All Fall Down

Perusing Sunday newspapers over lunch, I came across an article on reverse-etiquette school - because according to Jo Ellen Gryzb, people are becoming too nice for their own good.

Gryzb goes a bit nuts in telling people to practise thinking negative thoughts about their friends and colleagues; pretend to be too busy for others when they're not; make unwanted purchases to practise returning them, and various other rather effort-consuming and unnecessarily bitchy pastimes.

Nevertheless, I felt guilty squirms as I read about people who are incapable of saying "no", people who are stressed about long hours of work that they could have chosen to avoid but didn't because they wanted to be "nice", people who become stuck in relationships because they are too afraid of hurting the other by ending them.

I fall neatly into all three categories. The last one does not relate to Jez.

So I thought I'd start exercising some dormant assertiveness, starting by rejecting a marriage proposal from a grey-haired pirate at the bus-stop.

Then telling my dad over the phone that Jez will be driving me home before consulting him.

When I came home and hopped onto the computer I had a minor disagreement with Yoza. Minor it may be but I disagree with him like I disagree with leaving the banana-man's mailbox alone (that's a story for another day).

It began by Yoza asking me what our (Jez and I) song was. I told him Hands Down by Dashboard Confessional. He remarked that it was unoriginal. I wondered why it mattered.

Quite apart from everything else, I know about two people who just know the song, let alone assign it to their relationship. Maybe my crowd isn't into emo-screamo, maybe not. Who cares.

To me, it's another futile struggle to be different for the sake of being different. Realistically, we're all individuals. But the world's too big for anyone to boast complete exterior individuality - music, clothes, whatever. Hasn't stopped anyone from trying though. See emos.

I don't know what tickles your pickle, but to me a "song" isn't a "song" if it's handpicked after careful thought. My "songs" have always been spontaneous. I never remember how they came about, but they're just there, whether we had listened to them on some special occasion, or grinded against each other in a club to it, or relate to it because it describes us or something we've done together to a tee.

So what I'm wondering is what satisfaction people get from picking a supposedly-original tune, other than knowing that they're probably one of the few couples in the world to have it? It doesn't seem to reflect themselves, but reflects instead just how they relate to everyone else. Do you still smile involuntarily everytime you hear it, knowing for what reasons you picked it in the first place?

Don't get me wrong, I can see the awesomeness of sharing something that (you think) nobody else has. But I'd much rather let All My Life set my gastrointestinal butterflies fluttering than listen to Evan & Jaron (for lack of better example), smug only because it makes the two of us separate from the mainstream world.

I've tried to replace a "song" once. It couldn't be done. In the end I hated the original "song" with a passion, but as the relationship disintegrated I suppose that's only expected.

I have a funny attachment to my "songs", which sometimes are unfortunate (Ne-yo) and most well-known. Apart from Dashboard Jez and I have a few others, some are crazily-common, but see, what we get out of listening to them is hella different from you.

It doesn't bother me how many couples in the world are rubbing their noses together to the same tune, just like it doesn't bother me how many couples can't live without calling each other every night, just like it doesn't bother me how many couples are looking forward to crawling under heated blankets in Winter like some Ronnie Day song that who knows how many couples have adopted. We have other ways to define us.