The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody’d move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and their pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody’d be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you’d be so much older or anything. It wouldn’t be that, exactly. You’d just be different, that’s all. You’d have an overcoat on this time. Or the kid that was your partner in line the last time had got scarlet fever and you’d have a new partner. Or you’d have a substitute taking the class, instead of Miss Aigletinger. Or you’d heard your mother and father having a terrific fight in the bathroom. Or you’d just passed by one of those puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them. I mean you’d be different in some way--I can’t explain what I mean. And even if I could, I’m not sure I’d feel like it (135).

There are two main elements to this: “nobody’d be different” and “the only thing that would be different would be you”. This has been the subject of extensive analysis by highschoolers all around America,1 so I am not going to waste my time explaining how this represents Holden’s aversion to other people changing and his fear of changing/growing up himself.

I just think Holden’s fear of doing things that will make you feel the weight of how much you’ve changed is so real I do not understand how people don’t like The Catcher in the Rye. Also his fear of leaving places without saying goodbye, but I digress.2

Holden’s examples of things that would make you different as a child are so minor. Wearing a different jacket makes you different. Seeing a gasoline rainbow in a puddle changes your consciousness enough to separate you before you saw it from you after you saw it.

When Holden actually gets to the museum in the present of the story, he doesn’t go in. Obviously, he is afraid to be hit with a giant wave of consciousness of the things that have made him different in the years since his childhood field trips. He is carrying a lot more baggage than a different jacket.

Likewise, I am afraid of doing things that will remind me of the distinction between me before and me after. However, in addition to just seeing every little thing as something that changed me, I also see every little thing as a possible reminder of that change. The things I interact with interact with each other in my mind in sick and inescapable networks of ways.

For example, in September or October maybe I started buying lunch instead of packing a lunch for work because groceries are so expensive anyway and I am lazy. In November I met a boy and was deeply and profoundly changed by this. In January I went back to bringing my lunch to work to save money and because I had the energy since I was so happy and all. By February, November boy didn't want me anymore and this made me too depressed to make lunch so I had to go back to buying lunch, and for the life of me I could not figure out which phase of existence it would be ok to eat food from. I certainly couldn’t go to Dubai Levant because they opened while I was seeing him and I was me and him me the first time and all subsequent times I had it so to have it as post-him me would be devastating. I also like Lamb Soup Noodle House but I got into that right before I met him so that would even more palpably take me back to a pre-him me time when things were calm and the sun was shining and I had nothing bothering me as opposed to now when everything is wrong. I ultimately ended up having sushi because it has been my favourite food all my life so I wouldn’t be reminded of any era because it is present in every era.

I ended up getting Dubai Levant a few days later and I very nearly cried in front of the owner and then he told me about how he divorced his wife after 18 years and it’s better to be alone. I could not get Lamb Soup Noodle House for weeks. That God damn lamb soup is too much a symbol to me of how I was ok before and now I’m not. I get upset just thinking about it. I did go back to Lamb Soup Noodle House eventually and get the braised pork sandwich, but the soup… the soup……

It would be the same soup from before. The only thing that would be different would be me. When I used to get that soup, I was carefree and starting a new job and wasn’t worried about a man and who was she! Certainly a distinct entity from me.

I am really afraid to eat soup in case it reminds me of a time when I felt better. What the fuck. You can always be more like Holden Caulfield.

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When you talk to someone every day for months it is naturally jarring to just stop one day. However, I do consider myself better at being sad than the average person. I can think of things to be sad about that would shock Juliet.

