Breakup Song Lyrics and Un-Dating a Person I Was Never Really Dating in the First Place

I'm a huge fan of iHeartRadio because the playlists I start always end up playing music I like and then showing me new songs that I also really like but never knew about. I know, that's the whole point of the app, but it actually works! I was listening to my Miranda Lambert station and a song by Brantley Gilbert came on (pure country station...woot!). Now, I've heard his songs on the radio before, but usually just the fluff happy songs. Well, this was not one of those songs.

Thanks to my friend C (not naming names, although it's not like I'm complaining about her), I've been paying attention to song lyrics recently. The song that really got me was Brantley Gilbert's You Promised, which is one of the best(?) breakup songs I've heard in a long time. And in true obsessive fashion, I've been listening to it and his other sentimental songs nonstop on YouTube. Not only are the lyrics really touching, but I also love that it's practically acoustic--guitar and piano only. There's something about country singers stripping their songs and singing about very emotional subjects that just gets to me.

But then it hit me: I don't know why I identify with breakup songs so much. It's not like I go through breakups often. Instead, I came to the realization the other day that it's very hard to break up with someone who you're not dating but who you sometimes think you might want to date and do date-like things with on an occasional basis. Over the last few years, I've gone on a few dates here and there but nothing that was ever too serious. Hence, no real breakups. My typical M.O. is something like this:

1. Meet someone
2. Become friends with said person
3. Become really good friends with said person and do things that casual outsiders could consider dates, except that they're not
4. Wonder what it would be like to date said person
5. Decide it would be fun and a good idea to date said person while recognizing that I'm probably firmly in the friend zone because we've known each other for so long and did so many things together as just friends
6. Concoct endless plans to determine if said person is someone I should pursue anyway
7. Secretly "break up" with said person in my head after realizing that it'd be too awkward to use any of the plans from step #6
8. Go back to being just friends with said person and pretending steps #4-7 never happened.

So perhaps I do break up with people (see step #7), just not in an easily identifiable way that makes my love of country breakup songs justifiable. Until I get out of this odd cycle, I'll continue to break up with people I was never dating and who didn't know I was trying to find ways of asking them out in my head. And continue to listen to sentimental acoustic-y songs.

Now for the video that makes me happy: I stumbled across this post's video a few months back. I like looking at the foreign talent shows (the Idol, X Factor, and Voice series) to see what amazing people they discover in their audition rounds but about whom we probably will never hear in the US. Angel Tupai is one such person, from X Factor Australia. Jessie J sounds amazing on this song, but holy cow, Angel does wonders with it. Imagine being in that audience and having her come out and just sing so beautifully after what was probably a string of just average singers.