Katy Perry - Teenage Dream

I am the self-professed Music-Nazi. However there is a softer, more accommodating side to my ear. I will be the first to admit that I am a sucker for a well crafted, super catchy pop song. I listen to top 40 radio, I am not ashamed. I usually justify this by telling myself and others that I’m “just really well rounded.” This doesn’t go for just overplayed pop music, there are literally millions of songs in any genre that one wouldn’t expect me to appreciate that I adore. A good song is a good song, regardless. (I still cannot justify my ke$ha fandom that last a few weeks this past summer, let’s just let that one slide.)

Par for the course with any music snob that spent any time working at a music store, there is a reverent obsession with Nick Horby’s novel “High Fidelity.” I often reference it. I own a copy so outlined, creased and reread it’s practically in three pieces. I relate to that book on such a personal, professional and artistic level it baffles me.

"I've been thinking with my guts since I was fourteen years old, and frankly speaking, between you and me, I have come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains."

The reason I digress so fully from the point that I am writing about a Katy Perry song is that is still being played every 13 minutes on every station at the moment by trying to reference a novel (and make myself look smarter, I suppose,) a song I shouldn’t necessarily have a strong memory associated with already, is because not only is it a technically well written and fun song, but when it first started getting regular airplay, I met a boy. ...Sigh... I always meet a boy.

"What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"

I had fully convinced myself I was in love with a man that was only more than eager to not love me back. This happened earlier this year. (ps – This has been a recurring theme in my life. I think I just like a challenge?) Rather than let myself deal with the rejection in a mature manner, my ego backfired and my pride rebelled. I convinced myself this man was the love of my life and that I would rather die alone than live without him. And I was only so happy to make this public knowledge, to him and anyone who would listen. It turned into some sort of public performance art project via my facebook and drunken tirades on the patios of local bars. Now that I am on the other side of this situation, looking back, I can honestly only let myself laugh. (Note: I dated this guy like… a month?) *facepalm*

“Then I lost it. Kinda lost it all, you know. Faith, dignity, about fifteen pounds.”

Things like this are the most …awe inspiring… thing about me. Not only to myself, my family and closest friends, but mostly to the men I leave open mouthed and confused when I say/do shit like this. My best friend keeps telling me that she told this man something along the lines of “One day you’re going to ‘get her’ [with regards to my intensity, capacity for love, and my sense of humor, whatever,] and when you do, you’ll be the luckiest man in the world.” A) I truly believe this about any man who attempts to be with me. B) I wish my best friend was a man. Why no man can understand me and love me the way she does keeps me up at night sometimes. (Note: He never got it. It’s totally fine, he’s a great guy, I’m still totally looking forward to being his friend when I can restore some trust I lost over the course of the past few months.) I do, however, fully believe with my whole heart and soul one day there will be a man who gets it. This post is about the man who came after who ALMOST did and restored a little faith for me.

"Maybe we all live life at too high a pitch, those of us who absorb emotional things all day, and as mere consequence we can never feel merely content: we have to be unhappy, or ecstatically, head-over-heels happy, and those states are difficult to achieve within a stable, solid relationship."

I took a chance on a dating site again. (This is how I originally met the first guy. Why not?) The dating pool in my home town, especially since I have lived here my whole life, is incestuous. I can’t go to the bar and meet a single person who hasn’t slept with, kissed or attempted to date someone else I know. I do somehow seem to meet men in other random places that are outside my circle, like coffee shops or bars or Harris Teeter, but these random encounters don’t give me the kind of information I feel like I really need to make an assessment. Not that I need a resume before I date a guy, but without the most basal of information upfront I feel like I am just being superficial. Just because a guy looks like my type, doesn’t necessarily mean he is, so I get resentful. So for me, right now, with my air tight schedule and skittishness, online dating is okay.

"Have you got any soul?" a woman asks the next afternoon. That depends, I feel like saying; some days yes, some days no. A few days ago I was right out; now I've got loads, too much, more than I can handle. I wish I could spread it a bit more evenly, I want to tell her, get a better balance, but I can't seem to get it sorted. I can see she wouldn't be interested in my internal stock control problems though, so I simply point to where I keep the soul I have, right by the exit, just next to the blues."

