Soundtrack for a Relationship

"I'll still be here waiting on the breeze to bring you down to me..."

By Jude Gibson

1. Moloko, "Sing It Back"

 

My first few months of college are a delirious experiment testing the bounds of my newfound sexual freedom. I've peeled off my high-school relationship like a shrunken sweater and walked into a saturnalia. I want to fuck everything. Then I walk into an Econ class ten minutes late and take the only available seat, in the back, and the girl I find myself next to makes that urge seem like a distant and trivial memory.

I engage her. A stereotypical New Yorker, she is what I will call dismissive, but only because I'm already too enamored with her to describe it as "bitchy." A few weeks later, a mutual friend introduces us at a party. We pretend not to recognize each other. We dance. I'm a bit too drunk and get handsy; she firmly grabs me by the wrist and places my hand in an acceptable location. I grin feverishly.

Despite her hesitance, we start hanging out regularly. We go out dancing every weekend, and spend our entire Christmas break instant messaging from home. She blocks my repeated advances, calculated to look more casual than they actually are, with the alternating excuses that she values our friendship and that she knows she'll one day hurt me. I'm not as fazed as I should be.

I unconsciously gravitate to music about people offering themselves up to each other with wholehearted abandon. It doesn't matter if she uses my heart to shine her shoes with — it's hers to keep.

 

2. White Stripes, "Fell In Love With A Girl"

 

She's finding my wiles less and less cute, and one day she snaps at me and says, straight-faced, "I have no interest in you." I'm more than a little heartbroken, but I hide it pretty well, in my opinion. Later that night, she comes back with me to my apartment and gives me a lapdance. We have our first kiss. I give up on any hope of ever fully understanding her.

I'm the bewildered giddiness of "Fell In Love With A Girl" given human form. I'm aware of how obnoxious it is to be around. I don't care.

Almost immediately, the school year ends, and she tells me that she won't be returning in the fall — she's taking a year off. We agree not to attempt a long-distance relationship. We're both shocked by how hard this goodbye hits us. It's a long summer.