For Example

1. My own face in the mirror because what’s the point of being beautiful if not for him.1

2. My own glasses because he liked them.2

3. My umbrella which I last used on a date with him and left on a table in the hall where it still is, unravelled.3

4. Shoelaces because he had some.4

5. The entire concept of science.5

6. Books. All books but especially War and Peace which I started reading at his recommendation but failed to finish before his interest in seeing me finished so now it is just open on my computer never to be looked at.6

7. “Ozymandias” by Percy Shelly because he likes it.7

8. Waking up in the morning alone as if he slept over all the time and not twice

9. Waking up and looking at my phone and having no texts

10. Doing any task and having no reason to bring my phone

11. Doing any task for the first time while not having an ongoing conversation.8

12. Any word with the suffix “monger[ing]” because we talked about it one time

13. Age gap relationships.9

14. Gen Z slang, especially “lowkenuinely” which he kept trying to get me to say

15. The city of Hamilton because he could possibly go to medical school there

16. Spicy food because he doesn't like it

17. The colour orange because he doesn't like it.10

18. The colour blue because he likes it

19. I should put alcohol on this list because he is a self-proclaimed alcoholic but alcohol is too dear to me to associate with him and besides I’ve never dated a man who wasn’t an alcoholic

20. Clumsiness because I kind of had a stroke and kept spilling my drinks on our second date which was a really good date

21. ping pong

22. playing guitar because I was supposed to play a song for him but never did

23. Valentine’s Day Obviously

24. Christmas because I was texting him over Christmas and it took me forever to get his Instagram and I finally got it on Christmas Day and I was so happy and also I forgot my charger Christmas Eve and had to turn my phone off and I was very acutely aware of maybe missing texts from him even though it was fucking Christmas Eve and we should both be busy with our families

25. My birthday because I was talking to him on my birthday and he mentioned that he did the same thing for his birthday as I did for my birthday (karaoke)

26. My band because I was talking to him when I joined and spoke about it a lot

27. The Russian Revolution.11

28. The nation of Bulgaria (obviously)

29. My own top 10 favourite songs ever playlist which I foolheartedly sent to him

30. My friend was telling me about how his friend thought the phrase “shivering in my timbers” means like your dick is shaking because when you wake up in the morning hard you say you have morning wood and I unironically got sad

31. My shoes and various other clothing items because I bought them after meeting him and was only willing to spend the money to look good for a new love interest.12

32. Spending money because I always had to pay for shit because he was broke as fuck which I was more than willing to do even though I usually avoid spending money at all costs.13

33. I got sad while reading “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” which is a Slutfucker 200014 story not even a Biochemistry Guy story because I was thinking about how I never actually asked Slutfucker 2000 why he liked the story because I wanted to just kind of jump to agree with him (which I do, genuinely) so he would think we were aligned which got me thinking about how I am pretty bad at asking people questions and when my friend met Biochemistry Guy she asked him really good questions because she is so intelligent but then I thought I wasn’t that bad about it with Biochemistry Guy I did ask him some good questions and this brought to mind one conversation we had in particular in my kitchen that just felt really good and I miss etc.

34. Islington

35. The Roman Empire.15

36. Having bigger fish to fry

37. “It happens to the best of us”

38. “It changed my life”

39. The concept of being locked in.16

40. BCE/CE vs BC/AD dating systems because we argued about this.17

I guess 40 is enough perhaps I will update or make a part 2.

Anyway I am really grappling with all this over some kid who was finishing high school when I was finishing grad school and who my friends18 think is genuinely retarded. However, as soon as this ended I immediately tried to go crawling back to my ex and I didn’t even care that he wouldn’t have me. Oh to get rejected by Slutfucker 2000 and be sad about Biochemistry Guy. Biochemistry Guy, like all guys, started out as sort of a bandaid to cover up Slutfucker 2000’s bullet hole, but somehow in 3 fuckass months he managed to turn things around so that I wanted to use the love of my life Slutfucker to cover up Biochemistry’s bullet hole.

This is actually a net positive because it is better to be sad about Biochemistry Guy than Slutfucker 2000. Things with Slutfucker 2000 invariably play out in such a devastating way that it leaves me wishing to claw the soul out of my suffering carcass body. Biochemistry Guy was19 so kind I am left sad in lowkenuinely a normal way. Unless you consider all these things I get sad about not normal.

I don’t think any of these examples except maybe the first one are that wild. I am just such a sentimental person is the point. I wish I wasn't because it is very painful.

Anyway, fuck my fucking chud life.

And you know what? I really hate it. I can’t get anything done at home because if I could be doing something else that’s what I want to be doing, and when I go to the library all I can think about is how much longer before I get to go home and make dinner. My best piece is a short story called “Valentine” that is 3 pages long and it took me months to write.

