This past weekend, Girl World™ collectively lost their minds over Taylor and Travis’ display of mutual affection at her concert in Argentina. Personally, I posted 3-5 Instagram stories expressing my unfiltered, probably somewhat sloppy joy, which was fueled by vodka and McDonald’s.
In said stories, I wondered out loud:
“Guys, why do I care so much? I’m a 36-year-old grown ass, mother fucking woman. Like, it is embarrassing. I am so embarrassed for myself that I am losing my shit over this.”
But after having a day or so to reflect on the “why,” I think I’ve come to a conclusion.
It’s because
LOVE SHOULD BE LOUD.
As someone who was single and dating for a solid 10 years, I know as well as anyone how terrible it can be to watch love unfold. Not just any love, but real, true, unadulterated love. Not petty, stupid love that often disguises itself as lust and tricks you thinking it’s more — fuck that love. I’m talking about The One sort of love that we all hope to experience just once in our lifetime and simultaneously pine for yet mock as a defense mechanism until we get it.
It’s no accident that so many of us feel “close” to Taylor — she designed it that way. She made a decision years ago to be the voice of this generation’s Girl World™ by sharing her life lessons on love and all else via her songwriting and music, and we’ve been happily turning the pages on her story all these years. Even women like me who are late-to-the-game Swifties (I didn’t love her until 1989 and even then wasn’t obsessed with her until “Delicate,” but the Lover album did me in for good) can appreciate the journey she’s been sharing with us for nearly 20 years. She is every boy-crazy girl with hopeless romantic tendencies, working her shit out one song at a time.
From the amount of DMs I received in response to my Traylor stories this weekend, I know for certain I’m not alone in feeling both humiliated that I care so much and enthralled by this parasocial love story we’ve all taken on as though she’s our best friend who’s finally found the real thing. And it’s because if you’ve ever been there, you know exactly how she’s feeling right now.
I can only speak from my personal experience so bear with me while I create a false parallel universe in which I can at all relate to Taylor, but from what we’ve seen and deciphered from her life and music, I get it.
When you’re not one of the “lucky ones” who finds their person very early on in the process and you’re banished to life of perpetual dating disappointment for what feels like eternity, this kind of loud love seems forever and a day away. It feels impossible, like it’s all a farce and everyone’s lying and faking it and love can’t ever really be like that or feel that good.
And then it happens to you, and you’re like
Holy shit. I get it now.
The decade I spent looking for Zac was filled with tears, desperation, hopelessness, anger, and fear. I dated all the wrong guys, sometimes realizing it in the moment but mostly relying on hindsight to reveal the truth to me down the line. I was tolerated by men I gave my all to (thusly why “Tolerate It” still makes me cry every time I hear it), ignored, laughed at, lied to, gaslit, treated like shit, and misunderstood over and over again. I convinced myself this was good enough, right enough, and that the hope for anything more was delusional of me. This was fine and hoping for anything more was foolish.
Until I met Zac.
Around four months in and about a week before we whispered our first “I love yous,” I was overcome with whatever this new-to-me feeling was (and probably listening to a lot of Taylor) (actually, definitely listening to a lot of Taylor. Folklore came out in 2020 and will always be the soundtrack to me meeting Zac) and wrote this in my phone to show Zac some day:
And now I know how
it feels to be seen fully.
With you, all is clear.
I had never experienced such clarity in a relationship before. I knew how I felt about him, how he felt about me. I knew he was crazy about me and wanted to be with me above all else. I felt celebrated, seen, and understood in a way I hadn’t with anyone else.
And I wasn’t the only one who saw it within me. I’ll never forget the text my mom sent me one night after we had been at their house having dinner:
And that is what I believe is happening with Traylor and why we are losing our minds over it. Because that feeing — the feeling of finally being seen and celebrated for all you are — is unlike anything else. There are no false pretenses, no playing it cool or coy. There’s no putting on airs or questioning where you stand. The whole “if he wanted to, he would” comes to life and you’re experiencing it in full and floating.
You aren’t wondering why he’s not into PDA or why he acts one way in public and another way in private. You don’t question if he likes you or how much because he wears it on his sleeve and shows you every day. He flies across the country to spend 20 minutes with you (Becks and Posh) or see you perform in a foreign stadium (Traylor). You don’t read and re-read his texts looking for a secret message or ulterior motive because he has nothing to hide — he is in it and he’s loud about it.
Because love should be loud.
If you’ll humor me for a second and not question why I stand so strongly in this conviction… It’s true what my mom said this weekend (if you caught her thoughts on my IG stories). For so long, Taylor seemed to date a lot of soft British men (boys) who didn’t really “get” her or understand her. But she put them on a pedestal anyway. She was with Joe for six fucking years and you would barely know it by how much they hid. And look, not there’s anything wrong with that if that’s how you are as a person. But Taylor is so obviously NOT that person — she isn’t exactly private, or at least not wholly. She’s a superstar who wants to be the greatest there ever was, and wouldn’t you know that a one Mr. Kelce sees that and loves it and encourages it?
This may not be it for her, but it sure seems like it. And if not, it’s an enormous step in the right direction for being with someone who is taken by you in all the right ways. Taylor’s mountaintop is her stage, and she shouted from it Saturday night for all the world to hear
“KARMA IS THE GUY ON THE CHIEFS, COMING STRAIGHT HOME TO ME”
And if Travis’ shit-eating, ear-to-ear grin told us anything, it’s that you are in love. True love.
Thank you for indulging my insanity and for subscribing to this letter that I cherish so much. Please consider sharing this letter if it spoke to you!
Until later this week…
— EGM