets.

The Cage isn’t a perfect actor — sometimes he strikes gold, sometimes he’s in the Left Behind series, and other times he’s so notorious that he is up there with Nickelback and bad Spider-Man movies.

Side note: sometimes I’m not sure if I’m a Millennial or from Generation Z. I guess that means I shy away from Generation X and the beauty of Kurt Cobain’s green cardigan with the missing button.

Nicolas Cage and his career is such a whirlwind that knowing patches of it for a conversation tends to bring a few giggles and lightning speed epigrams — I mean, look there, this connects with that, and the EYE — you know, National Treasure jokes, right?

Nick Cage is one of the gazillion pop culture shrines that you can go to with anybody and have a mildly decent conversation. It’s pretty well established in the media community that Nicolas Cage is an enigma. It doesn’t matter whether you love him, hate him, or are neutral toward the actor. People pretty much like to talk about the Cage because he’s a safe topic, like talking about the weather.

You don’t have to worry about offending someone when you talk about Cage’s career. You might have to worry about what you say when talking about gun control, abortion, religion, politics, Ponzi schemes, or robots getting jobs. But with the Cage — you know your opinions are safe. You know you can bond with someone over Cage because no one takes him too seriously.

I mean, if you are a die-hard fan of the Adaptation actor people might enjoy the absurdity of what you have to say. He’s in more movies than Jimmy Stewart, so it would take forever to watch all of his movies and analyze all of his nuances. (Just like it would take forever to watch every Simpsons episode. Nicolas Cage is an institution.)

So with all this in the back of my mind, it was a no-brainer to pick Nicolas Kim Coppola Cage as my coat of arms. It seemed completely natural to upload a picture of him to my author profile. We Millennials are a sarcastic, cynical, and whimsical bunch. We are people who will persevere by means no one expects.

I never thought when I picked that picture I would get emails about it. I received some comments here and there that thanked me for the unusual picture selection. I think most people on the Internet are just trolling around, being lazy, and looking for some quick answers when they have a spare minute or eight hours.

I don’t think people think too critically about the profile pictures that are out there in the world, for instance, I go to Myers Briggs forums all the time and the profile picture selections are a nice rainbow of atrocities. Do people take Reddit profile pictures and avatars seriously?

When I’d receive emails from the company asking me to take down the picture and put one up of myself, sometimes I would receive the question:

“Would you take dating advice from Nicolas Cage?”

As if that was a sane question, and as if I didn’t think that sounded like a wild and brilliant idea.

They asked me to change the picture to something that better represents dating, like a couple holding hands, a cute heart, or a pretty woman staring aimlessly into an abyss with coffee in her weak wrist. (I do have pictures of myself staring aimlessly into an abyss while at a coffee shop.)

Ultimately, you should use your writing prowess and do something original and not just hash out the same cheeseburger and fries everyone serves.

I’m capable of writing you that gourmet dinner from Elysium, I just haven’t because of the comfort of complacency. I know what words have moved people and mountains. But the Internet is a guessing game. “To whose audience will dwell among these words is always an uncertainty,” said Shakespeare… or someone.

So without further fussing and dancing around, I FINALLY give you, why Nicolas Cage should start his own dating advice column.

So, let’s get back to the question. Would I take dating advice from Nicolas Cage?

Before I answer that, I was once told the great thing about advice is you get to decide what you want to do with it. So, therefore, I would take advice from Nicolas Cage — but I would ponder on it and consider what I would use from it.

Nicolas Cage is now in his fifties, quickly approaching the sixth floor. He has been in several movies with romantic scenes. He has had FIVE wives. Cage has had two children. The year I was born, Cage was dating actress Christina Fulton. Cage was married to his first wife Patricia Arquette for 6 years. What does this all mean? Nicolas Cage has real-life experience with love.

For his second marriage, he married Lisa Marie Presley: the daughter of the most famous musician of all time — the reincarnated Orpheus who went down to Hades to plea for his recently departed Eurydice to get a second chance in an earthly body— yes, I’m talking about the one and only king of rock and roll, Elvis Presley.

