F***ed Up Friday: "Don't Leave Home" by Dido

Welcome to F***ed up Friday.  In this (soon to be) weekly segment, I shall be providing you with the music you need to handle whatever emotional crisis you may be facing.  Whether you’re single or in a relationship, this will be your guide to navigating the myriad songs bombarding you and help you find that perfect tune to fit your mood.

Our inaugural song on FUF goes to a likely regular, Dido.

Don't let the sweet smile food you.  She WILL cut you.

Now I must start by stating that I have never met Dido in person.  From my understanding, she is happily married and is, in fact, with child (I was originally going to use the word “impregnated” but I felt that that just sounds like the result of an alien abduction).  However, I have an irrational completely rational fear that one day, Dido is going to break into my apartment, cut me with a razor, and leave me bleeding on my hardwood floor (which will likely mean I don’t get my security deposit back should I survive said cutting).  How do I know this?  Because I listen to Dido’s music.

Our selection today is from Dido’s 2003 album “Life for Rent”:  “Don’t Leave Home.”

At first glance, this sounds like quite a romantic song.  After all, with lyrics such as “If you’re cold, I’ll keep you warm/If you’re low, just hold on/’Cause I will be your safety” in the chorus, this sounds more like the ideal first dance song than a song for FUF.  HA!  Let's take a closer look, shall we?

Verse the First:

Like a ghost don’t need a key

Your best friend I’ve come to be

Please don’t think of getting up for me

You don’t even need to speak

Ok, a little creepy, but nothing too crazy yet.  The whole “I’ll just come over whenever I want…shhhhh don’t say anything” smacks of some potential desperation and/or cray cray, but really, there’s worse out there.

When I’ve been here for just one day

You’ll already miss me if I go away

Getting creepy. . .Perhaps it’s time to start moving towards the door. . .wait…why is the door not opening?  Because. . .

So close the blinds and shut the door

You won’t need other friends anymore

Oh don’t leave home

Oh don’t leave home

WAIT WHAT?!  Did she just…how did we go from romantic if slightly cray cray Dido to full out Kathy-Bates-in-Misery?  We have officially entered stalkerville.  This isn’t healthy.  She’s literally telling her lover “I will cut you off from the rest of the world and you’ll like it.  And don’t even try to think of escaping.”  It’s only a hop skip and a jump from “Close the blinds and shut the door” to “I will cut you if you try to leave me.”

Note…I have an urge to remix this song, except right after the line “shut the door,” I want the sound of a lock turning.  You know, a nice ka-chunk.  Can anyone do that for me?

The Chorus:

If you’re cold, I’ll keep you warm

And if you’re low, just hold on

‘Cause I will be your safety

Oh don’t leave home

Not so romantic now is it?  No…it’s the words of a crazy person who’s locked you in her house and will cut you should you try to leave.

Verse the Second:

I arrived when you were weak

I’ll make you weaker like a child

Now all your love you give to me

When your heart is all I need

Oh don’t leave home

Oh don’t leave home

Wait…isn’t love supposed to make us stronger.  Lift us up where we belong, where eagles fly and all that jazz.  Not when you’re in a relationship with someone so crazy that she’s locked you in your house and has refused to let you have other friends.  And will cut you if you try to leave.

Then we go to the (crazy) chorus again and finally to the bridge, which cements that this relationship is bad news.

The Bridge:

Oh how quiet, quiet the world can be

When it’s just you and little me

Everything is clear and everything is new

So you won’t be leaving will you?

There’s not much more I can say except to just point to those words and then refer to the locked door and how she’s sucked all your strength out of you.  I like to imagine that last line is less a plea for her lover to stay and more one of those rhetorical questions she asks when she’s holding a knife.

The cover art for Dido's upcoming album

So what did we learn from this?  First, if you’re listening to this song and thinking “Hey that sounds like my significant other,” turn off your computer and flee.  Don’t take time to feed the cat.  Don’t bother packing a bag.  Just flee.  You don’t know if your SO has already changed the locks or if he or she is currently stocking up on razor blades.  You can buy new clothes.  But not if you’re locked up forever with a psychopath.

And if you’re thinking “Hey that sounds like the sorts of things I do and/or want to say to my significant other” or even worse “I’m single, but I would like to say that to somebody” then…well…yeah I think you may have some problems.  You need to get over the cray cray, let your significant other out of the house, and get a new hobby.  Like blogging.

Just remember this handy tip if you don’t have time to listen to Dido to decide if your relationship is romantic or just plain crazy:  It’s not romance if they’re chained to the bed and you threaten to cut them should they attempt to contact the outside world.

No matter what a tween tells you, vampirism does not make stalking sexy

Have suggestions for future FUF songs?  Let me know!

In Which Our Hero Gets Serious About Money

I may be dating myself a bit here, but my junior year in college, a craze unlike anything since the Macarena swept the nation and became one of the most important zeitgeists of the new millennium.  What is he talking about?  What could it possibly be?  I see you shiver with antici...




pation.

I am talking about Joe Millionaire.

