I spent hours of my youth pouring over melancholy music and crying my way through teenage angst. I didn't have a "real" boyfriend until high school, but I still tortured myself with the sing-song lyrics of Tony Rich Project, Stone Temple Pilots, and Jann Arden. I longed for love, even as a pre-teen - I longed to feel the emotion that serenaded me to sleep every night. I begged God, on the rare occasions that we spoke, to deliver a boy to adore me. And love me. And make me mix tapes. I wanted to feel the brutality of love, as I had come to understand it through boombox speakers.
Now, here I am in my mid-twenties and I don't know much more than I did as a girl with tear-streaked cheeks. My relationships, the few that I have had, have all spiraled into unsuccessful paint spatters and irreparable disasters. I suppose the only common denominator in each of those scenarios is me, a fact I accepted after my last horrific breakup. And I suppose that no relationship is really "successful" until he puts a rock on your finger and coaxes you down the aisle. But is that how success, with love, is measured? I would like to think that marriage isn't the only peg tilting the abacus. There has to be more - something, anything, more.
In 20 years I have aged, but I haven't really grown up. Despite my cynicism and inner battles with dating, I still just want a boy to listen to music with. I want a boy that will listen to tracks, and in my absence, think of me. I don't know if it is the music, the idea, or the need to feel validated by song - but I think my obsession with love stems from an inability to lower my unreachable expectations. Expectations that, ironically enough, have been built on lyrics. Tony Rich taught me to keep my turmoil inside, and hide my feelings from everyone but myself. STP preached skipping town on a southern train, and Jann Arden told me to chase and change insensitive men. Conflicting? Absolutely.
For me? Say Anything. Hold a boom box over your head and stand outside of my window. Stake your claim - in my life and on my heart. Stuff vulnerability into a casette tape and hand pick your emotions, only to lay them out - track by track - in a wildly romantic demonstration of love. I am convinced that texting and tweeting and - dare I say - Facebooking has pickled the concept of bravery, especially in regards to the heart. Phone calls are replaced with sms messages, and Valentine's cards come via email. Mix tapes? Extinct. And without a viable substitute. While I am, admittedly, a social media drone I still cling to the idea that love exists beyond your laptop, iPad, or cell phone. Technology and the instant gratification of the Internet have put a hex on the already-delicate world of love, and dating. This era, or generation xxyyzz - or wherever it is that we are - has created one million more stressors and obstacles to eradicate in the quest to find love! It is exhausting.
I will close with this:
"I had this guy leave me a voice mail at work, so I called him at home. And then he emailed me to my BlackBerry, and so I texted to his cell. And then he emailed me to my home account. And the whole things just got out of control and I miss the days when you had one phone number and one answering maching - and that one answering machine had one casette tape, and that one casette tape either had a message from a guy or it didn't. And now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies. It's exhausting." -Drew Barrymore, He's Just Not That Into You
Amen sister. To be continued..
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