Lisa’s track record also includes a marriage to Michael Jackson. You should sit on those words and think about that for a moment. A woman fathered by Elvis had a brief marriage with Michael Jackson and then a brief marriage with Nicolas Cage. The lips of Jackson and Cage were only one degree away. Presley and Cage were married for a handful of months then parted ways.

Cage later found love with Alice Kim, a native of Los Angeles. The couple met while Alice was working as a waitress. They spent 12 years together in wedded bliss.

Then there was Erika Koike. She’s a professional makeup artist from Las Vegas. She was 37, and he was 57. They got married in Vegas, and then four days later, Cage sought to annul it. They were divorced and everything was over in three months. Hey, it was the pre-pandemic times! Things were chaotic!

THEN came along Riko Shibata. They met in Japan through mutual friends. She is currently pregnant. People fuss about the couple online since she is 27, and he is 58. You know, typical older Hollywood guy stuff.

The man has decades of life experience. He’s successful; he has had more money than I ever will. He’s been married, he’s dated, he’s been through divorces, and he’s probably got more stories to share about romance than we’ll ever know. Can you imagine his dating advice column? It would seriously be bonkers.

Underneath the spazz, the hysterical laughs, and the shaggy hair, the Cage has a complicated heart. He walks among us, working with people, raising kids, and wooing women. There’s a soft caterpillar of emotions in his soul that could tantalize all our ears and eyes.

(I want to mention at this time that Nicolas Cage is set to play Count Dracula in an upcoming movie. And this isn’t his first or second time in a vampire movie.)

I would love to sit down with Nicolas Cage and ask him about his thoughts on dating.

I’d like to know what was (or has been) his greatest love. I’m now wondering whether love sets him free, or if it’s just a vehicle getting him from point A to point B. If he could only have one, would he choose money or love?

Maybe Cage has favorite romantic scenes from his movies that he replays in his mind as he goes to sleep on his freshly washed pillow. He was married to the daughter of one of the greatest love song authors in the world. What does it feel like to be close to the Presley family?

There’s so much more we should know about this man other than the things we usually get distracted by — like how did the movie Pig get made? Was it inspired by Liam Neeson’s Taken movies?

• Cage, do you like long walks on the beach and holding hands?
• What do you think is the ideal date?
• What do you think of online dating and dating apps?
• Do you ever wish you had the romantic lives of the characters you play?
• What’s the biggest thing you regret when it comes to matters of love?
• Would you date Barbara Walters or Betty White?
• Do you believe in love at first sight?
• What is the ideal wedding?
• How old were you when you had your first kiss?
• Do you consider yourself a love guru?
• What is the single greatest thing you ever did in the name of love?
• What’s the perfect dinner for a fifth anniversary?

I’m certain that no two days would be the same. Sometimes he might forget the purpose and start talking about water coolers transforming into gambling unicorns.

I would pay good money to read his take on horoscopes. Please, I want the Nicolas Cage version of what will happen in an Aquarius and Scorpio pairing.

I assume there will be scribbled together recipes for heart-shaped baked goods. Maybe there will be a definitive ranking of all his wives and favorite girlfriends, and even though that sounds terribly tacky, could you look away from it?

I want a list of his favorite love songs and romantic comedies. I want him to appear in a Korean drama. I want his recommendations for flowers and anniversary gifts. I want personal anecdotes. Stories about travel woes and inhospitable hotels. I want to know which of his characters he feels would make for the best and worst husbands.

What is his advice for the perfect kiss? Should I go on a romantic vacation to Paris or the Caribbean? What makes Nicolas Cage feel special?

I want him to win a Pulitzer or Peabody for this.

Dating isn’t meant to be a chore. It’s meant to be creative and fun, and Mr. Cage knows something about those two things. I feel like he would write something like this:

You have a beautiful life before you, whether you’ll be living in Arizona trying to kidnap a baby for your wife, or you’ll end up in a city of angels, you are priceless and one of a kind. So before you get envious of John Travolta’s face, remember you have your own. And the world is your oyster.

