I’ve often mentioned that there are topics that I never discuss on the blog. The two biggest ones are a) my job and b) my relationships. I avoid the first one because it has been made clear to me in no uncertain terms that I can be fired for writing about my life in a cubicle and at the present moment I really need the paycheck. The reason I don’t talk about specific relationships (either existing, hopeful, or pipe dreams that the girl isn’t even aware of) is mainly because I figure that I’ll jinx it by discussing it. And that I do believe that some things in life should be private. But, I’ve decided recently to implement a statute of limitations of three years at which point whatever may or may not have happened can be discussed at my discretion. At this point, anything that happened in 2003 is trivia and quite possibly corrupted by faulty memory.
The reason I’m bringing this up is because I’ve spent the past two days listening to John Mayer’s “Any Given Thursday”. It’s the only John Mayer CD that I own and, to be honest, I could live a full and complete life without owning any John Mayer discs. It’s not that I don’t like his music, he has a good sound and for a guy whose live disc is filled with a crowd of screaming teenage girls he is remarkably honest about his music. He wants to be a serious artist but can’t with his crowd so he’ll just have fun with it. Still, the reason I own this disc has absolutely nothing to do with John Mayer.
See, back a little over three and a half years ago (wow, that long) I had a…well, I don’t like to call it a crush. That makes it sound like I’m twelve. Let’s just say that I was rather smitten with someone and was trying desperately to figure out how to get her to go out with me. Hell, I even brought in consultants to determine the best strategy to accomplish this task. Seriously, I put more effort into this than I did in getting a job. One of the ideas was this: she likes John Mayer and recon had revealed that she didn’t have his live album so I’ll buy it, she’ll come over to my apartment, see the disc, and we can discuss his music and everything from that point will be cake.
So to sum up, I bought a two disc live album from an artist I didn’t particularly like, to impress a girl who I had a challenge talking to without making a complete fool out of myself, on the off-hand chance that I could somehow convince her to come over to my apartment and discuss music. For someone who preaches logic over everything I can be blind to the obvious more often than I like.
In the end I don’t think I ever talked about John Mayer with her. We did end up going out once, though I may or may not have been dating someone else at the time (like I said, the memory of those few weeks is really fuzzy. Damn bar golf.) But in reality it was just one of those missed opportunities that happen dozen of times in life and you just write it off to experience. Until, in my case, a random number generator tells you to listen to John Mayer.
But what really gets is me is how, no matter how much of an adult I feel that I am, everything about relationships feel like high school all over again. I had this conversation at the bar on Friday when we were talking about bad dates. I joked about going miniature golfing and feeling like I was sixteen and she said, “But that’s why you do it. It’s fun and stupid.” Which I agree with, but it still just adds to the fact that no matter what I do asking a girl out always makes me feel like a teenager. “Does she like me?” “Does she ‘like me’ like me?” “Can I call her?” “How long can I wait until I call her back?” I swear, at times I’ve just wanted to pass a note that said “Do you want to go out with me? Check yes or no?”
(I doubt that teenagers today pass notes around. Now, they probably just text message each other in class or put up a poll on their MySpace page. Or say things like, “She put me in her top 8. She must really like me.” Maybe things were better before technology.)
Guess what I’m trying to say is that I wish I could just be honest with someone and say, “Look, I like you a lot and I’m pretty sure you like me. Why don’t we go out and see what happens. Worse case is we have a few laughs and a couple of good meals. Beats watching bad television sitcoms.” But I have a feeling that being that blunt is just a recipe for disaster. So instead I have to invoke the Tao and play games and buy CDs for no apparent reason. Sixteen years later and I’m still making mix tapes in hope that they will one day work. Maybe I’ll try honesty just to see what might happen.
2 comments:
dude the Tao, the mixed tapes, the games, its all for sport. do you want to hook up or do you want a relationship? if the latter is what you seek, honesty is the only way to go.
by the way, John Mayer pretty much abandoned his girl-friendly sensitive pop act since then.
I saw John Mayer last year play with Buddy Guy and he did not get near a microphone, all he wanted to do was stare in awe of Buddy Guy and be a part of the back-up band. the John Mayer Trio stuff showed he wanted to reinvent himself as a blues musician and be taken seriously (note on that: only played one song from his previous albums, and it was unrecongizable at first since it was so heavily blues-ified). also, he collaborated on a jazzed up song with Herbie Hancock that is pretty cool.
he has a new disc out that is adult contemporary radio friendly (he has to pay the bills somehow), but shows jazz/blues influence. you won't find a 'your body is a wonderland' type song on it.
as much as john mayer's old stuff may be a permanent resident in the cd changer at a sorority house or VW beetle, I will give him credit for being a good musician and writing his own stuff. and not collaborating with Timbaland on anything.
speaking of Timbaland, just what was Nelly Furtado thinking? I wasn't a huge fan of her first album, but it was likeable and at least it was interesting. her new disc is pretty much slut pop.
Post a Comment