"Our Song" vs. "My Song"

I have a guy friend, and if you know him, you know that The Goo Goo Dolls' Iris is his favourite song. It doesn't stem from a big romance; his brother gave him Big Shiny Tunes 3 when he was 10, and from what he said, it was "love at first sound". I understand this, as Iris is a fantastic song. The weird thing is, every girlfriend he's ever had has tried to transition it from "his song" to "their song". From high school, girls have written the various lyrics on their notebooks, in their MSN screen names and Facebook statuses. Two of his exes even had a little catfight over the whole thing, a "excuse me that was our song can you please not have it in your screen name kthanks" kind of thing. At first, I thought it was kind of tacky, him recycling this song for all of these girls, so one day, I asked him why he thought this was always happening.

He told me something that was kind of sweet: "All of my girlfriends have thought that Iris came on during some special intimate moment between us, but in reality for me the song creates intimate moments. If it comes on in the car, all of a sudden you're not just driving home from the movies, you're driving in the prettiest night ever and the moon is suddenly bright and gorgeous. If you happen to be sitting in a restaurant, the song makes the room seem smaller and it feels like everything else has fallen away. Hell, if you're grocery shopping and it comes on, it's a big cheesy ballad to sing to each other into carrots. I'm not going to pin one song to one moment, if the song has the capability to draw me back to something special in every relationship I've had. I'm not going to give that up, because one particular moment has ended."

I, as an overanalyzer and general lover of music, can relate to this. There have definitely been times when a song has come on and imprinted itself on to a special moment, but there are just some songs that inspire you to make things happen for yourself. For instance, Bright Eyes' The First Day of My Life. I feel like that song could make digging a grave romantic.

What do you think? Do you have a song that keeps coming up during romantic moments? Would you "give up" a song that you loved cause it was one of your and your ex-SO's "songs"? Do you have your own song?

FWB: A Response

I just read a post called "Friends With Benefits" and it really made me think of the way that we see sex in today's society.

To be completely honest, I like the idea of having a friend with benefits, as long as both of you know what you want and understand what's going on. For instance, I have a friend that I hook up with at parties. The rules are: only when we're drunk, and only to third base. Other than that, we're just friends. We both know that we have chemistry, but no compatibility. Outside of our hooking up, he's not my type, I'm not his. We have come to this understanding, and it makes for a good relationship.

Is this immoral? Sure, if you're only subscribing to a Christian/religious set of beliefs. Or even if you're convinced that monogamy and commitment is the only way to be. But we're not. So what should we do, start dating?

But really, romance isn't everything, and neither is dating. The fact is that sometimes you get horny. And the fact that teenagers date at all is just a way to turn those horny feelings into sexual satisfaction. If you think of it from a Christian perspective, dating is something you do until you find someone you're going to marry. So, what's the point of dating when you don't have an education, and you can't support yourself financially, and you're basically just not ready to get married? I mean, if you're not going to have sex with a person, why not just be their friend until you're ready for commitment?

It's so you can kiss the person, and touch them as much as you feel that Jesus is okay with, and then masturbate to it later. Bam. Sexual satisfaction.

This is how people are. Even non-religious people. You date, you go to prom, you screw. Which I think is a tragedy.

I think that sex, and sexual acts shouldn't be so closely tied with love. Both of these things are essential to most humans, but love is a deep need, and sex is an urgent one. It doesn't make sense that you have to 'fall in love' with everyone you fool around with. Then it stops becoming something we do for pleasure, and starts becoming a bargaining tool, something to affirm your self-worth, a contract, or something to scare people with. Imagine if it was customary to prepare a four course meal from scratch every time you ate. Every single time, you had to grind your own flour, churn your own butter and cook it all up in a wood-fire stove. For toast. That's what love is like, it's a process, a long one, that can have wonderful, beautiful, delicious results. But you have to have all the right ingredients, enough time, and the patience to do it right. Otherwise you end up with four hours of your time wasted, and nothing to show for it. Sex, though, is the food itself. Its something we need, and sometimes it has to be accesible for when you need it.

(And here, I will take a short break to discuss my feelings on relationships: Date! Get married! Do it all, monogamy and commitment can be awesome! But only if your first and single motivation for this monogamy is because you are in love with the person, or you genuinely want to be. Don't be sneaky, don't trick someone into being in a relationship because you want to have sex with them. I think people who have sex with people that they're in a commited relationship but not in love are just sad. Wait for love, but not for sex.)

You know what you should save for the person you marry? Your heart, and your commitment and your love. Not your junk. That's not romantic at all.