I do get a lot of satisfaction out of writing. I want to want to write. The actual act of doing it is just so boring though.

I used to think that everyone must feel that way and you have to dig out motivation from deep within and that I was just lazy. I thought the resistance to doing work was just executive dysfunction or something. I didn’t realize how misaligned I felt about the writing process until I started recording music. I love recording. I love singing. Ever since I started spending my evenings recording, eating dinner has gone from being the highlight of my day to being an inconvenience.

Clearly, I am able to feel good about doing creative work. So why don’t I feel that way about writing? Writing feels like a pale gray-blue whereas singing feels like deep purple-red.

This is how it feels when I’m writing:

This is how it feels when I’m recording:

You might see blue as calming while red is agitating, but I don’t see it that way. To me, blue is empty and red is passionate.

Maybe it’s that when you’re recording music you get to listen to music. In a way when you’re writing you get to read, but I like listening to music more than I like reading. A lot more. Maybe that’s all it is. Or maybe what it is is that singing is a gift from the gods whereas writing is something we had to scratch and claw to invent. I feel that.

I pursued English because I was good at writing. English was my best subject, and I liked it. I do like literature. But I also often find myself saying that I don’t truly enjoy reading as much as your average English major probably should.

I should have pursued music. I had every opportunity. My dad is a musician. He taught guitar lessons. Other kids from my school would come over to my house to take guitar lessons with my dad. He did try to teach me, but this is where laziness really does come in. I was so fucking lazy. I wouldn’t practice. I still rarely ever practice piano which is why my skill level has not improved in 3 years. Even though singing was my greatest passion, I felt like being just a singer wasn't cool and that it would be much better to be a well rounded musician with instrumental skills and a good knowledge of theory. I have basic piano skills and a very basic understanding of theory. I didn’t think that was enough. Possibly, it isn’t.

But being a singer is the only thing I ever really wanted to be. I mentioned in my last post that the only reason I have career aspirations is because of capitalism. I don’t want to be a teacher or an editor or whatever for love of the craft. But I do want to be a singer for love of the craft. I wouldn’t care if I never made any money singing. It is genuinely the only example of something productive that I actually want to do. So I should do it. I’ll be a 27 year old beginner musician.

You might say I’m stepping out of my Hannah Horvath era and into a Marnie Michaels era. When I was watching Girls I found myself to be a pretty even split between these two characters, but I am more Hannah. Hannah is eerily like me.

Hannah becomes a teacher when she is at the height of her disillusionment with writing. Jessa says it’s appropriate because “those who can’t do teach”, and Hannah says “exactly! I can’t do, so I’m gonna teach”. I’m a teacher.

But maybe I’ve been Hannah enough. It’s time to lean more towards Marnie. Not that either of these women are great characters. They’re both pretty fucked up. But this isn’t about who I want to be like, it’s about who I am like. I am pretty fucked up.

The idea of giving up and resolving never to execute any of the ideas I have is odd. I can’t tell if I feel relief or liberation or what. Never say never I guess. Maybe when I’m older I’ll come back to writing prose.

I’m not sure what the point of me posting this is. Maybe I’m hoping others can tell me how they feel about writing so I’ll know if I have an unusually tepid relationship with the craft or if this is a common struggle among people who consider themselves writers. How do you feel when you write? Does it make you feel alight with the flame of creation? Or does it feel more like trying to wring water from a towel that is only just damp?

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I just read an article by Celeste Davis about how Gracie Abrams has a more troubling influence on girl-children than Sabrina Carpenter because Gracie Abrams is such a pathetic man-appeasing loser as opposed to Sabrina Carpenter who at least has confidence. I have thoughts about this. I think the chances of the original author seeing my response here are slim to none, and indeed I hope she doesn’t because I do not intend to be argumentative, I merely have some things to say, (which, apparently, are so important to me I think they warrant a whole article and not just a comment on her article like a normal person).

