“Inventing Sparks, Inventing You”
This is the beginning of fabricating the idea of a person
If you’ve never heard of Tom Rosenthal’s music, I would suggest choosing your first few songs carefully. May I personally suggest Go Solo, or It’s O.K. I say that because his music can be quite quirky but underneath it, it is just him telling the story about life, society, relationships, and people.
Oh and perhaps a lizard too.
His music, if you listen closely, can easily resonate with something that has happened in your life.
His latest hit: You Will Marry The Wrong Person
Sounds a bit…pessimistic dare I say?
You Will Marry The Wrong Person is pessimistic on the surface but shrouded with realism
And one of the lyrics that stood out to me was in the second verse, regarding the trials and tribulations of single life and dating:
“Inventing Sparks, Inventing You”
The whole song in my opinion is speaking on what we’ve been lead to believe what love is, what it looks like, the conventional socialized ways and behaviors to be loved and chose love when in inevitably we don’t have a good idea of what the concept of love is, and if we ever figure that out, it just might be too late.
So when Tom gets to the second verse on dating life, which already struck a chord, the last line is what made me pause the song.
I’ve lived my life developing, curating, and intensifying crushes, some of which I never spoke to.
Every wave, every look, every non-verbal gesture, was a flutter in my heart.
If they sat next to me or even just acknowledged my existence, I would ride a wave of euphoria for the next week until something else came along.
I would create fantasies in my mind based on signs that I wanted to think were about me and for me. I would stare out the window replaying scenarios of mundane conversations we would exchange. And that would only deepen my idea of them.
That would only invent sparks and without fail, invent them.
I wanted a distraction so badly. But like anyone else, I wanted to be loved. I wanted to believe that they liked me back. And I wanted the version I invented of them and the sparks that would make my heart flutter every time I saw them.
Hearing those words out loud made me realize how unconsciously I have been doing this, even as recently as several months ago. And while it is all fun to flirt or play a cat and mouse, to invent the idea of someone who might not feel the same way? That’s not fair to them. And over time, I have realized that.
The first time I was disillusioned was with Joey
It was 2015. Freshman year of college and he was the boy next door (well downstairs).
I was afraid, legitimately afraid, I would not get over this man. That I fell too deep in my own mystical demise.
And so when I woke up and quite literally overnight, his spark was gone, and Joey was just Joey, I was in utter shock.
I failed to recognize the toxicity of curating these crushes would be such a bearing weight in my mind that the idea of one finally being let go was so
freeing.
I felt buoyant. I could see the sky above me, because for so long I was okay with drowning in my own thoughts and inventions, like a weighted blanket to comfort me from worse stressors in my life.
I lost my ways for a while, but Tom’s song brought me back.
The first trial has already begun,
and so far no sparks have been invented. If I feel them it is because they are genuinely there.
I can tell you that this won’t be easy for me. I will slip from time to time. After nearly 100 crushes in my life, unlearning does not happen overnight.
But the one right now, *Freddy? He deserves a chance, a real chance, like all the other ones after him. And not be liked from the rose-colored glasses I put on or the longing to be held.
At least that’s what I think Tom was getting at when he wrote that.
Give You Will Marry The Wrong Person a listen and tell me what you think
