Playlist for // from my former flames

I really only remember bygone relationships by the musical scars they’ve left in my iTunes. Here are the highlights:

1. “Cavalier Eternal” – Against Me
2. “In Fear and Faith” – Circa Survive
3. “Japanese Gum” – Her Space Holiday
4. “Casimir Pulaski Day” – Sufjan Stevens
5. “Take Me to the Hospital” – The Faint
6. “Santeria” – Sublime
7. “This Sentence Will Ruin / Save Your Life” – Born Ruffians
8. “Iris” – Goo Goo Dolls
9. “Linger” – The Cranberries
10. “Kelsey” – MetroStation
11. “We’re Both So Sorry” – Mirah
12. “You Don’t Know My Name” – Alicia Keys
13. “Paris (Aeroplane Remix)” – Friendly Fires
14. “Lazy Eye” – Silversun Pickups
15. “Curs in the Weeds” – Horse Feathers

#1 – The first person that I ever really really liked, the person that pushed me into realizing that I’m gay, used to serenade me with this song. Listen to the lyrics – it’s not really a complement. About three years after I met her, we finally hooked up for the first time. It was strange, the most profound sense of ambivalence I’ve even felt. I wanted it but I hated it, it was so uncomfortable yet I was crushed when she ended it. I think Tom Gabel knows how I feel.

#2 – After I had already come out, I started hooking up with this crazy, crazy lecherous boy, and Circa Survive was his favorite band. It was weird. I don’t really want to talk about it.

#3 & 4 – I met the person who has the most profound impact on my life in a bizarrely roundabout way in the fall of my sophomore year. These two songs, both capturing this interminable, deep sadness, were songs that she listened to cursorily in my presence but they came to mean so much more to me. She dragged me through the dirt so often but I was always so ready to be her confidante when she needed it. Just deep deep sadness.

#5 – This was the favorite song of one girl that I used to hook up with randomly and repeatedly, but it’s here to stand in for all of those girls. What a strange relationship to have with someone: we don’t really know each other and we don’t talk, but your tongue is in my mouth right now.

#6 – I met my childhood best friend again in high school and we dated for a few weeks. She was sweet and a funny little stoner (thus she loved Sublime) but it just never worked out. She kissed like a whelk!

#7 – In high school I sort of secretly hooked up with this girl who was sort of proto-hipster and would always play Born Ruffians. We were never dating but she still felt the need to break up with me and when she did, over the phone, I was sitting in the parking lot of a barbeque joint buying dinner for my family. It was pretty degrading.

#8 & 9 – On New Year’s Eve, my kiss was this girl who only listened to alternative rock from the nineties. We dating for months but it was always so rocky, on and off, fights and cheating, and tears through the phone. I still cry a little every time I hear either of these songs.

#10 & 11 – My first real relationship was with a girl who was just so cute. Like not in looks, just in personality. For example, she had a pair of pants in every color of the rainbow. Needless to say, she was into cute music, so MetroStation was perfect. The song is kind of boring and cliché but for some reason it still means a lot to me. The break up was as intense as the relationship. I cried for weeks and weeks and “We’re Both So Sorry” was my only consolation.

#12 & 13 – Have you ever had those friends that you are madly and hopelessly in love with, but you know that it’ll never work out, and so you’re forced to sit and stare at them longingly out of the corner of your eye whenever you’re a little tipsy? I’ve had them too. Alicia Keyes and “Paris” are their songs and my songs to them. I’d like to think there’s a little hope in that.

#14 & 15 – I’m still so amazed by the fact that the first person I even liked in college and the person I’ve been with for what feels like forever (in a good way) is the only person I’ve ever met that had 100% compatibility with me on last.fm. But I suppose it makes sense. I think that people who love music just sort of belong together and that fate and sharing musical libraries will always make that known.