The reason I care is because I am the exact kind of woman she is afraid of her daughters growing up to be like. The kind of woman who opens Spotify during her lunch break at work and has the algorithm automatically assume she wants to listen to “i miss you, i’m sorry” by Gracie Abrams. The kind of woman with an unfinished short story about a man stabbing me in the heart with a knife and I won’t take the knife out because it’s his and as long as I have it in we have a connection whereas if I take the knife out we’d have nothing to do with each other and I might as well bleed out and die, which would be alright if I actually died only in this metaphor I just keep bleeding forever but don’t die. The story being unfinished because no matter how many times I think I’ve certainly seen the last of him I haven’t, thank God.1 2

Anyway, here’s the thing about Gracie Abrams: I don’t think she is trying to propagate the narrative that feeling that way about men is good or admirable. No one who feels this way thinks that feeling that way is good. And why should it be? Musically, I mean. Since when is making music from an imperfect emotional perspective something to criticize? What even is the point of art if not to express overwhelming emotions? Furthermore, I would actually bring up the same argument that is often used to defend Sabrina Carpenter, which is that she does not make music for children. Teenagers. Whatever. Gracie Abrams is my age and I feel that she makes music for me. Women who have felt what she has felt and get some kind of catharsis from knowing other people have felt that way, too.

The fact that Gracie Abrams doesn't have to make emotionally healthy music is kind of beside the point, though. There is a larger argument to be made here that women are allowed to make emotionally unhealthy music. Actually, I think there is kind of a trio of reasons that make Gracie Abrams’ music seem troubling even though it is hardly unprecedented: she is a woman, and a pop star, and a pop star who is very sweet and angelic.

Gracie Abrams being a woman is really the most important issue here. I feel strongly about this in all forms of media and in real life. Some women like to act like women supplicating men is un-feminist, but men supplicate women all the time. Therefore, criticizing women for something men also do is un-feminist. This is not even a gendered issue. Lesbians do it. Gay men do it. Lovesickness is part of the human condition. The only reason it feels oppressive when women prostrate themselves in front of men is because women are generally oppressed already. Women have been powerless historically, and now we are trying to overcompensate by always having the upper hand in relationships. I’m not saying it’s wrong to want to be treated well by men. Princess treatment and all that seems wonderful. What I’m saying is that criticizing women for having the same feelings men have is un-feminist.

I think a lot of people think that taking a view of romance that holds women above being too in love is feminist. If a woman puts up with any modicum of bullshit from a man it’s “get up” — as if you can either be some kind of girlboss machine or a grovelling baby and there’s no in between. God forbid you see the man you supposedly love as an imperfect person who is lovable despite their transgressions.

More importantly, men have a rich history of being lovesick. Think of poor Orsino in Twelfth Night: “If music be the food of love play on;/Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,/The appetite may sicken, and so die” (I.i.1-3). I wish this actually worked. Just like in my story about the knife, my heart will sicken but never die. But the point is that Orsino is celebrated for these lines. Granted, people usually use just the first line out of context, but what’s important is that Orsino’s lovesick words here are remembered positively.

Regarding music in particular, men sing songs begging for love all the time and nobody gives them a hard time about it.

Consider “Let Me Down Slowly” by Alec Benjamin:

Don’t cut me down, throw me out, leave me here to waste

I once was a man with dignity and grace

Now I’m slipping through the cracks of your cold embrace

So please, please

Could you find a way to let me down slowly?

A little sympathy I hope you can show me

If you wanna go, then I’ll be so lonely

If you’re leaving, baby, let me down slowly

This song has basically the same problems Gracie Abrams has. Begging not to be “le[ft] here to waste”. “Dignity and grace”, past tense. “Please, please”. I’ve never heard anyone criticize this song. It’s a nice song. Men are allowed to express desperation without being coloured as desperate on a character defining personality level. Gracie Abrams, on the other hand, should be locked in a room and read feminist philosophy because she is so soft.