Shhhh...don't speak...

The conceit was simple.  A bunch of eligible bachelorettes, many possessing vast tracts of land, would be whisked away to a mansion where they would attempt to win the heart of the hunky bachelor, who just happened to be well-endowed in his stock portfolio.  However, like all good reality tv shows, there was a nefarious twist.  Joe Millionaire was actually only pretending to be rich.  In reality, he was a poor poor member of the hoi polloi.  A common man.  A proletariat even.

As you can see, lying about your finances is an integral part of reality tv

Week after week, Joe would weed out the crazies and the gold diggers (not mutually exclusive, see, e.g., the above photo).  In the end, he picked his girl, Zara aka the Disney Princess, and revealed his secret.  She chose to stay with him.  However, like all reality show romances, they broke up later.  He went back into obscurity.  She went on to a very successful career as a spokeswoman for NutriSystem.  No, we're not making that last part up.

For me, aside from the hilarity of any sort of reality show (although this one sadly lacked in the "I will put you over this couch" moments), there was this very interesting subtext:  Which is more important, love or money.  In other words, would a woman stay with the man she loved despite the fact that he was a hobo?

But what Joe Millionaire failed to address was the fact that it's so difficult to extract love from money and money from love.  Any relationship needs to have a foundation of mutual attraction, respect, and trust, but without that fundamental sense of security, it's sometimes hard for a relationship to get off the ground.

Recently, a friend of mine broke up with his boyfriend of a few years.  What upset him the most wasn't that he had necessarily broken up, but that he had gotten into a relationship with someone who he didn't necessarily have as much sparkage with, but was, in the long run, able to provide a sense of stability and security.  He felt like a fraud.  He was supposed to be in a relationship for love and love only.  Eventually, the lack of sparkage began to take its toll.  They broke up.  And he felt lost, confused, and mostly angry at himself.

Isn't it funny that any story about couples and money can be illustrated by pictures of the Salahis?

I think it's high time we jettison this notion that love and money are polar opposites.  While I think we rightly lambaste anyone who enters into a relationship solely for money as a gold digger, how many people do we know are in relationships based solely on (sometimes misplaced affection) and we want to smack them and say "Jesus Christ on a Tricycle, why are you still with this person?  He/She/It is wrong for you for ALL these reasons" and they respond with "But I truly love him/her/it!"  Need I merely point to the previous post as an example of this?

Bella seriously.  He's 100 years older than you, he wants to kill you, and he won't even put out.

But money can be tough in any relationship.  How do you find that balance between security and dependence?  How to you extract yourself from a relationship if actual independence may not be an option?  And can you ever have a truly intimate relationship if money is always in play?  I'm not quite sure how to answer those questions.  But it's not wrong to think about them and seriously ask them of yourself.

Love is an integral part of relationships.  But so is security.  Finding the balance between the two is hard.  But relationships, in general, are hard.  The only thing we can do is try to find our way to balance the two as best we can, and be honest about what we need.  And if our relationships don't work out for any reason, then just brush yourself off, remind yourself that you're awesome, and throw yourself back into your life.  Because really, cats and kittens, if you're awesome enough to be reading this post, then you're awesome enough to have a kick ass life, whether single or in a relationship.

So tell me, gentle readers, what are your thoughts on this eternal debate?  How do you try to balance the two?  And is it wrong to sometimes put security over love, even if just for a little while?

In Which Our Hero Learns That Some People Are Just Dumb

Today, dear readers, I will present you with a tale of mirth and woe from my own attempts to find love and companionship in this modern era.  Hopefully, this story and the others that follow will help you on your own quest to find (or keep) love.  Or provide you with a healthy dose of schadenfreude.


This is the story of the DOC Moment.  The DOC Moment is that moment in any crush when you go from thinking "Love love love crush crush love love" to "Jesus Christ on a Tricycle What Did I Ever See in You?"  I was originally planning on titling this story "The DOC Moment:  A Parable," but I was informed that parables are made up.  This, I am saddened to say, is all too true.  Of course, I need not mention that I have changed the names to protect the innocent players.


Our story begins when our intrepid hero decided to go out to a local bar to attract a mate.

I believe the message here is "Don't Drop the Soap"

Now not all the stereotypes about gay bars are true.  For example, unlike what you may hear, the drinks are actually too strong too weak reasonably priced technically alcoholic and the bartenders are truly masters of the craft lifetime professionals shirtless.  Anyway, I'd never actually been to a gay bar before, but I put on my hottest pair of jeans, a rockin' shirt, and went on my merry way.  Anyway, all and all, the night was a success.  I had some drinks and chatted with a few guys.  And I met the central figure in this story...Super Cute Bartender.

There's not much to say about SCB.  Now I'll be honest, he was cute.  That's really all he had going for him.  And to this day I will maintain that he was just trying to get a better tip flirting with me.  But yes, he was nice, we chatted a bit, and I thought we hit it off.  So over the next couple months, I would go by the bar* and if he was there, we would continue to chat.  And I would think to myself "Hey, maybe there's something here."
*Technically, I was going to the bar to interact with people.  But let's not delude ourselves.  I would sometimes go just because SCB was working there.  This, cats and kittens, is called "desperation."  Or "stalking," depending on how nice you are being.  Don't do it.

