I don’t believe the following is what The Walkmen meant in “We’ve Been Had,” a song I’ve heard too many times yet it never tires and too many thoughts are constant with each listen. But as I listened this time, my mind narrowed in and hunkered down on a particular thought, a once lost and newly rediscovered memory about a silly moment in my life (the term “silly” is silly and I’m not a fan of its use, but it suits the conversation right now so bear with the silliness).
Things become silly the older I get and life tends to look silly from the outside looking in or from the present looking back.
Years ago, a boy I had a crush on asked me out and I said no. We were away at camp for the week and all the girls giggled and all the boys were boys and my boy-crush boy was so cute. Rumor was that he was going to ask me out while we were away at camp and I thought by next week I’d return to school and have a boyfriend and we’d be giddy and dumb together for however many weeks before one of us dumped the other and it’d be preadolescent bliss — but none of this happened. I was dreaming and in my own world of expectations. During camp, a friend of my boy-crush boy came up to me and asked if I wanted to go out with my boy-crush boy. I, without hesitation, said no because, in that moment, it was clear that my boy-crush boy didn’t have the courage and temerity to ask me out himself and my blissfully naive preadolescent dream world died in two seconds. Silly. Looking back, it’s not as if this boy was the love of my life, nor as if I imagined us growing old together, so I could have given it the puppy love month of dating that the kids do, which is also silly, but at least it’s fun. My expectations got in the way of stupid, silly fun.
With such expectations comes great disappointment. My mind plays tricks on me by hyping me up and letting me down. You could even call it delusion. But as an adult, I know better (sorta. I, like all, pick and choose when to know better). I know better than to create these dream worlds with high expectations because I’ve been down that road of disappointment before and have experienced the shattered expectations too many times to count. But as an adult, I can laugh. I can laugh because I’ve learned the lesson and have realized and figured out that that’s just life. That’s just life telling us hey, calm down. take a chill pill. let it go. don’t assume everything will go as planned. don’t assume it’s all about you because here’s a secret: nobody cares except you. you’re going to learn from this whether you wanted a lesson or not. so shut up. don’t be silly. but also be silly. laugh because it’s not that serious anyway. get over it. move on. After so many shattered expectations, all one can do is laugh in order to carry on without being disheartened by life.
As preadolescent 11-year-olds and as as adults, we’re told things that don’t turn out to be true. We plan things that don’t turn out as planned. We’re told the world is one way, but once we’re in it with older eyes, there’s contrast. We’ve been had. Looking back, it’s easier to shrug it off and laugh at the lies we were told and the lies we told ourselves because none of it seems as bad as it once did from that young perspective or that past perspective and because those shattered expectations came with life lessons and we all grow from them. Life is about perspective, no matter which one.
To end, the merry-go-round music in the song is a sound of innocence, a sound of youth, a sound associated with a time in one’s life to be young and dumb and have no regrets and no irritation over things that are no longer controllable nor ever were controllable. So, no boy-crush boy regrets. We’ve been had by our minds and by others and by time, but it’s all in the past and none of it matters anyway and it’s all silly and sometimes and I’m just happy I’m older.
Thank you for reading. I officially dislike the term silly now after saying it 13 times in 4 minutes. See you next week.