The Empire State Building couple is the summer romance we need

It’s been a drought of a summer for romance. Finally, just a few days before the glorious 250th birthday of this nation, we got a hot and confusingly romantic love story with the couple that climbed the Empire State Building.

I’ve been spending the last four weeks watching the least romantic hookups on “Love Island”. With the exception of the slow-burning, fan favorite couple, Bryce and Trinity, these sexy singles have painted a very grim portrait of love: something painful and full of deceit, capable of humiliation at the turn of a dime (KC and Sincere, I will see you in hell).

The other big romantic moment of the weekend is the coming wedding of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, supposedly happening at Madison Square Garden over the 4th of July. It is truly confusing to everyone how a couple with their fame and money would ever choose such a gauche location. For someone who, as an artist, has created one of the most significant bodies of work about romantic love, it’s simply a head scratcher to have this moment happen at the same place Tracy Morgan famously puked. I’m happy to be proven wrong and learn that MSG is a great wedding venue once wedding details come out, but for now, it seems like a huge L for lovers of romance.

But on Wednesday, two beautiful idiots of a different type made us all believe in love again. Angela Nikolau, 33, and Ivan Beerkus, 32, climbed to the top of the Empire State Building dressed in black. masks (Nikolau’s with cat ears) and hung a flag.

Then, climbing back down to the metal landing, Beerkus got on one knee and appeared to propose. Nikolau posted a photo to Instagram of her engagement ring-clad hand from the spire.

The couple, originally from Russia, are famous on social media for climbing dangerous things and were featured in the Netflix documentary “Skywalkers: A Love Story” (which I didn’t watch).

Their flag read, “when the power of love beats the love of power, the world knows peace,” which is nearly unforgivably corny, a treacly meaningless message, the equivalent of a “live laugh love” driftwood sign in the bathroom. But I’m willing to overlook that, because the whole thing is undeniably romantic. Let the kids have it.

Finally, here is the summer romance we’ve needed: incredibly good-looking people with shared niche interests doing grand sweeping gestures of love.

Is it illegal? Sure. But the kind of illegal that I’m mostly ok with: no one got hurt, nothing was stolen or destroyed. This isn’t the kind of crime that offends morality.

Last summer’s viral moment of public love — the Coldplay kisscam couple was a horror story: A consensual adult moment that turned into career and personal chaos due to internet mob mentality.

This was almost a complete inverse of the Empire State Building climbers. The couple from the kisscam were doing nothing illegal, didn’t intend to attract public attention, and as a result suffered devastating consequences. The Boston Globe reported last week that the woman involved in the scandal said she has still been unable to find a new job after resigning from her HR position, and is dipping into her kids’ college funds and retirement money to get by. The story is an ugly reminder of the uncontrollable wave of internet virality.

Nikolau and Beerkus were arrested and charged with a variety of felonies (felony burglary, reckless endangerment, criminal mischief, and misdemeanor counts of possession of burglar’s tools, criminal tampering, criminal trespass, and disorderly conduct).

On Thursday morning, they left a courthouse in lower Manhattan, both dressed in black, Nikolau in a tight bodysuit. On the stairs of the subway, they stopped for a long kiss in front of the news cameras.

This is the happy ending beach read I didn’t know I needed.