Don’t be afraid to puff up your chest; spend time with people you love. Go find someone to indulge in a parade of kisses or stare at the flashing lights of an aurora Borealis.

A change of heart can happen in the blink of an eye. You are beautiful, and you’ll overcome whatever it is that’s holidng you back from your love life.

I mean, I had a change of heart for Justin Bieber. It all changed with Purpose. THAT ALBUM. When did Biebs grow up?

So maybe when you suddenly have a change of heart for your co-worker, dance partner, or best friend… you should just enjoy it, because who knows how long you’ll get to relish in those special feelings.

Don’t be afraid to get outside and walk around your neighborhood. Throw away your phone. Give it to a giant with scaly thumbs. Have a day where you don’t use your phone or computer. It’s time for you to meet yourself without all the digital gear. Stop putting your head in a cage of bees.

 — The Cage

Personally, I think it’s time for all of us to dream of vampire kisses or getting whisked off to a honeymoon in Vegas. Don’t be afraid to use Nicolas Cage as a spirit guide. I’m not even sure what that means! But remember — he has put himself out there in the world of film, and if he isn’t enjoying himself in some wild fantastical ways in the real world, then he is even more of an enigma than I will ever understand.

Maybe tonight when you lay your head down to rest, you’ll daydream of Nicolas Cage. Maybe he’ll treat you to a nice dinner, you’ll dance on the moon, or you’ll make chocolate chip cookies and laugh about how your grandkids are growing up too fast.

Let romance happen in your mind. If you’re feeling down, let your guard down and daydream all to yourself of the Cage and nothing else. You might be surprised by the genuine affection your fantasy-Cage gives you while at a picnic eating grapes and strawberries.

Let him be there in your heart on a rainy day. Smile as he tries to tell you a joke where he forgets the punchline, and let him put your hair behind your ear.

The man is full of strange thoughts, just read some of these quotes:

• “Every great story seems to begin with a snake.”
• “I am not a demon. I am a lizard, a shark, a heat-seeking partner. I want to be Bob Denver on acid playing the accordion.”
• “I have a love/hate relationship with the city of New Orleans, which is the strongest kind of relationship.”
• “You can’t make your choices based on what critics think. You have to make your choice based on what’s honest for you.”
• “One of the things that’s interesting to me is I find things like caffeine and stunts actually relax me. When they’re putting a bit of gel on my arm and lighting me on fire, or when I’m about to go into a high-speed car chase or rev a motorcycle up pretty fast, I find everything else around me slows down.”
• “I would definitely return to Austria. They were all good experiences for me, but definitely Austria because there were some ancient Celtic, sacred sites that were in the forest that were quite beautiful.”
• “Sometimes people think I’m wearing a wig when I’m not wearing a wig, and then sometimes they think I’m not wearing a wig when I am wearing a wig.”

If Disney princesses can be re-imagined with the Cage’s face, how much more can your fantasies be re-imagined with the hysterical, choking on air laugh of the Coppola family man?

Your life is too short to not be open to this. It might make you cringe, you might curl up into a ball and die laughing, or you may feel so creeped out and feel so far down the pit of the Internet that you decide his column is your only salvation.

I encourage you to wander into an imaginative galaxy with an actor you never really considered this deeply… and you may still be wondering how you even stumbled onto this article.

Is that sugar on your lips? Don’t worry, I’ll get that.

Girl, I’m the Ryan Gosling you’ve always wanted. I’m the real Uncle Jessie. I’m also the missing button from Kurt Cobain’s green cardigan. Girl, I think you’re a really great woman. I love hearing what you have on your mind. How about I pick you up at 8? Your skin smells like lavender angels somersaulting in the wind. Girl, you wanna be my Valentine? My Valentine for life?

Girl, it’s alright if you just want to be friends. I don’t just see you as an objectified utility.

I don’t mind getting to know you in a platonic way. Plato is one of my favorite philosophers. Do you like philosophy? I bet you do.

You are smart, beautiful, and funny. Yeah, we can be the best of friends. And if later down the line you start to like me and I’m single, we can mingle. You just keep pursuing your dreams. You’re going to get through grad school. I love you, girl.