Yes.  Looking back on it, I was probably deluding myself.  Anyway, so after a few weeks of said flirting/tipping, I decided to just cut the crap and tell SCB what I felt.  The following was my itinerary (I'm not making this up...I actually posted this publicly at one time)

Medication and nap so feeling good: Check
Homework done so nothing left to do tonight: Check
Look at my ass jeans: Check

Anyway, so it turned out SCB was dating someone else, he was flattered, blah blah blah.  That should have been the end of it, but nooooooooo.  I continued to talk/flirt/tip and do the entire amusing self-delusion thing when you're like "Well, maybe if I'm just awesome enough, they'll break up and start to date me."

Ok, before we continue, let me go on a little tangent here.  Said thoughts should never enter your head.  If they do, banish them immediately, using tequila if necessary.  You really don't want someone to break up to be with you.  It always ends badly for everybody.  And you never know if they got crabs from their previous SO.

Back to the story at hand.  I continued to harbor feelings for SCB.  For an ENTIRE YEAR.  Yes you read that right.  A year of one-sided unrequited love with someone with the personality of a garden hose.  Perhaps I was feeling masochistic.  Perhaps I was in love with the idea of being in love.  Or maybe I was just trying to delude myself into thinking there was something more than just free drinks (yes, I got a lot of free drinks...I tip well)

Charlotte York, eat your heart out

So anyway, our one-sided flirtation continued for quite some time.  It continued despite when asking a friend if there was something "there," he responded with "Do you mean between you two or between his ears?"  It continued despite many friends telling me his personality left something to be desired and I was way too smart and ambitious for him.  It continued despite being told I truly was spending way to much time pining over someone who wasn't interested in me.

I maintain it wasn't an all-consuming crush, but I'm sure there are others who would differ on this point (feel free to comment).  But this crush came to a crashing halt one summer day, when I brought along my intrepid friend Daisy to the bar with me "just to get a drink and totally not to merely flirt with the bartender" (she didn't buy it).  The conversation took place in August, 2008, or right around the time Obama was going to officially be nominated for President and we were introduced to The Mama Grizzly herself.

The conversation went something like this:

Me:  "So how are things going."

SCB:  "Blah blah blah nothing interesting going on here I don't have two brain cells to rub together."

What I heard:  "I am so cool.  Cool cool cool."

One of them has no soul and the other has the personality of an eggplant.  But which one is which?

Apparently, my brain functions on the same wavelength as Bella Swan, turning the most boring things into the most amazing things merely because the speaker's eyes smolder or something.  Although to be honest, SCB wasn't sneaking into my room to watch me sleep.  I hope.  Because that's not sexy.  That's just creepy.  And if someone tells me I'm their personal brand of heroin, I may cut them in preemptive self defense (which is legal in 48 states and Canada)*

*No it's not.  The above statement does not constitute true legal advice.

Me:  "So...are you going to be watching the Convention at all?"  (Recall the time period which I said was important.)

SCB:  "Yeah.  It's the what...the D.O.C.?"
Cricket...cricket

Me, under my breath:  "The DNC...Dumbass"

Now according to Daisy, the "under the breath" was rather loud and rather pointed (except for the "dumbass."  That I managed to somehow keep silent)  I finished my drink and decided it was time to go.  He really was that dumb.  He really was all the things my friends had told me.  And I had finally come to terms with the fact that I was in love with someone who didn't know the most important political event of the summer from a 40-year old rapper.  I would not play the Bella Swan to SCB's Edward, no matter how nice his abs were.  My brain couldn't take it.  My infatuation was over.

So if you or your friends are in an the midst of unrequited love, let this be a lesson to you.  Trying to talk them out of it will do as much good as telling preteens that Edward Cullen is not an ideal boyfriend.  Instead, support them and just patiently wait for the DOC moment.  It may take an entire year but it will come.  And then they'll move on.  And deny they were ever really infatuated in the first place.

In Which We Are Introduced To Our Intrepid Hero

Greetings readers and welcome to the greatest* blog you will ever read.  You may be saying to yourself, "Self, why am I reading this?"  Well perhaps you are one of my friends who I have roped into reading this.  Or someone has sent this to you.  I do hope you'll read on.

So this blog is basically my egotistical way of telling the world "I have a voice, and dammit, you're gonna listen!"  In the coming posts, we shall be covering any number of items, from music and movies and video games to current events to cultural education to anything I damn well feel like.  I hope to entertain you, enlighten you, and above all, give you something to talk about.  And if you leave here with a smile on your face and a little bit smarter, I have done my job.

This is me.  So now you know who you're listening to.

So on we go, gentle (or not so gentle) readers.

*And by greatest, we do not mean to denigrate any other completely awesome blogs, including but not limited to Hyperbole and a Half.