BECAUSE I WAS IN LOVE by cassandra baim
Last week I was having dinner with a boy I most definitely have developed a case of The Feels for. A track from Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is playing really loudly and I laughed to myself. “Good lord, this song sounds like being 19.” He asked why. I said “I listened to a lot of Kanye when I was 19. A boy I really liked was into hip-hop. And I really wanted him to like me.” He laughed, which I hope means he found that endearing because it wasn’t until I said those words out loud that I realized how absurd it sounded. I didn’t pursue the subject, but as I walked home from the train later that night I found myself deep in thought about what we make ourselves do for the people we want. A friend told me recently that I get too caught up in things. That caught me off guard. I scoffed and sputtered “No, I don’t!” enough times that I almost believed it too. He was referencing a specific situation, but I thought back to every time I pined after a boy, and the hoops I jumped through to get him to notice me. Some of it was definitely for the better—I started listening to The Decemberists the summer of 2007 because the boy I liked once mentioned going to their concert. He started dating my best friend later that summer and broke up with her two years later but my love for that band will never die. Some of it was for the worst—I’ll never forget that trip to Target when I was 12 and made my mom buy me a Sum 41 album because the very first boy I ever had a crush on listened to them. And this isn’t even touching on all of the TV shows I watched (I put myself through six seasons of Dexter because a boy I once made out with posted a Facebook status about an episode) and books I read (an old crush is the reason I started reading Murakami) for the very same reasons. Every time I did something like that, I would vehemently deny the reason. I thought the idea of bending over backwards for a boy was absurd, and I would never admit that I too was willing to change myself to impress another. I would even laugh at friends who did. Kanye West is damn near unlistenable for me now. It’s not that I don’t enjoy his music. I over-played his albums, and now any mention of his work makes me feel like I’m that age again—stupidly pining for something that would never and should never happen. Because really, time and time again I would alter my interests to impress another and I had nothing to show for it but a vast and impressive music collection. I like to think maybe I’ve had that same effect on someone else. Maybe there’s someone out there who now adores
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