Luke Howard, who is now known as the “piano man,” went viral after he vowed to play his piano nonstop until his ex-girlfriend decided to rekindle their romance. Howard set up his piano in College Green, which is a public courtyard, on September 9, and he played for hours while expecting that his story would spread across social media, and the woman, who he wouldn’t name, would hear about his gesture.
“I’m here at College Green and I’m here playing piano because I don’t really know what else to do,” he said during an interview with The Bristol Post .
“I fell in love with an amazing girl. It was all going wonderfully and it all kind of fell apart.”
It’s the kind of thing that would have probably been well-received in a romantic comedy. But since this is real life, it’s unfortunately gotten Luke labeled as a creepy stalker by much of social media. Underneath the post that the Bristol Times tweeted out , people have been berating him with insults for what they feel is manipulative behavior. Though there are a few people who defended him, most of the comments are urging him to move on and leave the woman alone.
This man is playing piano on College Green. And he won’t stop until he gets girlfriend back #dedication https://t.co/QKm0cbBbtD
— Bristol Live (@BristolLive) September 9, 2017
The consensus is pretty much the same across all of the versions of this story.
Luke Howard originally said that he was going to play “’till it rains, ’till it snows, if I fall over, or if I get arrested. I will be here until I have to be here,” but the 35-year-old musician didn’t account for that fact that other people might not be too keen on hearing him play for hours.
His “creepy” act of affection was cut short when he was punched in the head around 4 am the next day. Interestingly enough, that wasn’t even the incident that prompted him to leave.
“I stopped playing yesterday because I realized that what I had wanted to do had spectacularly failed,” he said, in a follow-up interview with i news .
“The social media reaction turned it very quickly into something that would cause the one person I didn’t want to hurt embarrassment and pain. That was the last thing in the world I had wanted to happen, so I left.”
What do you think about piano man’s act? Was it creepy? Romantic? You can add your thoughts to the comment section below.
[Featured Image By Africa Studio/Shuttershock]