Consider “Half a Heart” by One Direction:

And being here without you is like I’m waking up to

Only half a blue sky, kinda there, but not quite

I’m walking around with just one shoe

I’m half a heart without you

I’m half a man, at best, with half an arrow in my chest

I miss everything we do

I’m half a heart without you

“Half a man, at best”. Any TikTok psychologist would jump at the chance to tell you, especially if you are a woman, that you should be whole by yourself and if you need someone to complete you then you are the problem and shouldn’t be dating and might as well die etc. But nobody is making TikToks (or writing Substack articles) about how “Half a Heart” by One Direction is problematic. Perhaps because music is known to exaggerate and shouldn't be psychoanalyzed lest the writer of every sappy love song known to man be diagnosed with limerance and discarded.

Consider “Fist Wrapped in Blood” by Silverstein:

Please forgive me for not being good enough.

Drown your sorrows in my pain

And its something you can’t explain.

When I’m choking on words you’ll never say

And you’ll never feel the same

…

My fingers are yours to cut off

And my bones are yours to shatter in pieces.

My teeth are yours to pull out and my soul is yours to slowly rip apart.

This song engages with self-abandonment far more literally and graphically than Gracie Abrams ever does. Maybe Gracie would write “please forgive me for not being good enough”, but I dare say she would not go so far as to offer her bones to shatter. Granted, that’s largely a genre difference and I will address this later. The point is that five men got together and thought this was a good way to express romantic discontent. Which it is. I love this song. Catch me singing I’m choking on words you’ll never say.

Like I said: men have a rich history of bitching and moaning about love. And of being fucking celebrated for it. And if a father did go around saying he doesn’t want his son listening to One Direction because it’ll make him a pussy, that man would probably be regarded as engaging in toxic masculinity. So why is saying that girls shouldn't listen to Gracie Abrams acceptable? It’s almost as if we are predisposed to view women as more pathetic for the same behaviour, and that is a problem.

Now, let’s return to Silverstein for a moment. Part of the reason that Silverstein is doing what Gracie Abrams is doing and doing it more is because that kind of emotional excess kind of characterizes their genre: emo.3 Basically, Gracie Abrams is bringing themes usually found in more mentally ill genres into pop music where people who aren’t necessarily looking for that find it. But that doesn’t make Gracie Abrams a bad person or a bad influence or any more self-esteem deficient than other artists. Sorry her music is more widely palatable than Silverstein.

I would even go so far as to say that it is her sheer popularity that is getting her in trouble here. Julia Wolf wrote I’d slit my own throat just to see if you’d mourn me, which is far more mentally ill than anything Gracie Abrams has written, but Julia Wolf isn’t as famous as Gracie Abrams. Julia Wolf isn’t as influential as Gracie Abrams. Gracie Abrams cannot be regarded as an especially bad influence just for being more influential. Sorry she is a bigger celebrity than Julia Wolf.

Of course, there are examples of other hugely popular pop stars who have released many depressing songs about love. The criticism that “she only/always writes about love” is a criticism I associate intimately with Taylor Swift. I was shocked that Davis didn’t mention Taylor Swift. However, I think the reason for this is pretty much that Taylor Swift songs tend to have a touch more contempt for scorned lovers than Gracie Abrams songs do. Taylor Swift is a little more angry. She has more of a revenge arc to many of her songs. That means she has self-respect and is a good role model for girls. If a man does you wrong you should hate him. Harbouring bitterness is much better than harbouring unrequited love.

The artists I’m actually thinking of are Lana Del Rey and Billie Eilish. I might as well mention Halsey since the Gracie Abrams article actually misquotes a Halsey lyric as one of Gracie’s. But, LDR, Billie Eilish, and Halsey have a bit more variety in the kind of music they make whereas Gracie Abrams seems to make almost singularly sad love songs. I would chalk this up to GA being a nepo baby without much else to write about. It’s not like she was going to write about the struggles of growing up in poverty. You write what you know, right? Clearly Gracie Abrams knows about heartbreak. Maybe one day she’ll know something else. Maybe one day I will.

Probably the more important thing that separates Gracie Abrams from Lana Del Rey, Billie Eilish, and Halsey is her sweet girl angel persona. This is, in fact, something Davis took great issue with. She discussed at length how Gracie Abrams is a Madonna as opposed to a Whore (Sabrina Carpenter), and how it’s worse to be a Madonna than to be a Whore.