So I randomly start talking with this new fellow. He is almost so perfect for me on paper that I start to feel like he is a plant; Like my friends are fucking with me. While the man from earlier in the year appealed strongly to the musically obsessed side of me, this man was tugging at my inner-lit-nerd. He was a literature and film grad student on his way to becoming a professor. His apartment was like a library full of every book I’ve ever loved and slept with under my pillow. (I could just as easily write a blog about my associated memories and bonds with certain books. Or films.) This guy hit that part of the puzzle on the head. (yay! mixed metaphors!) From the first bit of an exchange, it was like we had been talking for years. What followed were a few weeks of novella-type emails full of confessions, adorations, secrets, seductions, and dare I say… love? He lived a little bit further away than a nightly hangout session would warrant (about 25 minutes on the highway as he worked at a local university.) so it was a week of gigantic emails and incessant text messaging before we finally met. I got swept up in the magic and created a beautiful fairy tale meeting scenario. It was literally one of the most surreal and magical experiences of my life and I still can’t decide if I’m irritated that I had to create it for myself or really proud that I am capable of a love like that. It involved a treasure map, a secret trail, a camera obscura, a first kiss in the middle of the day by moonlight. I’ll never forget it.

"What did I think I was doing? What did she think she was doing? When I want to kiss people in that way now, with mouths and tongues and all that, it's because I want other things too: sex, Friday nights at the cinema, company and conversation, fused networks of family and friends, Lemsips brought to me in bed when I am ill, a new pair of ears for my records and CDs, maybe a little boy called Jack and a little girl called Holly or Maisie, I haven't decided yet...”

So part and parcel of this whole brief experience with the professor is that this silly song started getting played all over. I randomly sent it to him in an email, saying something to the effect of “don’t judge me, but this song exemplifies how ridiculous I am feeling about you.” he concurred, of course, admitting he had already memorized the lyrics, because we were idiots over each other for a minute. (That's always nice; to know someone has made themselves just as stupid over you as you have over them. That's my favorite part about falling in love; the irrationality and absurdity of it all...) And also because it’s a pretty decent love song. Things, of course, went south. You can’t keep the spotlight on all the time; you have to get some sleep, you have to take out the trash and do some laundry. It’s not rational to keep that level of devotion and blind passion going for any longer than we seemed to do. I was crushed for a minute, but then I thought it over and I worked it out and I’m ok. This fact alone, that I didn’t pull a (man’s-name-from-earlier-this-year)-type reaction, reaffirms the fact that I am growing up a little, that maybe my self-esteem is stable and fine. We have since stopped speaking, but I have a feeling he will come back into my life again at some point, even if it’s just to say hay over the bananas at the grocery store. That much of one thing doesn’t happen for no reason. Or maybe it does. I am learning to accept the fact that I might be wrong about things. Most things. Love, first and foremost.

"It would be nice to think that as I've got older times have changed, relationships have become more sophisticated, females less cruel, skins thicker, reactions sharper, instincts more developed. But there still seems to be an element of that evening in everything that happened to me since; all my other romantic stories seem to be a scrambled version of that first one. Of course, I have never had to take that long walk again, and my ears have not burned with quite the same fury, and I have never had to count the packs of cheap cigarettes in order to avoid mocking eyes and floods of tears... not really, not actually, not as such. It just feels that way, sometimes."

BUT – the real point of all this… this whole experience… in any previous experience in my life, any other strongly associated love song attached to someone who broke my heart would become like holy water or a cross in Dracula’s face. Instant channel change, grumpy face, mumbling under the breath. (There are a few songs like this for me associated with long ago exes that I am still working on disassociating.) But this song, when I hear it, I smile. I still sing along. I think back on my time with the professor with gratitude and respect. He came along in my life and gave me the exact combination of attention, affection and words that I needed to reassure myself that I am loved, loveable, loving. And piggy backing off my last post about accountability, I’ve learned a big, beautiful lesson that feels like a “missing puzzle piece” throughout this experience. And it’s something I’ve heard myself thinking about over and over again the past few weeks… Not every broken heart has to be a tragedy; sometimes there is grace and a delicate lesson learned. The ego doesn’t always have to get involved. Sometimes things happen because they were supposed to happen and that’s that.

Sometimes a broken heart is simply a mile marker. I know I am closer to my destination that I have ever been; I'm learning to enjoy the journey.

"Sentimental music has this great way of taking you back somewhere at the same time that it takes you forward, so you feel nostalgic and hopeful all at the same time."

(note all quotes are from the novel, not film, version of High Fidelity)