But I still Love him. I love him enough to forgive him for being a douche. I even almost love him enough to forgive him for dating Jessica Simpson (almost).
Ha! I totally got you thinking that this was going to be a rant about John Mayer, when it reality it's going to be about why I love him in spite of all his douchebaggery. Please keep reading though, because I'll still be critical, it's what I do best, after all.
I think that the reasons I love John Mayer can be listed as follows:
Ha! I totally got you thinking that this was going to be a rant about John Mayer, when it reality it's going to be about why I love him in spite of all his douchebaggery. Please keep reading though, because I'll still be critical, it's what I do best, after all.
I think that the reasons I love John Mayer can be listed as follows:
- He is an awesome guitarist. Seriously, the man can play! He is a great musician, and I admire that about him;
- He managed to trick a whole generation of women into believing that he was the type of man that you would love to take home to meet your mother (Your Body is a Wonderland. I rest my case). He then smashed this illusion forcefully and repeatedly by behaving like a complete douchebag at every opportunity. His indiscretions are almost too numerous to list. I admire his dedication to making himself out to be a 'nice' guy, and his equal dedication to taking this image, stamping on it, ripping it apart, and then setting it on fire;
- He writes some very pretty, but also some very fucked up song lyrics. He is literally a mass of contradictions. His lyrics appeal to me. I like listening to sad music sometimes. It makes me feel sad, which gives me an excuse to wallow and get all 'woe is me' on my self.
Back in the day I dated the Mayers of this world. I seemed to actively seek them out. They'd start out all boy next door, saying the sweetest (frankly, completely unrealistic) things imaginable, and then, once they had you, BAM! Douchebag central. Every time. And every time I would cry some, and then listen to John Mayer (Slow Dancing in a Burning Room is a hideous break up favourite). It was a vicious cycle.
I think that I've managed to break this cycle. I don't know when it happened, probably somewhere between being offered a laptop as a bribe for not revealing the sexual indiscretions of an incredibly nervous Irishman, and receiving a completely unsolicited sext (a hilarious story for another time).
I think The Writer helped as well. I was forced to tell him about my Dell bribe story at lunchtime once because it had been discussed amongst my friends, and then he arrived and asked what we were talking about. The Writer's reaction really hit me. He didn't laugh like everyone else, or crack a joke, or suggest a way to further torture Dell guy. He just looked at me with his soulful blue eyes and said 'I'm so sorry to hear that. I can't believe that somebody would do that to you. You don't deserve that at all.' I know that after he said that, the others continued to talk, but between him and I, you could have heard a pin drop. It was the first time that a guy had ever told me that I was worth more than whatever the latest arsehole had put me through. And I felt ashamed. I felt ashamed that I had almost actively sought out the guys that would make me cry for days on end, it was as if I could feel the rot of their inner landscape and felt compelled to fix it. I felt ashamed that I had not given nice guys a chance (I have a particularly poignant story about this very issue, and I'll tell it at a later point).
Getting back to the point, I think one of the main reasons I Love John Mayer is because I can see some of him in my former self. Because, as much as I like to bitch and criticise all of my awful ex-boyfriends or random hook ups, I was just as much of an arsehole as any of them, at the end of the day. I've said some truly horrible things to men in the past. I treated the King of Emotional Fuckwittery like a plaything, batted him about for my own amusement, discarded him, and then wondered why on earth he behaved like such a douche when we went out a second time around. I am capable of coming across all sweet and righteous and wonderful, and then changing my mind for no apparent reason, or talking down to men as if they're lesser beings than I. And that makes me just as much of a douche as John Mayer, because back then I couldn't sit still, I didn't know what I wanted, and I took this out on the men around me.
But I'm getting better. I think I know what it is that I want now. And it's not necessarily The Writer. I don't really want the drama that would go along with the two of us, the constant fighting, the craziness, the great BIG scary love. I want a great love, but I think I want it to be about more than just discord and intellectual stimulation. I want a cute, smart, funny boyfriend who makes me smile more than he makes me cry, I want a really great friend as well, and I don't want to fuck it up so much that I lose him. And I think that this is the first time I've actually realised this.
So, this post went from being a bit of cute fluff to being weirdly, uncomfortably deep. Kind of like a John Mayer Song I guess.
Likely to change my mind tomorrow,
B. J. Barnes
P. S. I'm SO sorry about this post. It is a random, self-serving piece of tripe. I'm at least happy that I was able to wrap it all nicely with my little 'this is kind of like a John Mayer song' comment. But it's still pretty goddamn awful, and for that I apologise.
P. S. I'm SO sorry about this post. It is a random, self-serving piece of tripe. I'm at least happy that I was able to wrap it all nicely with my little 'this is kind of like a John Mayer song' comment. But it's still pretty goddamn awful, and for that I apologise.