I both do and don’t take issue with this perspective. On the one hand I think if you are going to write something like if I get a little prettier can I be your baby?, you might as well balance it out by saying my pussy tastes like Pepsi Cola. However, while I think having a few more whoreish songs, (I fucked my way up to the top), affect the perception of how pathetic or not-pathetic a woman is, it is only that — perception. We perceive Lana Del Rey as not pathetic because even though she laments and begs sometimes, she also leans into and celebrates her own sexuality sometimes. But you don’t have to do that. Gracie Abrams doesn’t have to do that. Would Gracie Abrams seem more like a strong independent woman if she had one or two songs about how liberated she is sexually? It might seem that way; women are allowed to have sex now, so we should. And we should be vocal about it. We should be unabashed to cancel out the shame women were slandered with in the past. But let’s not forget that what we fought for wasn’t really sex, it was choice. Gracie Abrams shouldn’t sexualize herself if she doesn’t feel like it just to seem less like a relentless simp.

I think Halsey touches the middle of these poles, talking about love and talking about sex, in a notably sentimental way. Halsey’s lyrics if I keep my eyes closed he feels just like you from “Eyes Closed” engage with the experience of having sex with someone who isn’t the person you want. The sentiment that she can evoke the feeling of the one she loves by closing her eyes with another is bleak enough, and it’s not even true.

No one feels like him.

My point is that if Gracie Abrams is suffering as much as she says, then I don’t think sexual liberation is what she needs. It wouldn't make her feel better. This is obviously speculation and we don’t know. Maybe Gracie Abrams is a huge slut behind closed doors. That’s none of our business. If she doesn’t want to sing about it why should she? To make people perceive her as less needy? Fuck that.

Granted, the author didn’t necessarily argue that Gracie Abrams needs to be more sexual, she just worries that the Madonna persona is dangerous because they are such martyrs. But she seems like a martyr because she is suffering. And women suffer. And we should not be ashamed to express our suffering. And the thing that would make her seem less like a martyr, I think, would be expressing more experiences of pleasure. And that would be sex. But women shouldn’t have to sexualize themselves to prove that they’re liberated just like women shouldn’t have to be modest to prove they’re pure.

Billie Eilish exists outside of the Madonna-Whore dichotomy. She is not a whore, but she is also not a Madonna; I think she gets away with writing stuff like

I don’t wanna be lonely/So tell me you’ll come home/Even if it’s just a lie

or

I’ll try not to starve myself/Just because you’re mad at me

or

Valentine’s Day, cryin’ in the hotel/I know you didn’t mean to hurt me, so I kept it to myself

because 1. she has more variety in her other music and 2. her edgy and somewhat androgynous aesthetic makes her seem oddly separate from the tragedy of girlhood. Or maybe she just doesn't seem desperate because she doesn’t look delicate. I unironically think part of the difference is that you can buy Billie Eilish merch at Hot Topic but you can’t buy Gracie Abrams merch at Hot Topic.

There is probably something to be said about Olivia Rodrigo but I don’t know what it is. Leave a comment if you do :)

Regardless, it seems like the options in the Madonna-Whore complex are that you can be mistreated and slandered but at least have fun, or mistreated and lamented but suffer more. What I think this all boils down to is that no one wants their children to suffer, and Gracie Abrams sort of romanticizes suffering. But your children will suffer. They will. Everyone’s teen daughters, and sons, will almost definitely grow up to feel the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. I don’t believe anyone escapes this. Gracie Abrams has suffered. And she deserves to make music that exorcises her grief. I deserve the catharsis of hearing music that reflects how I feel.

