The Cynic Route

Funny how certain songs in the soundtrack of your life seem to preserve your feelings and memories of a particular era. And when you hear the songs again after a long time, it’s as if those feelings and memories are unleashed again in between beats, notes and pauses. Last Sunday I rediscovered the song “Getting Away With It” by Electronic. The song is memorable to me not because it was a song I shared with someone significant, nor was it a special someone’s theme song (ick!) Instead, the song encapsulated for me my long-standing feelings regarding my so-called love life.

You see, for the longest time I feared I wasn’t good enough for someone. My love life consisted of unrequited longings, and after a series of having my heart pounded mercilessly by circumstance, I started imbibing the notion that maybe I would never hook up with anyone ever. That made me very wary of falling for anyone. I kept repeating, “hold on, my heart” to myself. So when I heard that song, I thought, oh wow.

I’ve been walking in the rain just to get wet on purpose.
I’ve been forcing myself not to forget just to feel worse.
I’ve been getting away with it all my life.

Okay, so I never did anything overtly dramatic as walking in the rain on purpose; I’m not into grand, drama-queen gestures and I hate getting sick. But I don’t need to force myself not to forget—my mind won’t let me. I replay things endlessly in my mind, asking tons of questions. What did he mean by, “You know Joel, I like you”? How did he say it? What made me fall for him in the first place? Why did he invite me to accompany him? Is it because he likes me? Or does it mean he like me that way? Yes, I can be very emotionally masochistic back then.

But it’s the song’s chorus that’s the killer:

However I look, it’s clear to see—
I love you more than you love me.

‘Nuff said.

I hate that mirror, it makes me feel so worthless.
I’m an original sinner but when I’m with you I couldn’t care less.
I’ve been getting away with it all my life.

Have you ever felt that tug-of-war between feeling inadequate and going for it? It can be infuriating, especially if you go for it and get rebuffed. Then you end up telling yourself, I told you so.

I thought I gave up falling in love a long, long time ago.
I guess I like it but I can’t tell you, you shouldn’t really know.
And it’s been true all my life.

Nowadays I’ve been trying to break out of that self-destructive mode. As another song says, be good to yourself ‘cuz no one else will. So I don’t think of myself as unworthy anymore; if anything, I’m tempted to think that no one’s worthy for me, mwhahaha! Talk about a 180-degree turn, eh? Seriously, I’m just shrugging off my past as, well, the past.

But still, I’m wary when it comes to the affairs of the heart. I may not have given up on love yet, but I’ve buried romance six feet under.