Of course, the main part of the problem isn’t that she’s too emotional, it’s that she is so sure she won’t be okay unless her love is returned that she will break herself to fit into the pieces of a man’s life and this makes her a Madonna side character, and women should be the main characters of their own lives. To this I would say: think of The Great Gatsby. Think of Anna Karenina. Or You, or Fleabag,4 or The Little Mermaid. I’m not saying these are admirable examples, but they are examples of main characters who bend and break in the pursuit of love. Having a breakable identity that revolves around someone else doesn't make you not the main character. Everyone is the main character of their own lives and it is solipsistic to say otherwise. Also note that maybe the most prolific of these characters (Gatsby) is a man.5

Main character status granted, perhaps one would say the main plot of a woman’s life shouldn’t be romance. If the romance plot is the A plot, then a tragic romance makes the story a genre tragedy. If the A plot is something boring like her career, then a tragic romance is just normal turmoil. De-centering men and so on. I have no counter argument for this, except that I don’t think it’s nice to patronize women who value love. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.

When I was younger, (and I say younger as opposed to when I was a kid because I did this well into my twenties), I was a chronic maladaptive daydreamer and all my fantasies were romance stories. If I had a crush on a character from a T.V. show or a movie or whatever I would spend all day every day methodically imagining what my character would have done in each episode and more importantly what happens between me and my love interest off-screen. I would say I did this from ages about 8-23. The only reason I stopped was because when I was 23 I met someone more compelling than any fiction, who takes up space in the real world, can be interacted with, someone with whom my fantasies are actionable.6 Now I can’t focus on the ghosts of fiction no matter how hard I try. But I digress — what I’m saying is that the thing I have always wanted most in life was love. And the fact that the love of my life doesn’t love me back is an all consuming tragedy. Maybe that’s my bad, but that’s the way it is.

Going back to my point that all children will grow up to suffer, let me ask you this: would you rather your children grow up to act out the plot of Requiem for a Dream, or would you rather they grow up to act out the plot of 500 Days of Summer? To be fair, I have been known to say that I’m jealous of Harry and Marion in Requiem for a Dream for loving drugs more than they love each other whereas I won’t even watch 500 Days of Summer, but objectively the former is far more horrific than the latter. Of all the ways to suffer, being too much in love is not the worst and I don’t think women like me and Gracie Abrams deserve to be condemned as much as we are by modern feminists. I think Gracie Abrams’ music is beautiful and I think the poignancy of my heart is beautiful and I don’t feel bad about it.

However, I will also say that I don’t think listening to Gracie Abrams is going to singlehandedly influence young women into a romantic tempest. I was like this before listening to Gracie Abrams. That’s the silliest part of all this. Parents always think that any media they don’t agree with is going to ruin their children, but to a large extent children are just people who are the way they are. Video games don’t cause violence. Gracie Abrams won’t cause intemperate yearning. But if she did, I just don’t think it would be the worst thing in the world.

I often think of Polonius in Hamlet observing Hamlet’s madness and saying that in his youth he also suffered “much extremity for love” (II.ii.180). The whole reason Hamlet puts on this performance is so people will think he is merely lovesick and perceive it as pretty much normal. Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy has an extensive section on lovesickness. People used to languish all the time. Modernity is so unromantic.

Perhaps the key here is that Polonius says he suffered in his “youth”. Hamlet is 30 in Hamlet, so I guess neither he nor I, (nor Gracie Abrams), have passed the cutoff for developing reasonable emotions and maybe one day Gracie Abrams and I will grow up and feel that this was all unnecessary and embarrassing. Hamlet himself tells Gertrude that she has no excuse for marrying Claudius since she is too old to feel love passionately (III.iv.69-71). I actually don’t find this comforting, though. I find it terrifying. Anyone I feel less passionately about would be a downgrade and I won’t downgrade so I will be alone. I really feel my love life is over, which sucks because as I have said, love is what I want the most. I only have career goals because you have to under capitalism. I should have made more of an effort to pursue a career as a singer when I was younger because I do love music, but that’s not the point.

Celeste Davis in fact admits to having had a distinct attitude of self-erasure in the pursuit of men in her own youth, and says she doesn’t want that for her daughters. I don’t think that is wrong at all. This is why I say I don’t mean to be argumentative — that’s a reasonable thing to not want. It is dangerous to need someone too much. What I think is wrong is disparaging women for having feelings that are natural, that take up a whole chapter in The Anatomy of Melancholy, and that men have been writing plaintive songs and novels and poems and plays about for centuries.